Shanghai has more than half a dozen free-distribution English-language entertainment magazines. Tokyo has a handful. Most of Taiwan's major cities, in fact, have their own guides to what's going on around town: Taichung has Compass, Tainan has Rickshaw, and Kaohsiung is home to New Views of Southern Taiwan.
But until eight days ago, when the first issue of a new magazine called Fink first appeared in small stacks inside a bunch of Taipei pubs and restaurants, the capital city had none. And as if the Taipei readership was owed some debt on which it is now ready to receive interest, the city will see the debut of its second free entertainment monthly, Taiwan Fun, tomorrow. Both publications are run by foreigners.
Focusing on nightlife and the downtown expatriate crowd, bilingual Fink is 24 pages of glossy color print. It was printed in an initial run of 10,000 issues. Though there are no listings, its content is basically styled in the tradition of earlier short-lived photocopied city rags like the now defunct Taipei Stalker.
"There's nothing [in Taipei] for foreigners that actually says something about the local scene," said Giles Heasman, Fink's business manager.
Heasman, a British six-year resident of Taipei, is part of a three-person team that serves as the magazine's core. The others are his wife, the designer Monique Lee, and editor Alita Rickards, a Canadian who once failed as a writer in Prague. Several unpaid freelancers and advisers round out the staff.
Taiwan Fun, which will premier with 76 color pages and is also bilingual, comes from the makers of Taichung's Compass, who will adapt their formula to the Taipei metropolitan market. Also a monthly, the magazine's major content areas include listings, restaurants, pubs, music, film, fashion and a "What's New" section that introduces newly opened stores, eateries and hangouts.
"We came to Taipei because we consistently got demand from restaurants and businesses to come here," said Douglas Habecker, the founder and co-publisher of the magazine.
Compass prints 14,500 issues each month in Taichung, and Taiwan Fun's first run will be 10,000, as the publishers believe it will take time to build a name in Taiwan's biggest city.
Habecker started the magazine eight years ago as a four-page newsletter for the American Chamber of Commerce in Taichung. Three years ago he broke formal ties with the group and went independent. A year later he was joined by Donovan Smith. The duo describe what's happened since they joined forces as "explosive" in terms of demand, circulation and growth of content.
What the two discovered was that their major readership was not foreigners, but Taichung locals. A recent survey showed that 80 percent of readers were local, and that 50 percent were Taiwanese women between the ages of 20 and 30.
What neither Smith, Habecker nor Heasman can explain, however, is why it took so long for anyone to take a serious stab at a free entertainment rag -- especially since they all agree the city needs one.
As a matter of fact, even Huang Sun-chuan (黃孫權), founder and editor in chief of Taipei's only Chinese-language entertainment weekly, POTS (破報), can only guess that no one undertook such a venture because many feel "the market may not support it."
So far, however, both Fink and Taiwan Fun are at the very least vaguely optimistic. "We got enough advertising to pay for our first issue," said Fink's Heasman. "These things tend to make a place for themselves once they've been around a while."
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