Sunset in subtropical Chiayi (嘉義) is as many-hued as the local palate. The afternoon rain on the streets reflect the sky as it turns pink and purple. As the city’s neon lights flare into life, everywhere, it seems, signposts dinner.
Evening commences along the half-a-kilometer long night market on Wenhua Road (文化路). This strip featured in the Netflix series Street Food Asia.
There are fish-head noodle stalls and grapefruit bubble tea vendors, onion pancake and squids-on-sticks, Vietnamese sandwiches, tofu and sizzling pork skewers.
Photo Thomas Bird, Taipei Times
The heady scent of barbequing king oyster mushrooms catches my attention. After a fungi-licious appetizer, I sit down for a main course — cold noodles, Chiayi-style — with cucumbers, beansprouts, sesame seed paste and special ingredient, mayonnaise.
“That’s how we do it here, it holds the noodles together,” the vendor says.
FIRST PORT OF CALL
Photo Thomas Bird, Taipei Times
With my stomach lined, it’s a short hike to the end of Wenhua Road, where, at the crossroads of the Alishan mountain railway, I aim for Calgary (卡加利美式餐廳), which was recommended to me by an old-Chiayi-hand as “a pub with a railway flavor.”
The bar manager tells me Calgary has been in business since the late-1990s although the building itself, where “Timber was brought from the mountains to be chopped and turned into furniture,” is far older.
Logging officially ended in 1988 but much of city’s sites still allude to Chiayi’s former life as Taiwan’s “city of timber” and the railroad culture that kept that resource economy rolling.
Photo Thomas Bird, Taipei Times
Calgary’s vintage address is redolent of old Chiayi, but it is otherwise the kind of watering hole you might find in any small city in Asia — a place where barflies prop up the bar and put the world to right over pints of Carlsberg (NT$220) and Hawaiian Pizza (NT$360) until the weekend band kicks in. Notwithstanding its “last chance coral” vibes, I like Calgary, which boasts many of the “elements of a great bar” Anthony Bourdain once listed in A Cook’s Tour, notably convivial staff ever eager to top up your glass.
COCKTAILS AND FOOD PANDA
Walking through the curtains into Bar Bingsen (秉森酒室) is like stepping into a wormhole leading directly to Shinjuku, Tokyo. This perfect imitation of an izakaya is only a five-minute walk along the railway from Calgary but it feels a world apart.
Photo Thomas Bird, Taipei Times
Despite its imitative pretentions, there are no suited company men bonding over whisky and cigarettes as you might find in Japan. Instead, Bingsen is the habitat of hip Chiayi locals sipping Instagramable cocktails while ordering snacks from their phones via the Food Panda app.
“You can order outside food but you must buy drinks here,” the barman says of the house rules.
I’m well-fed but getting watered won’t be quite so economical, I soon discover, while eying the drinks list with average drink prices between NT$300 to NT$400.
Photo Thomas Bird, Taipei Times
Still, what is cool about Bar Bingsen is the range of locally-inspired concoctions — cocktails with poetic names like Sea of Flowers Amidst the Bustle (NT$420), a sumptuous gin-based beverage infused with cherry blossom and camphorwood and Town With and Ocean View (NT$360) made with vodka, buckwheat, elderflower and honey.
Equal attention has been given to the service — from the debonair attire of the barmen to the immaculate open bar, where they mix beverages to a jazz soundtrack.
Yet while Bingsen’s young clientele seem satisfied fetishizing colorful drinks, the place is bit stiff for a laidback southern town.
Photo Thomas Bird, Taipei Times
TIKI IN CHIAYI
Following the directions of a Bingsen regular, I pass Chiayi Railway Station’s forecourt and facing the Chiayi Art Museum find HOT Hi-End Of Tiki.
The exterior is adorned with collage of wild tropical animals, the interior decorated like a classic American cocktail lounge.
“I learned to be a mixologist in Taipei but wanted to bring this culture back to my hometown,” says Wang Wei-chi (王湋際), who opened the bar in 2021.
Wang survived coronavirus-enforced restrictions and now employs two local students to help him cater to a regular cast of patrons.
“Old people don’t get it but young people like what we do here.”
I order a Seasonal G&T (NT$300) — a predictable tipple for a Brit in the subtropics — but Wang mixes it in an atypical way, with a liqueur that he makes with four different kinds of fruit.
I repeat what the barman at Bingsen had told me, that cocktail bars were mushrooming in Chiayi, because it’s “a fresh market” that’s “not been saturated like elsewhere.”
Wang agrees, although he notes low rent when compared with Taipei keeps overheads down, which, combined with a flow of tourists bound for Alishan, makes opening a cocktail bar in Chiayi a more sensible idea than it might first appear.
I conclude with a Jungle Smack (NT$300), a delicious, banana-flavored bourbon with bitters, then stumble off to my hotel.
En route, I think about Street Food Asia and TV chef Johanna Liu’s (劉韋彤) assertion that, “Because of the secluded location, Chiayi has not been very influenced by foreign culture.”
As one of Taiwan’s oldest settlements, Chiayi unquestionably maintains some fine Taiwanese traditions. But it’s also seen some history. From the eclecticism of night market through to its varied night haunts, I’ve tasted a myriad influences in my short tour.
Sure, Chiayi might be small, but provincial it is not.
Warning: Excessive consumption of alcohol can damage your health.
Taiwan’s overtaking of South Korea in GDP per capita is not a temporary anomaly, but the result of deeper structural problems in the South Korean economy says Chang Young-chul, the former CEO of Korea Asset Management Corp. Chang says that while it reflects Taiwan’s own gains, it also highlights weakening growth momentum in South Korea. As design and foundry capabilities become more important in the AI era, Seoul risks losing competitiveness if it relies too heavily on memory chips. IMF forecasts showing Taiwan widening its lead over South Korea have fueled debate in Seoul over memory chip dependence, industrial policy and
“China wants to unify with Taiwan at the lowest possible cost, and it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes,” wrote Amanda Hsiao (蕭嫣然) and Bonnie Glaser in Foreign Affairs (“Why China Waits”) this month, describing how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is playing the long game in its quest to seize Taiwan. This has been a favorite claim of many writers over the years, easy to argue because it is so trite. Very obviously, if the PRC isn’t attacking Taiwan, it is waiting. But for what? Hsiao and Glaser’s main point is trivial,
May 18 to May 24 Gathered on Yangtou Mountain (羊頭山) on Dec. 5, 1972, Taiwan’s hiking enthusiasts formally declared the formation of the “100 Peaks Club” (百岳俱樂部) and unveiled the final list of mountains. Famed mountaineer Lin Wen-an (林文安) led this effort for the Chinese Alpine Association (中華山岳協會). Working with other experienced climbers, he chose 100 peaks above 10,000 feet (3,048m) that featured triangulation points and varied in difficulty and character. The list sparked an alpine hiking craze, inspiring many to take up mountaineering and competing to “conquer” the summits. A common misconception is that the 100 Peaks represent Taiwan’s 100 tallest
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), alongside their smaller allies the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), are often accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some go so far as to call them “traitors.” It is not hard to see why. They regularly pass legislation to stymie the normal functioning of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) administration, and they have yet to pass this year’s annual budget. They slashed key elements of the government’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$40 billion) special military budget, and in the smaller NT$780 billion package they did pass, it is riddled with provisions that
RSS