Market, market, market, selling, selling, selling. Here in Ximending, one of the things that stand out to me, are the fact that the majority of the places are shops. Everything is a shop, there’s markets everywhere—everyone’s selling something. There’s always a constant buzz of something going on in the air. One of the things that I’ve discovered other than hotpot here in Ximending in Taiwan are night markets. I want to take you on the journey of going through a night market.
I haven’t written in a few days because I’ve really been enjoying walking out late at night. A lot of these places are open on the streets, a lot of vendors are out selling their stuff and having hotpot because some of these places, they don’t close until two in the morning. Then some of them, they might not open until five or six in the evening to give you a little bit of a break because they have, three different schedules. There’s an early morning crowd of shops that open, then there’s a mid-afternoon type of shop that opens, and then there are the late night shops. So the morning shops, some of those open three, four a.m. in the morning, and they close by like noon. Then there’s the mid-afternoon shops that some of them open around eight, nine o’clock in the morning. Most of them at ten, I’ve realized, and then they’ll close somewhere around four or six or even eight.
There is also another type of shop, some of those shops are the late night shops, I call them. They are open around five sometimes in the evening, and they close sometimes 2 a.m., 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. I’ve seen some of them open at 5 p.m. and close at 5 a.m. depending on the specific street or area that you’re in. Here in Ximen, right in the heart of the Ximending district, a lot of the shops are actually even open 24 hours. There’s a constant hub or buzz of tourists constantly surrounding these places, so they do have a steady foot traffic of people to keep them open and to justify them staying open, to be honest. But back to the night markets, I want to take you on a journey of the night markets.
Night markets are a special, different brand and breed of interacting with the community here in Taiwan. So the night markets are a group or a collection of stalls or people that come together in an area, and they’ll be selling. There’s a lot of them around Taiwan. There’s a Raohe, Shilin, and here in Ximen, the Ximending walking street is sort of a night market, but it does close a little bit later. A lot of the times I would say that it’s only really only happening on the weekends. The regular stores are there obviously, but it wasn’t until last night that I really saw the people really have a lot of vendors versus just a lot of people walking on the streets.
A night market—it’s a unique experience that it’s not exactly the same as a flea market, but it’s pretty close in that regard. If you’ve been to a flea market in New York, a lot of the places are just stalls manned by regular people that are selling foods, trinkets, clothing, lots of different things. It’s a market. Anything you could think of to buy or anything I think that people would purchase at a market, you’ll find it here in this kind of night market. But the shining glory to the night market that most people are going for are the different types of foods that they have there. I went to a night market and got fresh coconut.
A lot of night markets are located around subway stations or the metro here, so you don’t have to really travel too far or walk too far or put yourself out of your way to get to these night markets. Some of them, I’ve been told, are out of the way. My friend who is helping me around and showing me a lot of these places, he told me and showed me on the map where a few of them are located. Most of them are well within walking distance of a subway station, or even called after one of the subway stations that they’re close to. So
The experience of a night market—what can I say about it? When you’re in the night market, one of the first things that you notice is that everyone is wearing a mask. A lot of people are wearing masks because we’re in such close contact and in such close quarters with each other. It seems like here in Taiwan, wearing a mask is one of the things that you can do to show respect, to show courtesy to other people so that you can keep your germs to yourself. It’s a very interesting society in that it’s a lot about the decorum, order, peace, and being more of a participant in society. So you’re doing your part to make sure that everyone is able to live a good life.
You stand to the right on the escalators so that if people want to walk up the escalators, they can walk to the left. On the subway, in the metro, you stand in a certain line where you open up the middle of the doors or where the middle of the doors are for people that are exiting the train to exit efficiently. And then you enter from the sides. It’s pretty good. There are markings everywhere at the metro for you to see this, by the way. But it’s a very courteous society and very courteous place.
There’s always all these markets. I did so much walking around the neighborhood in Ximen, but I really didn’t take as many pictures or really have as many things because I also wanted to take some time out for work. I got to know the neighborhoods, got to see and experience some of the bars that are also in the neighborhood because this is a very touristy place.
I saw the Bilbao Historical Site. As you’re walking again, all of these places, there’s always these markets, always people selling things. So you can get these fresh fruits and vegetables all the time around all the different areas. At the temples, what they do is they’ll give food for not sacrifice, but when you’re giving food is like an offering. So a lot of the temples, you’ll see like a little platter out in front, and it’ll be for the fresh fruits and vegetables that you were just walking by offered up on the platter as an offering to the gods, I think—but I digress. The way that it is here in Taiwan, it’s pretty interesting to see just some of the ways that people are because in New York, I don’t think you could really see some of that kind of stuff. A lot of people are just like running up the stairs.
They’re not going to patiently wait in the line or in the space that’s allotted for them. But it also helps that here for the train and the metro, you’re not pushing anybody into anything because there’s gates, there’s like a door that stops you from going in or over the platform edge. We might need that in New York because it’s very safe, obviously. You’re not going to roll over or push yourself into the place where the train is because there’s a barrier stopping. And it’s very technologically advanced because both of them open simultaneously. So when the train stops, obviously it stops exactly where it needs to, and it doesn’t open if there’s no train there. When the train comes, it opens at the same time so you can enter and exit. And then when it’s leaving, it closes at the same time so you can enter and exit. So it’s a really cool, safe way to take the train, and it makes me feel nice.
I think that the subway here is a lot different because here in the metro, there’s no eating, there’s no drinking. You really don’t even have food on there. If you bring food down there, you might be looked at. I’ve seen somebody bring food, I’ve been told you’re not supposed to bring food at all. So say if you’re rushing to work, maybe that would be an excuse. But most people do not bring food down on the subway.
It’s not a thing to put or bring food on the metro because it’s a sign of disrespect because you’re not keeping the system as they meant it to be clean. Life here in Taiwan, pretty interesting—very interesting.
-Tall Black Nomad