Week 4

I went to Longshan Simiao Yeshu, a strange part of town. This supposed "tourist night market" was far away from glamorous and welcoming. Quite the opposite, actually. Snake restaurants, turtle snack bar, birds sold by the dozen, stinking tofu, and fried tiger tail, all make for the right ingredients for a shocking adventure.
Three days earlier in class, my language teacher Weng Laoshi suggested to take me there, claiming this night market would blend right in with our current chapter on night life in Taiwan. I liked her idea, and so we met at the metro station at 7:00 pm on Friday after class.
Our first sight was the local "Longshan" temple. Visiting this temple was an interesting experience, especially having seen many Heian period temples in Kyoto. This Taiwanese temple, rather than presenting itself with simple ornaments and colors, as would be the case in Japan, was flashy with its rainbow colored walls and overwhelming in its opulent architecture. The smell of incense was also overwhelming. I was surprised by the number of people seeking solace and good fortune. Everywhere I looked were people sitting, standing and taking bows in front of archetypal Buddhist statues. It was quite an original sight.
When we left the temple, I was all psyched for our next and final stop - the night market. It was an indoor market, consisting of one long, narrow hall leading from one main street to another on the other side of the building. The entire hall was occupied by restaurants and fish markets. Not of the usual kind, however. Every dish sold here was apparently the product of native Taiwanese culinary creativity. Creative it was for sure, tastiness remains a subjective matter. At the first restaurant was a man comfortably seated on a stool in front of the main entrance. In his left hand he was holding his favorite pet, a large yellow snake, and in his right hand he was holding a microphone, inviting hungry people to try the dish of the day, spicy python soup. Behind him, was a neatly stacked row of cages with all different kinds of snakes, corn snakes, gopher snakes, pythons and of course the infamous rattle snake. I couldn't believe people would actually want to spend a Saturday night eating rattle snake before going to their weekly performance of the Taipai Symphony Orchestra. Apparently, it happens.
Our next restaurant was just as, if not more, perverse. A woman was standing in front of the restaurant showing off her well fed and freshly butchered turtles. I wasn't sure if I was dealing with turtles at first, when I saw her holding one up, until I realized she had already removed the shell. It was quite shocking and I definitely did not want to eat there either.
A few steps further, there was an old man selling birds trapped in fishing nets. In my hope to liberate some of them, I asked him if he would sell me one net for 200 TN (about $7), but unfortunately my bargain did not lead to success. What a hopeless evening for all these innocent animals.
Nevertheless, since my teacher and I hadn't eaten dinner (and were not planning on eating at this night market), we went to a local chou (stinking) tofu place. This is old tofu drenched in a thick spicy soup. Every time you walk passed a chou tofu restaurant, you can just based on the distinctive, quite unpleasant smell, infer immediately what kind of restaurant you are dealing with. I had never tried it, and although the smell is not inviting, I did not want to make a final judgment before eating it. We stopped at a good restaurant and I ordered a full plate of chou tofu. To all foreigners out there who are not yet accustomed to the taste of chou tofu. Be cauteous! It tastes terrible!