The renovation of Ximending's Red House (
However, a recent experimental two-day "fashion market festival" launched by the city's Department of Cultural Affairs last month in the Red House attracted more than 20,000 visitors and created revenues of NT$1 million (US$30,000), exciting city officials and inspiring them to try to revive the area by hosting a regular weekend fashion market and making it an urban hub for creativity and innovation.
A test-run period for the weekend fashion market in the Red House will be launched on Saturday and every weekend until November with hundreds of booths selling products from handmade accessories and T-shirts to art pieces. The market will also feature a bookstore, cafe and music performances, the department said.
"Setting up the fashion market in the historical Red House is a combination of new and old, and we believe the market will bring the area alive and make Taipei a more innovative city," department Commissioner Lee Yong-ping (李永萍) said on Friday during a meeting with local community and business representatives regarding the renovation project.
Targeting younger generations and tourists, the department will also seek out private businesses to open stores in the north and south plazas around the Red House after the test-run period to make the area another popular tourist attraction in the city, Lee said.
Lee said that multiple operation sectors should be blamed for the failed Ximen market renovation efforts in the past. As the city government authorized the department to take full charge of the operation of the area since last month, Lee expressed confidence on the success of the renovation, as the fashion markets expected to attract younger crowds in Ximending, a popular gathering area for teenagers.
Welcoming the department's plan, Sheng Wen-wen (
Local borough chief Kao Tieng-fu (
"The Ximen market is the oldest existing traditional market in the city. We hope the fashion market will still carry the historical footprints of Ximending, instead of a place where teenagers shop and leave," Huang said.
The Red House is an octagonal structure built of red brick in 1908. Originally called the "Octagon Market," it was the neighborhood market of the Ximen area and later home to a previous "Red Theater." In 1997, it was declared a Class 3 historical site by the department, and was later designated to be used as a venue for spoken-word and vocal performances starting in 2002 when former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) administration initiated a renovation project.
In addition to boosting business in the area, Lee said the project also aimed at providing a permanent location for young designers and encouraging the cultural industry through relaxing regulations and opening up municipal space for establishing fashion markets.
Before the establishment of a regular fashion market in Ximending, there have been many similar markets held around the city in recent years, including Huashan Art District, Taipei Cinema Park and the Eslite Bookstore's Dunnan branch.
CAMPO, a civil association dedicated to organizing art and fashion markets around the country, lauded the department's efforts to find stable locations for designers to showcase their creativity, but called on the department to provide long-term assistance, as it would take a long time for designers selling products at booths to establish their own brands.
Lee said the department will have an evaluation mechanism to ensure the quality of the booths, and is seeking to open more municipal spaces to set up regular fashion markets in the future to encourage the cultural and arts industry.
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
RSS