If you haven’t heard, capybaras are having a bit of a moment. The hashtag #capybara has over 10 billion views on TikTok and counting. Viral videos circulate of these big fluffy rodents engaging in sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hilarious behavior — surfing down the river on a crocodiles’ back or balancing tangerines on their head. They even have a catchy Russian-language theme song that goes something like, “Capybara capybara ca-py-ba-rahhhh!”
Taiwan was the genesis of the cat cafe phenomenon. It’s a place where meerkats and hogs can be considered household pets, so obviously any notions of animal ethics were not going to suppress a pervasive love of all things cute, especially in this image-driven age of social media.
Capybara Knight (水豚騎士) in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城) offers visitors a chance to get up close and personal with these strangely adorable internet sensations.
Photo courtesy of Hollie Younger
‘LIVING CHAIRS’
Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents, weighing up to 79kg and are native to South America. Herbivores and highly social creatures, they live in wild marshes in groups of between 10 and 20 individuals. They have webbed feet and are adapt swimmers, although they tend to hop when on land. The “living chairs” and “nature’s ottoman” nicknames were earned as other animals, including birds and even monkeys, like to sit on them.
They might look a bit like oversized, semi-aquatic guinea pigs but their friendliness and all-round cuteness has made them international internet celebrities, for good or ill.
Photo courtesy of Hollie Younger
At Capybara Knight, you can experience capybaras firsthand as they lounge in the shade with their duck friends, welcoming you to give them belly rubs, head scratches and, of course, food.
The cafe offers 90-minute sittings during which there are capybara-themed drinks, snacks and desserts to help you hit the minimum spend of NT$100/person. An additional NT$150 (NT$200 on weekends and holidays) gets you a 20-minute slot in the capybara enclosure. The fee includes a capybara-shaped egg cake for you and a cup of hay for them. Groups are kept small, and a keeper is on hand to help answer any questions.
Capybara Knight is home to two capybaras, one female named Ba La (拔辣) and her male companion Ga Bi (嘎逼), each two years old and surprisingly friendly, apparently, unbothered by all the attention. The cafe also houses two ducks, two rabbits, a dog and a cat.
Photo courtesy of Hollie Younger
The capybaras are well taken care of by passionate keepers, we are told. Their outdoor enclosure is large with hay for them to lie down in, grass for them to eat and even a pool for them to swim in. There are also steam vents keeping their pen as humid as a South American swamp.
Online reservations are recommended well in advance, especially on weekends and holidays — the capybaras are pretty popular at the moment.
Photo courtesy of Hollie Younger
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
One of the most important gripes that Taiwanese have about the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is that it has failed to deliver concretely on higher wages, housing prices and other bread-and-butter issues. The parallel complaint is that the DPP cares only about glamor issues, such as removing markers of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) colonialism by renaming them, or what the KMT codes as “de-Sinification.” Once again, as a critical election looms, the DPP is presenting evidence for that charge. The KMT was quick to jump on the recent proposal of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to rename roads that symbolize
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
In an interview posted online by United Daily News (UDN) on May 26, current Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) was asked about Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) replacing him as party chair. Though not yet officially running, by the customs of Taiwan politics, Lu has been signalling she is both running for party chair and to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. She told an international media outlet that she was considering a run. She also gave a speech in Keelung on national priorities and foreign affairs. For details, see the May 23 edition of this column,
RSS