加油加油！

An article definitely worth reading:

Reveling in the Real Taiwan

Enjoy!

More Clothing Options for Western and Plus Size Women in Taiwan

About a year and a half ago, Catherine wrote a great blog post on finding plus size clothes in Taipei with a link to an article she wrote on various options.

I want to add to that today with a find and in my next post, a suggestion. The find:

Best Buy
Taipei, Shilin District (Tianmu), Zhongshan N. Road Setion 6 #764
台北市士林區（天母）中山北路6段764號
(02)2876-8550

It’s on the east side of Zhongshan and a short walk south of International Square and the American School (as well as a short walk north of the Community Services Center and some other schools), right underneath where Whose Books used to be.
Basically, they sell American clothes that either fell off the truck, were slightly imperfect or were overstocked from American shopping malls. This means that:

1.) 80% of it is horrible – stuff you’d never wear, but…

2.) …the 20% you would wear is well worth searching for because it’s made to American body shapes. There is a men’s section but women will find this the most useful as our body types have much greater disparities.

In the USA I never had to shop in plus size stores, but I’m used to it here, because I do realize the size and body type differential here. My issue with the other plus size stores in Taiwan is that, while great to have around, they’re meant for plus-size Taiwanese women…which is fantastic, except I’m not a plus-size Taiwanese woman.

The clothing at H&L, MiniMe and 5XL is made in larger sizes, sure, but it’s made for women who are shorter, less curvy, straighter-hipped and smaller-chested and narrower-shouldered than Western women, meaning that while it all “fits” me around the waist, it doesn’t “fit” me in other ways – busts are too small, shoulders too narrow, hemlines too short – plus size Taiwanese girls are still not necessarily 5’8”! So yes, there are places to shop at if you are a US14, but they won't help much if you've got height and curves to match.

That, and the clothing often follows Taiwanese fashions, which are sometimes fine but sometimes…just not my style. I’m not into the “let’s add lace and some glittered English words that say things like “HAPPY LOVE!” and SEQUINS, oh we need SEQUINS and this top needs at least twelve more ruffles and puff sleeves and ooh, let's take this romper, stick some tights on it, add a few extra lapels, rough it up a bit and add some raggy bits of fabric hanging goodness-knows-where and a zipper that can't be used” look.

Best Buy, after you sift through the stuff you’d never purchase, has more American looks – there are horrid ruffled tops but there are also unadorned necklines, hems that are realistic for taller women, and a dearth of glitter.

They also sell interesting costume earrings and some cool scarves.

It also veers away from the all-too-common “this shapeless shift tunic fits you! You can buy it! It fits you!” (yeah, because it’s a sack that allows for absolutely no waist definition - thanks but no thanks).

Other choices where I've had luck:

Danee/SkinJoy 100% Silk

Locations all over Taipei - there's one on Changchun/Songjiang and one at Roosevelt/Jingmei MRT Exit 3.

Don't go here looking for high fashion - go here for soft pure silk cardigans, camisoles and blouses (they do sell skirts, pajamas, pants and other items as well) for work if you work in an officey environment or want to buy something in your size that is high-quality and comfortable - great for under-pajamas clothing in the cold winter months with no central heat, and great for basic button-down cardigan-style shirts for work and blouses to go under suit jackets.

Wuchang Street Market Indian Import Store

Ximen/Taipei Main area off Wuchang Street near Bo'ai Road

From Zhongshan Hall (Ximen/Hengyang Road) facing Bo'ai Road, turn left and you'll come to Wuchang Street - down past Ximending this turns into a cinema street, and closer to here you can find Taipei Snow King. Cross Bo'ai and follow Wuchang until you see the entrance of a small covered market. A little ways in and on the left is a small Indian import store (you can tell by all the bellydancing stuff). The racks here are laden with good finds for women of all sizes. I bought one of my favorite skirts here and another friend bought a cool, embroidered-collar rust-colored wrap shirt.

The Taiwan Shop

I'm not sure of the Chinese: 台灣(something)店

#6 Lane 76 Xinsheng S. Road Section 3

(02)23625799

That third character looks like 下 with a little roof like the one on 仝, and I can't find it even with the awesome handwriting feature on my iPod's Chinese dictionary.

But anyway - tucked in a lane off Xinsheng S. Road near Tai-da, this store sells everything to meet your pro-Taiwan, anti-China needs. Want a Taiwan passport cover to cover up your ROC passport (or any passport)? They've got that (above). Want the complete songs of the imprisoned A-bian on CD? They've got that too (below).

They've also got those old-school postcards that I love so much, decorated with old prints of Taiwanese cartoons, vintage product labels and ads, antique maps and posters.

Not from the store - this postcard is from my own collection from many sources, but this store sells similar ones.

You can also get your fill of pro-Taiwan and/or anti-China t-shirts:

You have to read the top ones in Taiwanese for them to make sense

It's also a great source of maps, toys and books - there's a very small English book section with titles such as Lee Tung-hui and the Democratization of Taiwan, A Chronology of 19th Century Writings on Formosa, Taiwan Is Not Chinese!, Taiwan's International Status, Travelers in Taiwan and Taiwan Agenda in the 21st Century. If you can read Chinese you can also pick up some great titles, such as Fault Lines on the Face of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great and Edible Wild Plants of Taiwan.

