Shida Night Market

I am so much in love with this place and I go there so often that I feel that I take its amazingness for granted.

I feel that this is a much better night market then famous Shilin nightmarket. Located near the Normal University, it buzzes with students activity all day, every day. It has the best line up of clothes, shoes and accessories shops. Cute little boutiques and Korean shops are great for window / actual shopping. It has amazing line up for local and international restaurants, cafes, tes shops, desert places and even bars. Best of all, it's great to visit any time of the day! If you are in Taipei, I highly recommend you to stroll by this area and trust me you will not be disappointed.

My favourite eating spots in Shida are
- KGB ( New Zealand Burger Place, great veggie options)
- La Pizza ( They have the best Arabbiatta pasta in whole of Taipei)
- Grandma Nitty ( all day breakfast with lots of international dishes)
- Masala House
- Macho Tacos ( Our latest favourite, love this location)
- Toasteria ( great variety of Cheese grilled sandwiches and salads)
- yofroyo ( yogurt with fresh fruits - this is so AMAZING)
- Awfully Chocolate ( Chocolate Ice cream is so so Chocolaty!)
- Starbucks and Cafes adjoining it are great location on main Shida Road
- etc etc

Just walk around and you will find tons of places.I always stumble upon something new. Try for yourself .. I bet you can't go wrong for the price and variety. When you are tired come on the main Shida road, sit under the gazebo or seats by the little park and watch street performance if you are lucky or just people watch, I assure that you will be relaxed.

Amazing Tacos and Burritos at Macho Tacos

Sunshine in Taipei

Sunshine in Taipei winter is as precious as a drop of water in the desert for me. Today after weeks of melancholic weather, Sun God showed some mercy on inhabitants of the city. It was as if the whole world was celebrating. My favourite spot of celebration on this sunny day was Daan Forrest park.

With my books, iPhone (for facebook and music), sunglasses and cup of coffee I headed to the park at 11:30am. I thoroughly enjoyed my day soaking in the Sun, walking up and down the park and settling in different spots of the park just like a photographer would do to catch Sun at different intensities and moods. I remembered most beautiful moments of my life and smiled all day. I watched hundreds of people, trees and birds do the same along my side. Every living thing was getting drunk sipping on the Sun potion today.

It was almost 4:45pm when Sun got softer and started to hide behind dense trees and tall buildings. It was cooler now and it was as if sounds of chirping crickets and playing kids were in some kind of intense competition. Taking cue from the colder temperature, I gathered my things, gave one last look on the golden gilded view of the evening and I walked back home.

Awesome Halloween in Taipei

We were at Room 18 on Saturday night celebrating Halloween in pirate costumes. It was super fun night with new friends, great music on a roof top under 101 and amazing display of costumes. People had really worked hard physically, mentally and monetarily to come up with costumes.

Zombies are common in every Halloween party, but zombies I saw this year looked so real and so much in character. Good job, Taipei Zombies!There was a couple with their skin zipped open only to show blood and flesh underneath.. eew. There were plenty of cute and scary black and white swans. Also, jumping around were few LMFAO Party Rocks carrying that hot suffocating golden boxes on their heads all night. There was one super hot Eve who walked around with her apple,  little leaves to cover up and all the eyes following her back. We met a few fellow pirates and we exchanged some sword wars or friendly hugs and pictures. Cleopatra, belly dancers, nurses and maids looked super hot despite of the cliche get up. Alice in wonderland group was fantastic with complete makeup and costume. My Japanese friend was dressed creatively as a flower, she had a real flower stuck around one of her eye. She looked gorgeous and elegant. I thought "7-11, always open dude" and 'One night stand' (yeah he was literally carrying a night stand around his neck, funny but not sure of many locals got the joke;) ) were really funny.

