The old market in front of The Mengjia Longshan Temple in Taipei has now been remodeled. (Courtesy of the author/image)
Since 1983, I have lived in the wanhua life circle, when passing by Theozan Temple, I will stop by to worship, such a living habit, continue for thirty or forty years, do not feel anything special. Even after leaving the Times, I still followed the old habit of going to Lungshan Temple every two or three months to pray for safety and health. Sometimes I will take my children with me, and after praying until Zhou Ji porridge, I eat braised pork and drink a bowl of green grass tea.
Until recently, because of the new crown epidemic, I saw that some people would go to Wanhua every day to report. Some go to the temple, some go to the tea room, some go to sell grapes, in short, the crowds gathered here are not just my nostalgic journeys in middle school. There must be something inside it that I haven't noticed. So I looked at it with a "conscious sense of distance", and found that in that ordinary life of the common people, there was a spiritual level, such as worship, chanting, and blessing; there was also a material level, such as selling handicrafts and selling some second-hand clothes; there was also an emotional level, like visiting old friends of volunteers at Longshan Temple, going to the tea house to see old lovers, or just going to sit and chat. Of course, there are also people in Shanshui Street, the square in front of Longshan Temple, and the nearby dark alleys, looking for dark prostitutes and warblers, looking for a place to trade. This is also an industry that many people make a living.
And around these are bound to be the various businesses that arise with these flows. Dining snacks, drinking stalls, special singing restaurants and more.
When all walks of life have all kinds of doubts and laughter and scolding about Wanhua for the sake of the new crown epidemic, as if this is the home of homeless people, prostitutes and the elderly, I quietly recall the past, especially In the 1980s, Wanhua is like a child who returned to his hometown.
Although I am not a Wanhua, I cannot but say that I have a certain gratitude for my long years of work and life. It taught me the most precious lessons.
<h3>Doctoral program in sociology</h3>
I joined the American China Times in the fall of 1983.
In order to cooperate with the US office hours, I began to work at eleven o'clock in the middle of the night, waited for the Sample of the China Times to see the newspaper the next day, selected important news from it, and revised some special words and phrases in Taiwan to adapt to international habits, and then passed the manuscript to the US editorial office.
From working in the middle of the night to the end of the morning around five o'clock in the morning, the stomach must be very hungry. So I went with the deputy editor-in-chief Li Mingru to the roadside stall in front of Longshan Temple to eat breakfast. At that time, there was a congee side dish, run by a young couple from Yunlin, a few tables were placed on the side of the road, and a dozen small dishes. The couple had a small baby, and because of the lack of care, they always used a small bed woven of rattan and placed it on the edge of the stall to make a living while watching.
The guests who come and go are mostly drivers of large trucks that have just transported vegetables from the south to the north. The engine of the big truck is particularly noisy, and the driver is also used to smoking, drinking, and shouting loudly, which inevitably wakes up the baby. The baby began to cry, and the wife picked it up, patted it and said, "Be obedient, be obedient!" Go to sleep! "Shake and shake, coax the baby to sleep, and help the husband serve dishes with one hand." The strong men were also very considerate and immediately reduced their vocal volume.
Truck drivers are manual laborers, just unloaded vegetables to the nearby fruit and vegetable market, drove a night train, tired unloading goods, hungry, arrived at a large bowl of brine rice, a few small dishes, and took a big bite to pick up the rice. It was as if the food was particularly fragrant.
Every morning, when I also finished my work, I looked at the figure of running and working, eating a lot, and living diligently, and the "power of life" that was hard but full, and my heart was always full of emotions.
In the early morning of Wanhua, the wine stalls have been collected, the prostitutes on Huaxi Street have also rested, and the drunken people have left, replaced by the laborers, as if there is no kind of life force at the bottom.
"In any case, life must live so powerfully!" I said to myself.
After that, I transferred to the weekly magazine as a reporter, went to work at six o'clock in the evening, after work it was eleven or twelve o'clock, usually we ate less dinner, and the interview colleagues of the newspaper would always meet to go to the hot pot restaurant near National Taiwan University, or eat supper at a small stall in Wanhua, drink two drinks and chat.