There are also aboriginal-style glass bead knickknacks, posters, a selection of Taiwanese movies (including Monga) on DVD and plush green pillows shaped like Taiwan that feature cartoon depictions of well-known DPP politicians.

Basically, it's your one-stop shop for all things obscure and patriotic!

Made in Taiwan...And Proudly So

In the not-too-distant past, I've seen several references to Taiwan's old reputation as the font of all consumer junk. You know, the way Taiwan used to be, with it's clogged skies and sooty factories, turning out cargo ships worth of Barbie dolls, second-rate microwaves and vacuum cleaners, cheap clothing and plastic items - basically all the stuff that's now Made in China, busy across the strait ensootening China's air.

There's this post on Regretsy: "Eventually. Hot Topic starts making their own version in Taiwan, and the circle of ****ery is complete".

There's this post, clearly confusing "Made in China" with "Made in Taiwan" - a recurring theme I saw when planning my wedding - people either praising or complaining about knock-off items "Made in China" or "Made in Taiwan". I've seen this on older forum posts, including in private forums (from which I don't feel comfortable taking quotes - if people prefer to keep their forum private I will respect that).

Here's the thing - all of us who've been to Taiwan, or even follow global economics, know that while you can still find consumer products Made in Taiwan, really, the vast majority of them are now Made in China, or Made in [Insert Southeast Asian Country/India/Bangladesh Here]. Taiwan's gone from making the world's cheap pens and plastic dolls to making the world's semiconductors, research and development heavy ODM computer products, high-end whiskey (I'm not sure it's as good as they say it is, though) and top-rate tea.

So...what is it with people back home still associating Taiwan with, well, cheap pens and that Dustvac they once had that broke after six uses? Is it that they're just not aware that little bits&bobs and shoddy electronics are no longer made here, or do they not care, or worst of all - do they think that Taiwan and China are basically the same place? Do they really think that all of their super-fancy computer products are made in the USA and that Taiwan is stuck with flashlights and knock-off handbags? Heck, the super-fancy computer products are often designed in Taiwan and yet, like your umbrella, also made in China (not always, though - some Taiwan design manufacturers do have Taiwan-based fabs).

I don't really have an answer to that, but wanted to comment on the phenomenon.

And yet...here in Taiwan I'm seeing a move in the opposite direction.

There are tons of indie designers here that are gaining a lot of local support, both for their talent and for the fact that they are Taiwan-based. The weekend market at the Red House Theater is packed, and a similar (but pricier) marketplace set up in a building at Kaohsiung's Pier 2 was equally crowded when we were there. I'm a big fan of the handmade soaps, locally-designed and made earrings and necklaces, reprinted vintage advertisement postcards and locally designed and printed postcards and notebooks to be found all about, as well.

I've also been hearing more and more, as my years in Taiwan march on, from friends and students that they purposely buy and prefer to spend their money on products Made in Taiwan - that rather than treat the label with derision, as many in the West still do, they treat it as a source of pride. As the quality of Taiwan-made products has increased quite a bit, this makes a lot of sense. If you look around, it's rarer to see "Made in Taiwan" stamped surreptitiously on the underside of something, a little half-embarrassed mark in plastic where it's hoped that nobody will catch a glimpse.

Now, you see it sewn right on the side of hiking boots (my old pair, which were worn through due not to lack of quality but simply how much I wore them, had just this label prominently displayed). You see it stamped on the front of food products in proud sans serif. You see it on stickers announcing that these batteries or that scarf were made not in a dodgy factory in China - which is fairly often run by a smarmy Taiwanese boss, but we won't go there today - but produced in Taiwan and therefore of superior quality.

I have students who always buy I-mei sweets ("guaranteed to be made in Taiwan", said one), who give their college-bound children, nieces and nephews Datong electric cooking pots ("it's kind of a tradition. Every college student has one. It would be so sad if they stopped making them"), purposely choose a Chimei TV even though other brands seem more prestigious, and are happy to say they own an Acer computer - which, while not as durable as the competition, do make up for it in price. The other day I was given an ice cream sandwich (probably I-mei, but I'm not sure) in class - they had hundreds of extras in their freezer, left over from a trade expo - with "MADE IN TAIWAN" printed in huge white letters in a black circle on the front.

"Made in Taiwan is a sign of quality," one student remarked, "although I'll buy imported products as long as they're not..." (shudder)..."made in China. Of course sometimes I can't avoid it, but I try."

I'm no social scientist, but I'm going to put my neck out there and say that this feels like a trend to me - just like the old "Made in the USA" or "Buy USA Made" hullaballoo back home.

I, for one, am happy to see it.

Taipei City Mall: Journey to the Bowels of Taipei

Hello Kitty men's (yes, men's) briefs on sale at Taipei City Mall

It's been cold and steely gray all weekend, so we decided to spend our Saturday wandering Taipei City Mall, a long two-aisle shopping extravaganza underneath Civic Boulevard. After writing up a few posts on Taipei Main Station, it made sense to follow up with a post about some of the things to see and do in that neighborhood.

