My Guided Tour Through Old Taipei

Over the past ten years many travelers from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Japan have been coming to Taipei to visit friends, take vacations, attend conferences, or serve on official visiting delegations, and I have often found myself performing the duties of the host and showing them around Taipei.

What do I show them? Oh, how big Taipei is, and yet how small Taipei is! It seems that there is so much to see, but also not much really worth seeing.

Since these foreign visitors have arrived in Taiwan, most will have already seen major tourist attractions, such as the National Palace Museum, Lungshan Temple, and Eslite Bookstore. And they've probably been to famous restaurants like Ting Tai Feng and teahouses like Wisteria. They may even have been to some of the more famous night markets, such as those in Shihlin, Tunghua Street, and Jaoho Street or have consulted guidebooks for directions to Tihua Street, Kueite Street, and Huahsi Street, all renowned tourist spots. Business travelers are often on tight schedules, with only a few hours here or there to play the role of tourist-half a morning, say, or half an afternoon. Over time, I have developed some tours based on simple attractions-snacks, old streets, and old books.

Follow in the footsteps, why don't you, of a tour that I give to a hypothetical visitor: My visitor, let's say, has an appointment scheduled for 10:00 a.m., so we make a date for 7:00 a.m. I ask him what he wants to see, and he replies: "Whatever, just some old Taipei neighborhoods." How easy the request may sound at first, but when you suddenly have to figure out exactly what qualifies in Taipei, it's hard to decide.

To spare you a long-winded explanation, after I pick up my guest, we stop at Chang Hsiao-fa's Chinese bakery at No. 2, Ningpo East Road (near Roosevelt Road) for breakfast. This store's specialty is xiekehuang, which are sesame buns baked in a coal oven, and a rarity in Taipei. These buns, filled with lard and minced scallions, are a lot like huangqiao shao bing (a kind of baked roll). The bakery also sells diamond-shaped rolls, also baked in a coal oven, which you can stuff with youtiao (Chinese twisted cruller).

After eating, we make a right turn onto Chinhua Street and walk east before turning again on Lane 30. There, directly in front of us, lies a triangular area bounded by Lane 30, Chinhua Street; Lane 3, Chaochou Street; and Alley 4, Lane 3, Chaochou Street. This triangle is full of Japanese-style houses surrounded by red-brick walls. The red brick serves to set the buildings in this area apart from the architecture around it, which is from later eras. We walk through this triangle and then take Lane 3, Chaochou Street south to Alley 119, Section 1 of Roosevelt Road. Although 1 Chaochou Street is now a parking lot, the garden wall from when it was a residence for high officials still stands, as do the trees inside. Heading east, we come to Hangchou South Road. Turning left and walking north, we get to a noodle shop at the corner of Alley 59. We sit down and have a bowl of wonton soup (on the assumption that Chang Hsiao-fa's soymilk or soup didn't fill us up). But make no mistake: we eat again, but we eat only a little. There are so few of these simple eateries left, and this shop's wonton dumplings are so excellent that it would be a shame not to sit down and try them.

After eating, we get back on Hangchou South Street and head south. Alley 61 and Alley 65 have Japanese-style houses, but they are slowly vanishing. Twenty years ago, this area was used as the backdrop for films. More recently, however, every year one or two of the old houses has collapsed or been torn down. The area no longer shows up in films, but it's still a pleasant place to stroll and chat. Where there are old trees (house No. 63 was torn down last year, but a big tree still stands in the yard) or paper-cutout decorations on the windows, it raises both our eyes and our spirits.

Continuing south, we arrive at Chaochou Street. At No. 2, Alley 60, we find an old publishing house-World Culture Publishing-secreted in these back streets. Outsiders are often very surprised to find a publishing house here. One reason for coming is to procure Chen Ting-shan's Chunshen Jiuwen, an old book that is about to go out of print and that is unavailable anywhere else. Written 50 years ago, it describes life in old Shanghai, and generally visitors from Shanghai are pleasantly surprised by this stop.

Following Chaochou Street east, we turn south at Chinshan South Road, and keep going until we reach Lane 230 and Lane 215. These parallel streets have many old Japanese houses, but alarmingly some of them have been torn down in recent weeks. We take Lane 203 east to Lishui Street, and then take Lane 215 back to Chinshan South Road.