Thank God for not a single Playboy girl! Taipei Halloween got some bonus points from me on creativity for that one ;)

Age no bar

Mountain hiking, biking, running in the park, gym, swimming.. you name it. I see 60 plus people everywhere engaging in the respective activity with so much passion and energy. I went to run in the Da-an park yesterday and this 60 plus man passed me thrice in my one 2.5K round. Seriously??

Mandarin: Once Optional, Now a Must

I have been in Taipei for two years but honestly I never got serious about learning Mandarin. In my defense, my super crazy work load prohibited me from giving justice to any formal training of this daunting language. Day to day work did not require me to know this language at all as employees were expected to know good English in American company where I worked. It was always convenient enough that only thing I had to really learn was to slow down during conversations to allow English-Mandarin translations in the background. Chinese maybe optional today but 10 years from now I am pretty sure that tables will be turned. If you want a coveted job in the market then you will be expected to know Chinese as these jobs will now be listed by Chinese companies.

Don't believe it? Well, China trip that we took few weeks ago was a big eye opener. The mere scale and pace of the city, including infrastructure, technology and international presence was simply overwhelming. It is really hard to fathom how strong China has become behind their closed doors and hence you have to see it with your own eyes to believe it. World-class metro, high speed trains, city bus, twelve lane roads, overpasses, skyscrapers, Olympic park, numerous malls for luxury brands, international hotels, cosmopolitan restaurants and beautiful historical and tourist spots that seemed so successful in attracting the global mass for trade and tourism. This country is growing at a very fast pace and very consistently for last decade. 9.6% GDP was recorded in the first six months of 2011 while USA was around 1%, if the trend continues then guess which side of the table will be heavier? Neighboring countries such as Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia etc with significant Mandarin speaking population are also growing at a much faster pace than any country in Europe or USA.

In next decade, Mandarin will not be an optional language in my opinion in the world of business

Moon Festival

 

 Moon festival, one of the most important festivals in Chinese culture is over 3000 years old and goes by many names such as Mid-Autumn Festival, Moon Cake festival, Autumn Lantern festival, Lunar Harvest festival and particularly Taiwan it is also called Reunion festival and Bunny Girl ( NO, not the playboy one) Moon festival. Chinese origin people around the world are found celebrating this festival by stuffing their mouths with variety of moon cakes under the eighth full-moon of the year. Needless to say, I did not miss the opportunity to stuff my mouth with delicious cakes as well. 

  



Our box of KeeWah pastry

 We have been very lucky to receive boxes of moon cakes and pomelo (see my blog on Exotic Fruits) from friends and colleagues for last few years in Taiwan. First year was difficult as most of the cakes I received had egg, pork and other non-vegetarian items and I could only ogle at pretty boxes but then it was corrected very quickly when a friend ordered special vegetarian moon cakes with stuffing such as mung bean, red bean, taro, dry fruits for us. They are just perfectly sweet in taste (think 30% less sugar than a typical milk sweet from India) and goes very well with oolong tea or red wine. Week before moon festival, office desks are piled with beautifully decorated moon cake boxes showing off the brands of the vendor. Imported ones from Hong Kong are gaining popularity and in this slightly pretentious culture you do see these high-end boxes on top of the piles.



Vegetarian Moon Cakes before I over ate 



Now, on the day of the festival, typical Taiwanese family will gather for a barbeque feast under the moon. Motto of the day is to “eat, eat, eat, drink, eat, eat, drink, eat, eat … “according to one of my colleague. By the way, barbequing on this day is very unique to Taiwan which has emerged as a custom only in last twenty years and hence largely attributed to economic development and western influence by the outsiders. During my first year in Taiwan, I saw people on the streets, walkways and parks barbequing in the open, sneakily shouting “Gan-bei” followed by gulping their disposable cups of “pijio”, enjoying moon cakes and sometimes remembering to check out the moon through a thick smoke cloud that forms above their mobile barbeque pit. Friendly as ever, Taiwanese people will never forget to share their food with the passers-by. There are also many moon-roof parties organized these days which tends to demean western styles than traditional Chinese culture. Whatever the setting, its time of the year to celebrate with your loved ones and remember the ones you love under the moon light. 

