Downtown Taipei — Dong Qu (東區)

One of the Taipei Metro line connects the 2 most prosperous downtowns: Xi Men Ting (West Door Section; west downtown) and Dong Qu (east downtown). Xi Men Ting is much older in Taipei’s development history, even though it’s mostly occupied by teenagers as far back as I can remember. It’s also mostly influenced by Japan (therefore the “Ting” in the name) and stores are fashioned after Japan’s.

Dong Qu is a different story. She didn’t get developed until late 80’s (I think), but now it’s the most developed and advanced area in Taiwan. All international exhibitions and big conferences are held here. International head quarters and stores are set here. The humongous Taipei 101 Tower, shapped like stacked Chinese takeout boxes (non-existing in Taiwan, BTW), is located here. The rich Taiwanese come here to dump their money in exchange for famous branded products. Buildings here tend to be giant and well-designed, roads are wide and smooth, food is pretty and expensive, cars are shinyand German-imported, and people are beautiful and well-polished. When I was a teenager, Dong Qu always seemed like another world to me, a world that allowed me to enter for sightseeing and sightseeing only. After years of travelling around the world, I can no longer sense Dong Qu’s magic. In fact, because it’s too much like the Western world I live, it bores me even. Now I only visit her great bookstores and not much more.

I went to the flagship store of Eslite Bookstores this afternoon, because it has much more books than its 24-hour one that I usually visit. (I was disappointed not being able to find my list of Japanese art books at their Japanese section.) Surprisingly, they are only 2 metro stops away from each other, but come to think of it, the other 3 stores that I visit occassionally are less than 1 metro stop away from one another. I guess that the dense population makes it possible.

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