The entire route of this tour so far has covered only about one kilometer, which is easy for someone on foot. As for its culinary appeal, it passes several excellent eateries. Apart from the two mentioned above, within a short walk are the Liao Family Beef Noodle Soup, Lin Family Beef Noodle Soup, Central China Steamed Buns, and Liu Family Fried "Straw Hat" Noodles. It is a convenient place to take visitors, and as far as the atmosphere goes, it is even more serene than the area with the old Japanese houses around Yungkang Street, Lienyun Street and Linyi Street.

Some people may be put off by the dilapidated houses, but let me quote the Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei: "Having often been moved to come here myself, I alone know its excellence." And so I sometimes take guests here who are visiting from afar. This essay, however, is focusing by necessity on the routes themselves. When it comes to the scenery, the buildings, the people who have lived in them, their history and other related details, I simply don't have the space to go into all that here.

What is it about Japanese houses? you might ask. It is that they remind me of quiet days gone by in Taipei's back streets. Japanese houses, postwar tiled-roof houses, Southern Fujianese-style houses from the end of the Qing dynasty with red roof tiles and red bricks-in the end these are but clouds and smoke, floating past our eyes, here today and gone tomorrow.

Or one might ask: Why have you chosen Southern Taipei? It's for no other reason than it is close to my home, and I am lazy. Walking through the mixed-up jumble of Taipei's streets, I sometimes find myself walking down a lane that's new to me. There have been times on such strolls when I've beheld a tree swaying in the warm breeze of a summer afternoon, its branches extending out above a wall at just the right angle to stir memories of my childhood. I become gripped by the sudden sensation that I've gone back in time 40 years and that this is a tree next to my old home. I feel as if I could see my childhood friends if I looked for them, but lacking the heart to try, I turn away.

You have a house and lose a house. The human world is constantly in a state of flux, and there is no need to thrash about and struggle. This is even more the case on Taipei's streets. It is all very well to take a walk, but do not search for something or long for someone. There's no point in sighing over fate having brought people together or torn them apart. For tours of this length (from about half an hour to two hours) in Taipei, I can only come up with 20-30 routes, including ones focusing on Chingtien Street and Hoping East Road, Section 1, Alley 183; or around Hoping East Road, Section 2, Alley 90 (where they have recently torn down that building that was originally a National Taiwan Normal University dormitory) and Juian Street and its environs (such as Chen Ta-ching's house at Alley 264, which has also been torn down); or the area around Hsiamen Street, Kuling Street, Tungan Street, and Chinchiang Street, where there are still several low red-tiled traditional Southern Fujianese-style buildings, three-century-old banyan trees, and some old book stalls.

Some say why not list them all, make more precise descriptions, take photographs, sketch out maps of the routes, and compile them as a book? But I'm not so inclined. Why not? It's not that I want to keep it to myself. In fact, though Taipei is called a great metropolis, it falls far short of true greatness. These routes are fine for occasionally strolling around with a visitor, but if I wrote them up and put them into a book, then Taipei residents would approach the tours with high expectations and end up disappointed. As far as their being ugly, well, as Confucius once said about something, "what's so ugly about it?" Fifty years ago, I was born in this place, and in the intervening years, it has gone through many changes. Even if it is ugly in its present state, how can I not treasure it? And how can I treasure it, if not by walking through it quietly, softly, and without any ulterior motives? All said, that's probably the best thing to do.

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First eat breakfast to get ready for the walk. Xiekehuang (sesame buns baked in a coal oven) at Chang Hsiao-fa's Chinese bakery is the best way to start. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

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This old house on Lane 47 of Chifeng Street has a big bush out front. (Photo by Lin Meng-shan)

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Under the banyan tree outside the tall wall of the power substation between Taiyuan Road and Wuyuan Road was once a great spot for used book stands. (photo by Lin Meng-shan)

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Steaming hot fried shredded pork and vegetables poured over cooked noodles. This specialty of Liu Family Fried "Straw Hat" Noodles has a mouthwatering aroma. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

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The steamed pork bun at Central China Steamed Buns is as famous as the shop's steamed bun. A big ingot-shaped bun only costs NT$13. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

Steaming hot fried shredded pork and vegetables poured over cooked noodles. This specialty of Liu Family Fried "Straw Hat" Noodles has a mouthwatering aroma.

The steamed pork bun at Central China Steamed Buns is as famous as the shop's steamed bun. A big ingot-shaped bun only costs NT$13.