This year we were in Beijing for the Moon Festival. We heard that this year Green movement had taken a strong stand in Taiwan for the sake of the environment, road side barbequing was prohibited but dedicated parks were created for open barbeque so people can still enjoy in the 20 yr old custom. I guess I missed the Taiwanese clean, green Moon Festival this year.

Beijing was on a completely different scale. We tried to stay away from the main areas of Moon Festival celebration to avoid the crowds but our attempt was vain. We literally floated through tempestuous ocean of people throughout the day wherever we went. But as the evening set in many government buildings were beautifully lit, red lanterns decorated popular streets and dragons were seen ready to roar and dance that night. Unfortunately (or not), it was a cloudy night in Beijing with no moon in sight so it was a night best spent in the hotel room with a dim night lamp mimicking the moon ;) After a sumptuous dinner we headed back to the room and hoped to catch festivities on the TV. The most popular coverage seemed to be the continuous live coverage of the world’s biggest tidal bore on the Qingtang River (check out videos and images by google search, its really something) that comes every year during this festival. According to the TV coverage, it was considered one of the natural wonders of the World at one point but I am not sure how true that is in a world outside of China. Thousands of people had camped out and gathered by the river shore to watch this wonder wave under the full-moon light today while I virtually thanked the live Moon coverage for a loving husband and embraced him in the faint moon-light that fell on our bed from the TV.

Current state of Taiwanese Weddings

Our closest friends gave birth to a sweet little baby girl today. We are so excited and as if she was our own we screamed "yay, its a girl!".

I think most of the Taiwanese couples these days are probably screaming with similar excitement as well when they give birth to a daughter instead of a son. There may be a reason for this excitement which lies deep within the centuries old marriage tradition and effects of today's modernization instead of the pretty twinkling eyes of the new born. Unlike most part of the world, when a Taiwanese couple gets married, groom and his family has to pay a huge dowry to the girls parents and this is all but the crux of the stress for the boy and his parents at the time of marriage.

Most of the lavish wedding expenses including pre-wedding photographs, dinners, gifts (could include apartments, appliances, cars, furniture etc) and imported wedding cookies for the girls extended family are to be paid by the groom. All the terms and conditions regarding expenses are negotiated before the marriage is actually finalized. Needless to say, parents take over the wedding negotiations from the couple even if it was supposed to be a cute love marriage. These days Taiwanese women are well educated, self earning and independent which makes weddings even more  expensive then they ever were. Brides parents want to recover the cost of raising their well-educated daughters and such attitudes sometimes just crashes the spirit of the marriage or worse, a man's will to get married.

Traditionally, boys have been preferred over girls across most part of the developing countries in Asia for centuries now. In last few decades, sex-selective abortion was on the rise and has given rise to uneven boy to girl ratio which is now 110 males for 100 females in Taiwan. This clearly means there are less females available for marriage. Also, more and more women these days are choosing to be single or delay marriage to focus on career and hence by the time they are ready for marriage, they are either too expensive or little too old to find the right partner. Ironically, divorce rates in the country are extremely high (close to 40%) too and it is also influencing to-be groom's wedding decision as they are getting penny wise and do not want to waste money on extravagant weddings which may end up in a divorce. All these independent trends and more which are not listed here have eventually led the country to earn a record breaking lowest fertility rate in the world. (0.9 children per child bearing female.  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#Vital_statistics).

All the data above is enough for me to believe that there is also a rise in mail-order brides in Taiwan. It is very common to see a man in Taiwan going through marriage brokers to find brides from countries like Mainland China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam where brides get married mainly to get financial help to support their families back home while the men gets a life companion for a much smaller amount than a Taiwanese wife.

'Old Culture + Modernization = Disaster?', I wondered as I sipped on my cup of oolong tea.