It was the martial law era, and there were many taboos in the news. A young journalist's manuscript is always cut, altered, or even changed into a manuscript, like a newsletter, and some manuscripts are simply killed. What you see on the news scene is completely different from what is taught in the classroom. The bitterness in the heart can be imagined. So the veteran editor, who is experienced and sophisticated, will take angry reporters like me out for a drink. While drinking, you are told about the consideration of news processing, the pressure they encountered, the relationship and consideration of the boss, the "edge ball" news that has been handled, and so on.
Almost all of the news knowledge is learned by these after-work "wine table gossip". All kinds of news insiders, including: the money connections of political tycoons, the illegitimate children of the little wives of big entrepreneurs, the gossip and secrets of the film world, the bloody feuds in black and white, and the smuggling of gang territory, all of which are in the "post-deadline news" that cannot be seen in the newspaper, drinking and listening to learning.
I later worked in the evening newspaper, and after the midday deadline, my colleagues would meet to go to a small shop near Wanhua for lunch, sometimes drink a little wine, and the social group colleagues would take them to a street underworld boss's house to make tea. The tea table was made of a log of large red juniper, which was extremely grand, and the asking price was more than 300,000. The underworld boss solemnly brewed his own tea, moving slowly, using a teapot (a hundred thousand Taiwan dollars) that was said to be a famous teacher in Yixing to brew high-grade Lushan tea. He was about fifty years old, and he talked about things very calmly and gently, with white skin, not at all like a gangster, but like the calmness of a "godfather". According to the reporter's statement, Wanhua's black and white affairs on the ground were knocked out on this tea table.
Interestingly, after making tea, it was still early for dinner time, and we went to the local police station a street away to find the police to drink tea. Although the tea table is not high-grade juniper, it is also a small pot of slow brewing of the old man's tea, and the drink is Alishan tea.
According to the old reporter of the social group, as long as these two tables of tea are done, the black and white things of the ship will be completed. The sociology of sternness is such a thing.
Of course, a journalist also has many "unspoken rules" that must be learned, such as the principles and righteousness of being a journalist, the consideration of editors, the hidden edge of news headlines, and even the news writing secrets of new journalists, how to relieve the respondent's defenses, and how to use the technique of "curving pen" to present the truth, all of which are taught at such times.
This kind of learning is more of a kind of "transmission" in martial arts novels, and it is the "internal gong and mind method" that is transmitted, rather than those courses on campus. I once joked with my students that this is the "Institute of Journalism" and, of course, the "Doctoral Program in Sociology.".
The temple fair is the most important festival in Mengjia. (Courtesy of the author/image)
<h3>Institute of Human Nature</h3>
However, not only news, but also many places in Wanhua are "human nature research institutes".
Wanhua, which we all use to call the ancient name "Mengjia", is the oldest market in Taipei and has existed since the Qing Dynasty. As a transshipment port for the Tamsui River, it is responsible for the mountain goods, tea camphor, aquatic fish and fresh fish transported from the sea, and even the agricultural market in the south to the north. Since the Beginning of the Qing Dynasty, tea from Pinglin and Muzha has been transported from the mountains to Mengjia, and then transshipped to Tamsui Harbor, exported to Southeast Asia, and even New York.
The "water" of this land and water dock is very "deep".
The transaction is deep and wide, and the water and land docks are bound to be in the mix of dragons and snakes. Merchants communicate frequently, naturally there are various inns and restaurants, and there are wine banquets and prostitutes to help talk about business; the docks also need bodyguards and coolies, and all kinds of cheap snacks and diets should be born from time to time.
Everyone's survival is fundamental; every human desire is a good business.
And no matter how much desire there is, in the end, it is still life, old age, illness and death, the living should pray for blessings, the body should be healthy and safe, the business should be prosperous all over the world, and the deceased should rely on rest, so with the early migration of southern Fujian, it is the temple. Lungshan Temple, Qingshan Temple, Kiyomizu Rock Ancestral Master Temple, and Ximending Tianhou Temple are the four most famous temples. Crowds of people naturally gather outside the temple to form a market. No one can verify whether there were temples in the form of crowds in the first place, or whether there were markets because of the temples.
In front of Lungshan Temple, it is now a large square, which is reported by the media to be haunted by many homeless people and warblers, and before it was demolished, it was the oldest market. It is said that during the Qing Dynasty, they only built their own small sheds to make their own food, and later when more people gathered, they set up simple tin sheets on it to shelter from the wind and rain, forming a large snack area. Under the shed are famous food from all over Taiwan. Tainan Bowl Cake, Chiayi Chicken Rice, Tainan Louse Fish Porridge, Taichung Tube Rice Cake, Beef Soup, Pepper Cake, Hot Stir-fry and so on. In short, well-known snacks from all over Taiwan have come to this land and water dock to work hard and occupy a place.
