Former China News editor Brian Kennedy was with Liao that night in 1996. He was also at the helm for DV8's dragon boat fiasco. "I can tell you practicing with four oars and practicing with 18 oars is a different experience," he said by phone from Kaohsiung. "We ended up speeding down the lane in reverse. We just had forward momentum, and when the boat flipped around we kept going."
DV8 was and remains a frequent haunt for foreign journalists working for Taiwan's English-language newspapers. It was here back in 1998 where the founders of the Taipei Times wooed copy editors from what was then called the China News, now the Taiwan News, over drinks in DV8's basement, which at the time smelled like dry-cleaning fluid.
Former Taipei Times Web editor John Diedrichs has been visiting DV8 three or four times each week for the last 10 years. He was there during the 1999 blackout and the 921 earthquake. "One of the things that made this bar stand out is that it was listed in Lonely Planet from the early days," he said. "So we'd get a lot of foreigners who were fresh off the boat."
It was a good place for them to go because DV8 was known as being one of the safest bars in Taipei. This was because former chief of the general staff Peng Meng-chi (彭孟緝), known as the "Butcher of Kaohsiung" for his role in the 228 incident, and later former premier Yu Shyi-kun, lived across the street in a guarded compound with barbed wire and its own police box. It was also because owner Tom Chien had a well-deserved reputation for maintaining order. "He brooked no bullshit from anybody and was more than ready to give somebody a beat down if they were causing trouble," Kennedy said.
But one night, when Chien wasn't there, two men expelled for bad behavior returned with a handgun and a golf club. Clinton and another bartender fled by climbing out the back to the roof. While the gunman kept watch, the man with the golf club used it to bash the bar's glassware and glass cooler doors.
There were other misadventures that Chien, had he been present, might not have tolerated. "I got laid there once downstairs behind the pool table," said one man, who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons. "It wasn't a bad place to go if you wanted to have a bit of a smoke," said another.
By the late 1990s DV8 was eclipsed by newer, glitzier nightspots, and the crowd got a little older. The wooden benches and tables are still there, and the two televisions are still often tuned to sports channels, but the smoke-yellowed, graffiti-scarred walls were repainted orange with abstract cartoon characters a couple of years ago. Fewer people wait their turn to DJ, fewer wait downstairs to shoot pool.
Wong said she may open a new DV8 in a year or so, but the little things that made her bar special can probably never be recreated.
"It's always sad to lose a familiar watering hole," Kennedy said. "It has that unpretentiousness of a good dive that's hard to find anymore."
Then he added: "The real question is where's Tom Chien's father gonna drink tea?"
Feb. 26 is the last night at DV8, located at 233 Jinhua St, Taipei (台北市金華街233號), tel (02) 2393-1726
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