Taipei Nightlife Comes of Age in the
Da-An District
The clubs of Taipei's Da-An District offers an impressive blend of local energy and international sophistication.
by Jack Song
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Taipei Nightlife Comes of Age in the Da-An District
aipei nightlife has come a long way since the early 1990s when it was mostly ripoff hostess clubs set up to stroke the egoes of boorish businessmen and cramped little karaoke boxes in which young people drank themselves silly. In those days the island was emerging from several decades of Kuomongtang bivouac mentality, and new money was in desperate search of status and validation. Today the money isn't so new and it knows how to pay a fair price for a good time without overpaying for provincial pretention.
Today a visitor has no trouble finding lively, well-appointed clubs and pubs in which free-spirited natives drink, dance and mingle pretty much the way they do in other international cities of five million prosperous people. Taipei isn't exactly a megalopolis on the order of Tokyo, Shanghai or Seoul, but it does have the critical mass to generate hormonal crowds with an eye for style and some folding money in its collective pockets. One big difference is that people in Taipei seem sincerely appreciative of foreign visitors, especially if they aren't elderly letches chasing vintage sexual fantasies.
The Taipei area is divided into a half-dozen districts. Sure, like any visitor you will want to devote half an afternoon to checking out the historic entertainment area known as Ximending. It's where the Japanese colonists decided to sanction evening entertainment a century ago. Even today it has more movie houses per block than anywhere in the city. More recently, its inexpensive cafes and restaurants have become a hangout for local teens.
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During the past two decades Taipei has made the costly transformation from a hardscrabble provincial encampment to a monumental and dynamic city worthy of international tourism. Night markets draw large evening crowds. |