There are cool laborers, there are mobile crowds, and naturally there are human needs. Huaxi Street, 500 meters away from Lungshan Temple, is the most well-known public prostitution hall, commonly known as "prostitute household". How many men who work hard in Taipei receive money every month and give themselves one or two chances to let the male's energy and happiness be enjoyed. At dusk, many young men who have left work, whether they are workers, students, office workers, or migrant workers, seem to be carrying a body of hormones, with a pair of hungry eyes, wandering in the dark alleys full of pink lights and fat, looking for physical and sensual satisfaction.
Throughout the dark alley, the lights are pink and filled with several flavors: the thick powder of prostitutes, cigarettes, alcohol, and the hormones of young men.
This is a public prostitution house in Taipei City, and prostitutes are licensed, so the police will not come to ban them. Of course, there are also many unlicensed women, some of whom are from the "hill tribes" who have tricked indigenous girls who have just graduated from high school into working in Taipei. Of course, they are illegal prostitutes, but they are hostages controlled by the underworld. There are also voluntary or deceived women who seek employment from the southern countryside and are also controlled by the underworld.
Public prostitution and private prostitution are inseparable, and legal and illegal are entangled, forming a special industrial chain. It was not until 1987, when women's groups and indigenous people were combined to hold a demonstration against the prostitutes, that the police forced the police to strengthen the crackdown. I still remember when I participated in the parade, most of the prostitutes in the whole of Huaxi Street (with legal licenses) had already emptied the brothels and taken a vacation to avoid the wind. The door was closed tightly, and there was a place where the gate was opened by chance, and only an empty shell was left for the marchers to take pictures. In the empty small room, I saw that the wall was written "air conditioning plus fifty yuan".
Because of the sex service industry on Huaxi Street, many sex-related industries have developed here, including traditional Chinese medicine, Western medicine, and proprietary medicine. There are also small clinics that specialize in "flower willow, syphilis, cauliflower, and venereal diseases", and no one knows whether they are qualified doctors or illegal secret doctors. It's not always a glorious thing to see such a doctor, so they're mostly hidden in deep alleys and alleys for guests to push the door and sneak in.
Of course, in order to enhance sexual ability, there are various dietary dishes such as food supplements, medicine supplements, and alcohol supplements, forming various small stalls. On the outskirts of Huaxi Street, you can find everything from goji berry wine, siwu soup, sesame oil chicken to medicinal stewed earth lice. The bustling supply is for men and women who are just about to enter or have just come out of Huaxi Street.
It was not until 1997 that Taipei City began to announce the abolition of public prostitution, which ensued in protests. Finally, it was decided to suspend implementation for two years. But sex workers knew that the hotel was closed and it was time to leave, so they left. The Pink Age on West China Street has officially entered history.
However, the sex industry scattered around the port is not over. There are still many prostitutes, warblers, tea houses, grandfather shops, karaoke accompaniments, wine snack bars, etc., according to the needs of customers, each looking for fun.
The new era of female workers come from all walks of life, with different postures, and since the introduction of foreign maids and foreign marriages, the exoticism has increased. They sometimes appear in the square in front of Longshan Temple, and blend with local nomads, homeless people, and tourists from all over the world who come to visit Longshan Temple, into a new era of scenery. Next to the old grass tea shop, there is a mix of new American coffee, almond tea not far away, there is a youthful hand-cranked tea drink. Mengjia, without changing the nature of its water and land docks, meets in all directions and gathers thousands of merchants.
<h3>The warmth of the old lover</h3>
Some of the stalls in The Port also preserve taiwanese traditional eating habits. The whole alley of the herbal tea and herb tea shop is typical. The herbs are different from each family, there is herbal tea in summer, go to the fire to cool off, blind to protect the liver; in winter there is ginger tea, cold and warm, solid stomach and strong body. The four seasons are sometimes cool and warm, and the Mengjia people have their own diet.
The most interesting thing is that it retains some very traditional snacks, such as almond tea, radish cake, sweet potato soup, etc. At some drinking food stalls, there are some specialties that are not easy to see elsewhere, such as hairy crabs. Hairy crabs are not special, as long as they are clean freshwater streams. Therefore, the stalls use this as a wine dish, whether it is hot and stir-fried, it is also delicious to eat. Photographer Guan Xiaorong and I both love seafood, and we used to go to the hairy crab stall in The Shipyard for two drinks after work.
