It's 5pm on an ordinary day in the week. The MRT door opens at the Zhongxiao and Dunhua stop and countless people get off. Many of them have backpacks and some are even dressed in school uniform. To any Taipei person in the know, it wouldn't be hard to guess their destination: The Eslite bookstore on Dunhua and Renai roads.
With the opening of the new flagship Eslite in Xinyi district, all this may soon change soon. Or will it?
"The flagship store first opened to the public on 12/16," said Eslite spokesman Lin I-hui (
PHOTO COURTESY OF ESLITE
The flagship store has already received much attention from avid book shoppers. For the first week, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people visited per day. Once inside, it's not difficult to understand the hype. With a total of eight floors, including two basement floors that sell the latest clothing trends and the food court, it is three-and-a-half times the size of the Eslite store on Dunhua and Renai. One of its most impressive features is that the decor of every section in the book store is designed to correspond with the category of the books.
But to the younger generation who make up a pivotal and loyal core of any bookstore's target audience, does all this matter?
"I visited the flagship store along with a few classmates during the first week," said Jeanne Lin (
Lin I-hui responded, "We were a bit rushed during the first few days but we've finished up now. All the books are in order and I'm sure the public will appreciate the nice details that distinguish us from other bookstores."
With its 10-year history, as well as being the first 24 hour bookstore, the old Eslite was an establishment in Taipei, an emblem of its sophistication. Will the new Eslite exert the same influence?
"Ask any student, or anyone in their 20s or 30s. Almost all of them will admit that the Dun-Nan Eslite played a vital role in their social or academic lives," said Bob (曾勤博), 24, a graduate student studying law. "By now, it's not just a bookstore. It's a social landmark that people in Taipei are proud of ... It's an unwritten rule among students that guys go there after class or during long summer afternoons to check out the girls."
When asked if he usually buys his books there, he shakes his head. Most students don't buy books in Eslite, he explains. They're higher priced. But with its aura of urban chic, it has become a playground for the younger generation.
Whether the new Xinyi Eslite can strike the same chord and eventually find its own identity among Taipei bookstores, the people of Taipei will soon decide. Yet one thing is certain: The Xinyi Eslite has arrived.
The store is at 11, Songgao Rd, Xinyi District, Taipei (
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
March 2 to March 8 Gunfire rang out along the shore of the frontline island of Lieyu (烈嶼) on a foggy afternoon on March 7, 1987. By the time it was over, about 20 unarmed Vietnamese refugees — men, women, elderly and children — were dead. They were hastily buried, followed by decades of silence. Months later, opposition politicians and journalists tried to uncover what had happened, but conflicting accounts only deepened the confusion. One version suggested that government troops had mistakenly killed their own operatives attempting to return home from Vietnam. The military maintained that the
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) announced last week a city policy to get businesses to reduce working hours to seven hours per day for employees with children 12 and under at home. The city promised to subsidize 80 percent of the employees’ wage loss. Taipei can do this, since the Celestial Dragon Kingdom (天龍國), as it is sardonically known to the denizens of Taiwan’s less fortunate regions, has an outsize grip on the government budget. Like most subsidies, this will likely have little effect on Taiwan’s catastrophic birth rates, though it may be a relief to the shrinking number of
RSS