Story Archives

Taiwan Travel Stories

Taipei, Taiwan: Search for Serenity in Taiwan - Story by Sharon Spence Lieb
- 11th Online Issue

Vendors in minuscule outdoor booths call out in Mandarin and English, enticing me with their glittering jewelry, boom boxes, and lady's lingerie. Hungry shoppers eye whole chicken heads and squid tentacles sizzling on blackened grills. Tourists and local couples, students, and businessmen throng thepungent smoky streets, searching for bargains among acres of Rolex knock offs, 'Chanel' handbags, and 'Gucci' scarves. A wizened shopkeeper plucks a wriggling 3-foot snake from its wire cage, squeezing its blood and bile into a metal cup, for a 'snake cocktail'. Which is stronger, my horror or fascination? I'm not sure.

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Taiwan: Taipei to Hualian
- Story by John Phillips
- 10th Online Issue

Have you heard the one about the blinged-up gangster, the guy who wears baggy jeans that hang closer to his ankles than his waist, who has gold medallions that would make Mr. T’s neck ache, and who goes shopping with his mother? Unfortunately it’s not a gag. Our hero lives in Hualian, a small town on Taiwan’s difficult-to-reach east coast, so perhaps it’s forgivable that some of the rules of street cred get lost or re-interpreted.

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