One autumn, when the wind had begun to cool and the hairy crabs were starting to get fat, we drank wine at the stalls and ate them. Idle and bored, I looked around casually, but I saw an old gentleman of about eighty years old, carrying an umbrella, wearing a very formal suit, white top, blue tie, slowly pacing, walking through the side of the street, but not toward Huaxi Street.
I thought to myself, the old gentleman dressed so formally, walking in this old Qu Alley, like a declining nobleman, is such a lonely person, and this night market stall will not be a place for him to drink and stay, but he is very serious about walking through the long street in the autumn wind, where is he going? I just thought about it casually.
But I saw him slowly walk into an alley. The alley was about ten paces in, and there was a portal, and a middle-aged woman opened the door and stepped forward. The woman was wearing a thin floral dress, with a slightly fluttering hem, still in shape, and with long, neat hair, which also matched the tall old man. She came over, said nothing, just took his hand, the old suit and the flower dress together, walked slowly, step by step, into the apartment room in the alley, and closed the door.
At first I was surprised and amazed. I thought, this old man of this age, do you still have the strength to toss? What is their relationship? How to be like an old friend who has made an appointment? If eighty years old can still make an appointment with an old friend like this, it will be very admirable.
Later, I read in Márquez's novel "The Stranger" that an old prostitute, after retiring, dreamed of her own death, so I went to make an appointment for a cemetery, she had an old acquaintance, and one night a week she would regularly visit her and eat and chat together. The years have worn away the lust of their youth, and now what haunts them is a common memory. Because their mutual friends are dead, fewer and fewer people know about the revolutionary era, and there are not many people who can talk to them, and they all cherish such a meeting.
At this point, I remembered the old gentleman on the side of Wanhua Street and the woman who supported him. They must have some emotions that the world has never understood. When I was young, I always thought that the erotic industry of Maojia only had desire for flesh and wine, but I didn't know that in those dark alleys, there may be a warm background in the depths of human nature.
The reason why there are so many tea houses in Mengjia is that it of course sells both wine, as well as its customers and ways to make a living. Just like the square of Longshan Temple, there are many women dressed in cool and heavy makeup, they may be the so-called warblers, they are all a lesson of human nature. There is desire, there is a livelihood, there is trading, there is warmth. Human nature is so complex and entangled, who can understand?
Because of this, even in the twenty-first century, when the epidemic is prolonged, there is a Keelung Abel, who rides the interval train of the slow old bus every day (according to his age, it should already be free), spends the afternoon and night in the port, and does not return home until more than 10 o'clock in the evening. If it were not for the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Abel was checked by the police for contact with infected people, who would have found that his daily movements were so fixed? Who would have known that the sternwheele still has this old-school charm?
However, it is precisely this characteristic that on May 13, 2021, when Wanhua broke out of the new crown epidemic, I felt bad at the first time.
First of all, this is the north-south water and land dock, people come and go, the flow is frequent, and the spread is particularly fast. Second, the main flowers here are not visible and calculated numerically. They have many characteristics of an underground society. Sex workers tend to leave their homes to avoid encountering acquaintances, with women in the south heading north and women in the north heading south. When the economy changes, they will flow according to the tight or unhurried wind in various places. What's more, they are all illegal, keep secret, and can't be found on the table. Once on the move, no one can find it, whether they return home or go to a different place.
Another large group is homeless. Vagrants often move according to the time when the temple distributes relief supplies and the convenience of foraging for food, and if they do not have it, they may go to Taipei Main Station, Banqiao, Zhonghe, Yonghe, etc. See where you can find a small den for them to spend the night and forage for food.
What is more troublesome is that this is an old community, and the density of human exchanges is particularly high, taking care of each other and covering for each other. If the police really want to investigate, the old neighbors will take care of each other, and the real situation is difficult to understand. Otherwise, there would not be more than a thousand grandfather shops here, which have been operated underground for many years, and the police will be at peace.
Of course, in the most difficult plague times, the people here will also support each other, deliver food and clothing, and get through the difficulties together. The Taipei City Government's screening of Wanhua was soon launched, and although there were many infected people, they were quickly brought under control. Wanhua will slowly restore its calm.
Yang Du