Friday was "hunting for hipsters" day. We’d both read that the hipster area of Taipei was Zhongxiao Dunhua so Daisy and I took the subway over. Turns out, as suspected, there are no hipsters in that area, at least not like the ones we have in the U.S.. Uniqlo loomed on one side of the street, along with other major shopping chains, and on the other side, laid out in a grid of streets, were various smaller stores. That was the hipster area, but the storefronts were also peppered with brands like Nike, Burton, and other familiar names. No hipsters to be found, even if the people shopping here were definitely different in their style and dress.
From what I could gather, anything slightly non-mainstream was dubbed “hipster,” even if that divorces the term from anything it might stand for in America. Does irony even exist here? Anyway, anyone who would call Zhongxiao Dunhua “hipster” has clearly never been to New York or San Francisco. We took in a little corner of shops collectively owned by Very Very Good, VVG, which included shops dedicated to curios like odl books, old trinkets, and fabric store.
Early on, one of my main interests about Taipei was figuring out where the sub-cultures were. Where were the artists? Where do the teens hang out? Are there hipsters? Where is the gay population? (“My gym,” my friend deadpanned.) And why are there seemingly no homeless people anywhere?
After chowing down on some snacks, including a quite delicious honeycomb ice cream, Daisy and I parted ways. I had dinner back at grandpa’s house, with everyone from my mom’s side of the family.
The day I landed, I had popped over to the house and was surprised to meet my mom’s older sister. While we had briefly met once before, many years ago in Hong Kong, this aunt was someone I didn’t know at all. When the Communists took over China, a lot of families were torn apart and my mom’s was no exception. She had older two sisters who fled to Hong Kong and then stayed there. We didn’t learn this fact until much later, so we always thought my mom came from a family of five kids, as opposed to seven.
Her younger brother, my uncle, was also visiting Taiwan from San Diego, so he was there too, along with my oldest uncle and aunt and cousin from that side of the family. My grandpa is ninety-eight years old, and didn’t remember me at all, even after we wrote my name down and tried to show him.
Post-dinner, I took a ride to the Xinyi District to meet my friend Roland, who was the main motivating factor for my move to Taiwan. I had forgotten that Roland was even in Taiwan until I got a Facebook message from him when I was here a month ago. Turned out, Roland had been here for three years, working for his family and also taking Mandarin classes. After our night or two of hanging out, and me grilling him about his program, I was all in.
The entire Xinyi area was thick with shoppers, similar to lower Midtown Manhattan. This Friday was the first big shopping day of the season at the department stores. If you spent enough, you got gift certificates to spend more later. Roland’s girlfriend was shopping for pots and pans and we followed her around as I took in the consumer frenzy.
From what I could gather, anything slightly non-mainstream was dubbed “hipster,” even if that divorces the term from anything it might stand for in America. Does irony even exist here? Anyway, anyone who would call Zhongxiao Dunhua “hipster” has clearly never been to New York or San Francisco. We took in a little corner of shops collectively owned by Very Very Good, VVG, which included shops dedicated to curios like odl books, old trinkets, and fabric store.
Early on, one of my main interests about Taipei was figuring out where the sub-cultures were. Where were the artists? Where do the teens hang out? Are there hipsters? Where is the gay population? (“My gym,” my friend deadpanned.) And why are there seemingly no homeless people anywhere?
After chowing down on some snacks, including a quite delicious honeycomb ice cream, Daisy and I parted ways. I had dinner back at grandpa’s house, with everyone from my mom’s side of the family.
The day I landed, I had popped over to the house and was surprised to meet my mom’s older sister. While we had briefly met once before, many years ago in Hong Kong, this aunt was someone I didn’t know at all. When the Communists took over China, a lot of families were torn apart and my mom’s was no exception. She had older two sisters who fled to Hong Kong and then stayed there. We didn’t learn this fact until much later, so we always thought my mom came from a family of five kids, as opposed to seven.
Her younger brother, my uncle, was also visiting Taiwan from San Diego, so he was there too, along with my oldest uncle and aunt and cousin from that side of the family. My grandpa is ninety-eight years old, and didn’t remember me at all, even after we wrote my name down and tried to show him.
Post-dinner, I took a ride to the Xinyi District to meet my friend Roland, who was the main motivating factor for my move to Taiwan. I had forgotten that Roland was even in Taiwan until I got a Facebook message from him when I was here a month ago. Turned out, Roland had been here for three years, working for his family and also taking Mandarin classes. After our night or two of hanging out, and me grilling him about his program, I was all in.
The entire Xinyi area was thick with shoppers, similar to lower Midtown Manhattan. This Friday was the first big shopping day of the season at the department stores. If you spent enough, you got gift certificates to spend more later. Roland’s girlfriend was shopping for pots and pans and we followed her around as I took in the consumer frenzy.