Fans and musicians from Taipei’s independent music scene can breathe easier. One of Taipei’s longest-running and most beloved small venues, Witch House (女巫店), will not be shutting down after all.
Last weekend, Witch House, a fixture in the National Taiwan University area since 1996, announced that it was forced to “temporarily close” due to problems with its business license and Taipei City Government regulations.
But the venue is now being allowed to remain open, thanks to a last minute intervention by the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs. The agency held a meeting earlier this week with Witch House owner Peng Yu-ching (彭郁晶) and representatives from the city’s Department of Urban Development to discuss a solution.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei City Government Department of Cultural Affairs
Over the past two months, Witch House had been among the bars and clubs feeling the effects of a nationwide safety inspection crackdown, which followed in the wake of a Taichung pub fire in March that left nine patrons dead.
City officials originally told Peng that Witch House violated its business license as a restaurant and cafe because it was acting as a “pub” by serving alcohol in the evenings. This was considered a problem because, under city zoning regulations, pubs aren’t allowed in Witch House’s location, a residential district in an alley of Xinsheng South Road (新生南路).
Peng said that unless she moved or closed shop, she would have been subject to considerable fines. Overwhelmed by the constant inspections and having given birth to her second child last month, she decided to close and figure out her next step, which included the possibility of moving to a new location.
But the Department of Cultural Affairs stepped in on Wednesday, telling Peng that Witch House had the right to remain open.
Witch House’s saving grace is the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Act (文化創意產業發展法), a law passed last year by the central government that is designed to promote Taiwan’s cultural exports, which includes the music industry.
The Department of Cultural Affairs said that the law calls for the development of the “music performance space industry” (音樂展演空間業), which provides Witch House with a new legal status.
According to Peng, Witch House can remain open under this status, and the Department of Cultural Affairs will be working with other Taipei City Government agencies to revise current regulations to take the new law into account.
Peng says she was initially surprised that the Taipei City Government appeared to be “proactive” and had reacted so swiftly in dealing with the news of Witch House’s closing.
Indeed, it appeared that the government understood the venue’s significance for the indie scene. In an article released yesterday by the Central News Agency, Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Hsieh Hsiao-yun (謝小韞) acknowledged that Witch House had “nurtured” indie artists-turned-stars like Cheer Chen (陳綺貞) and Deserts Chang (張懸).
But Peng also credits the “passionate” reaction of Witch House’s supporters.
“This [community] had a lot of voices that spoke out strongly,” she told the Taipei Times yesterday. “And the government couldn’t pretend that it didn’t see what was happening — they had to do something about it.”
Witch House hosts performances by indie band Radicalo tonight and Aboriginal folk singer Panai tomorrow night.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located