The last snake restaurant in Taipei’s Huaxi Street Night Market (華西街觀光夜市), also known as “Snake Alley,” is to close today, with second-generation owner Kuo Yi-chien (郭懿堅) saying the shop is to be converted into a hot pot restaurant.
Six decades ago, Huaxi Street in the city’s Wanhua District (萬華) was a red-light district that featured brothels, street performers and snake-meat restaurants, said Kuo, who inherited his father’s restaurant, which has only ever served snake.
There were as many as eight snake restaurants in the area’s heyday, but the only two other remaining restaurants with snake on the menu now manly sell softshell turtle meat, Kuo said.
Photo: CNA
His father, Kuo Lai-kung (郭來貢), opened the Asia Snake Meat Store (亞洲蛇肉店) in his 20s and marketed his snake dishes and snake wine by slaughtering the animals in front of customers, he said.
The store was widely recognized because his father considered himself the nation’s top snake expert and kept an orangutan named A-bao (阿寶) trained to catch snakes, Kuo Yi-chien said.
However, as public awareness grew about the need for animal protection, the government banned the killing of protected species.
Meanwhile, the busker culture on Huaxi Street was dying out, which is why their family decided to stop serving snake, Kuo Yi-chien said.
As the store on No. 49 closes for the last time today, actor Kuo Tzu-chien (郭子乾) is to perform a mock snake slaughter at 10:30am and attendees will be given imitation snakes as souvernirs.
Sharing the news about the store’s closure on Facebook yesterday, cultural studies expert Jason Cheung (張哲生) recalled how tourists from around the world used to swarm to the street to watch snake-killing performances.
Kuo Lai-kung was a friend of Cheung’s father and both participated in China Youth Corps activities, Cheung said, adding that he has visited many places with them since childhood.
The store’s closure arouses complex emotions, because it not only signals the end of a restaurant, but the end of an era, Cheung said.
Many people expressed regret online over the store’s closure, with one saying that their skin problems were cured after they drank snake soup on the street.
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
RSS