When I first came to Taiwan I was struck by how hard it was to find the traditional markets for which Taiwan and mainland China are famous. Much of Taiwan's culture and history arise from these old markets, yet they are rapidly disappearing, giving way to multistory department stores stocked with the latest fashions from Paris and Tokyo. There is, however, one street in Taipei where you can still get a taste of what the traditional markets were like. Historic Tihua Street (迪化街) is one of the oldest markets in Taiwan.
Dating from the middle of the last century, Tihua Street is known today as the best place in Taiwan to go for traditional Chinese medicine and for the dried food and other snacks that are integral to Chinese festivals, in particular Chinese Lunar New Year. Almost every shop there sells one of three things: textiles, dried goods (nan-pei-huo 南北貨), or traditional Chinese medicine. Although I've lived in Taiwan for years, and I've often heard about this street, I never had the occasion to see for myself this last gasp of historic Taipei. I was impressed by what I found.
Taipei's Oldest Market
Tihua Street lies in the heart of old downtown Taipei, between the Taipei Railway Station and Taipei Bridge. It is the oldest traditional market in the city, having grown up along the wharves of the Tamsui River (淡水河). Tihua Street's Section 1, the oldest and most traditional part of the market, begins at an intersection with Nanking West Road (南京西路) and heads north.
As I walk down the street, it's easy to imagine what the market must have looked like a century ago. The storefronts are narrow, often no more than five meters, but they are deep. The buildings along the street look as if they have been reconstructed from old lithographs. You could almost forget that these are the originals.
The market began toward the end of the Ching dynasty. In 1851, a trader named Lin Lan-tien (林藍田) tired of running from pirates and came ashore to set up shop selling nan-pei-huo, literally "south-north-goods," imported mostly from mainland China. Nan-pei-huo includes just about every conceivable kind of fruit (sometimes dried, sometimes candied), salted and roasted nuts and seeds, dried fish, shrimp, sea cucumbers, squid, cuttlefish jerky, dried mushrooms--the list goes on.
Dried Foods for the New Year
Even today, nan-pei-huo shops are the hub of the Tihua Street market, around which everything else revolves. In the weeks before Chinese New Year, the market is jam-packed with people shopping for the snacks that will carry them through the New Year holiday. Many of these snacks are available all over Taipei as the New Year approaches, but there is no place in Taipei, if not all Taiwan, where such a wide variety is concentrated. These shops have, in a word, everything.
"I'm here today because I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I would stop and pick up a few things," says Chen Hsiu-mei (陳秀美). "But I'm sure I'll be back in a month. That's when I really do a lot of shopping here. There is a lot of variety." Another shopper, Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄), agrees. "There are things that I know I have to buy for the New Year, and I know I can find them all here."
Of course, the New Year comes only annually. To make it through the rest of the year, many of these shops also sell food staples in bulk. Some shops sell Western foods and spices, many of which are almost impossible to find elsewhere in Taipei. "Of course, every winter we are very busy with people buying things for the New Year," says Chen Yung-cheng (陳永證), who has been running his shop for 20 years. "The rest of the time our business comes mainly from restaurants." For Westerners living in Taipei, the street is a great, though largely unknown, resource. Chen laughed heartily when told stores in the northern district of Tienmu were selling oregano for double his price.
Herbal medicine is one of Tihua Street's
specialties.
A Patchwork of Textiles and Medicines
Less well known than the nan-pei-huo sellers and the traditional medicine shops, but no less colorful, textiles have had a major impact on the Tihua Street market. At first, the shops specialized in imported Japanese fashions. After the Japanese left, a huge local industry, centered on Tihua Street, arose to replace the imports. It was here that Wu Huo-shi (吳火獅), founder of the massive Shin Kong (新光) textile group, started out as an apprentice in a small shop. Today over 90% of Taipei's textile industry is still concentrated in the lanes and alleys surrounding Tihua Street.
The average visitor to Tihua Street, however, will probably be more fascinated by the traditional Chinese medicine shops. One of the earliest medicine stores is Chien Yuan Hang (乾元行), which opened in 1875 and is now operating under its sixth owner. In the early days these medicine stores were merely a sideline to the nan-pei-huo trade, but now there are over 100 shops along the street selling over 7,000 varieties of traditional medicin
Many of the shops keep their medicines in glass jars which you can easily see as you walk by. Some of the exotic items are obvious; dried sea horses seem to be a pretty common ingredient. Others lend themselves to a bit more speculation. One jar, I was told, contained fossilized bones.
I decided the best way to learn about Chinese medicine was to see a traditional Chinese doctor. Taipei's food has been particularly rough on me recently, so I thought I would see what a traditional doctor would have to say about my ailments. I decided to see Dr. Chang Hsi-kuei (張 錫圭) at 79 Tihua Street, Section 1.
I went into the examination room without saying a word about my symptoms. The first thing the doctor did was take my pulse. Quietly, intently, he listened to my wrist with his fingers. First with two fingers, then with one, then with two again. After a short while he started tapping my wrist. It was a strange but not unpleasant experience. Eventually he declared, "You have a bad stomach." I have to admit to being taken aback. "It's because you think too much at night," he added.
I didn't see the connection, so I asked him to explain. "Good health depends on a proper balance between the opposing yin (陰) and yang (陽) elements of life," he replied. "Yin is associated with night and rest. Mental activity, which is yang, should be done during daylight hours, the yang time of day. Not resting during the yin time of day is causing the imbalance, which is creating problems with your stomach. It's also causing your baldness."
He then gave me a prescription for traditional medicine. When I asked what was in it, his assistant seemed somewhat offended that I would ask. I pressed her, but she would only say there were far too many ingredients to list, and that even if she told me I wouldn't understand their names. And the price of this incomprehensible medicine? A cool NT$1,100.
Even if you don't feel like spending so much on medicine whose ingredients you might not want to know, the Tihua Street market is worth a visit. The medicine shops make for very interesting window shopping, and the many nan-pei-huo shops will give you a chance to sample some of the traditional food of the Chinese New Year. If you time it right, even the crowds themselves are an impressive sight.
Copyright 1995 Vision International Publishing Co.