It runs roughly from Chengde Road - if it's called Chengde Road that far south - to Yanping Road just north of Taipei Main Station, and is one of the key components of what locals call "車站後" or "Behind The Station".

Above ground, the area has changed both a lot and hardly at all in the past few years: the new Taipei Bus Station was plonked down in all its hulking glory recently, and include a chi-chi department store. Hoity-toity is clearly trying to make its way to this old area.

That said, the twisted lanes and alleys full of shops bursting with consumer goods - from gray acrylic aprons to silverware to lamb's leather and faux leather handbags - those are still there, creating a bit of a tangle of traffic and Made in China goodness all the way up to Nanjing Road. The entire Circus of Stuff reaches a peak at Chang'an Road, where shop after shop of seasonal plastic junk vies for your attention over the hanging drapes of LED fairy lights, blinking off into the distance. So winding are the roads here that the one clear four-corner intersection (of Chongqing and Chang'an, I believe) is called "Ten Intersection" (十字路口) because it looks like the Chinese number ten: 十.

Stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff

This is also the neighborhood where one finds DIY makeup and beauty care product stores (you'll find these along Tianshui Road - 天水街), DIY beading and jewelry making stores (those can be found down Yanping, to the far west along Chang'an and all the way up to Dihua Streets) and store after store of precious and semi-precious stones (along Chongqing between Nanjing and Civic).

For that matter, don't miss Jiayi Chicken Rice (嘉義雞肉飯) - actually turkey rice, I believe - along Chongqing Road near Chang'an. They're the best place to try this specialty of Jiayi city that I've found.

Below ground, where we hid out for most of yesterday, is a rough-around-the-edges, slightly downmarket shopping experience that, with its ratio of usefulness to classiness (low classiness, high usefulness, pretty much the opposite of the new Bellavita in Xinyi), reminds me of a down-at-heel suburban strip mall. You know, the ones with a Dollar Plus at one end, a Crazy Cal's Discount Liquor, a hardware store, a Cambio de Cheque and a Szechwan Panda Bamboo Palace. Not to mock any of it - it's all very useful stuff. When I lived in Arlington VA I did most of my errands at places like that.

Such is Taipei City Mall. One end has a dance bar and mirrors, and young'uns come here to practice their moves:

And the other has a whole setup of blind masseurs waiting to give you a backrub (NT$100 for ten minutes, and they do a good job).

In between, you can find stores full of beads and semiprecious gems, stores that sell inexpensively made Old Chinese Lady clothing, shops selling tea items, things to hit yourself with (paddles with magnets, brushes made of semi-stiff bamboo sticks, plastic balls with spikes: there is an amazing array of stuff you can beat yourself up with in the name of "improved blood circulation" available in Taipei), about seventy kajillion toy stores, a few Indonesian restaurants and other shops and an assortment of Random.

Back to the Old Chinese Lady clothing: which I totally wear because it's made for sizes that fit older women, not young stick insects, and I rather like Chinese clothing as old-timey as it may make me look (which is totally fine because as a foreigner I get to bend the fashion rules).

Someday I'll take a picture of my Crazy Obasan Jacket and post it here: a jacket I wear to work sometimes made of shiny blue-green fabric embroidered with purple and pink flowers and green vines and trimmed with blue and purple sequins all the way up and around the Mandarin collar, with frog buttons down the front. It's super awesomepants.

Old Chinese Lady Clothing - Love it!

And here are some assortments of Random for you. I am not sure what Maiden School teaches, though it seems to be something like an etiquette school for girls. Below that, the Tea Shop Post Office. Get some Bubble Tea and send your letters, all in one stop!

The Tea Shop Post Office

A great deal of the toys on sale are definitely not for children:

When I first moved to Taiwan, I knew guns were illegal for all but military and police officers (of course that doesn't stop certain unsavory elements from obtaining them). I kept seeing these stores, though, and wondering how guns could be sold so openly if they were illegal - even in the USA I've never seen a gun shop like this, and I've been to Texas! I've taken a road trip through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia and never seen such a display of firearms for passerby to notice.

Of course, these are toy guns - they shoot BBs and are exceedingly popular among Taiwan's adult male set. There are entire BB gun shooting ranges where Taiwanese men go to...shoot things with BBs.

The mall has a fairly good selection of food - from tea stalls to full restaurants that look like they serve some tasty meals. There are two Indonesian places - we tried the one at the far end across from M Toko Indo Indonesian grocery, but there's also a place called Nanyang (南洋) that is supposed to be quite good. Both serve decent downmarket Indonesian food - the sort of thing you'd get at a hole-in-the-wall in rural Sumatra. Both places and the grocery are on the western end of the mall.

For more upmarket, take-your-date-there, downtown Jakarta fare, try Milano on Pucheng Street in Shi-da (I'll write a review of it later).

And all down the long corridors, benches are set out where you can find all manner of random people sitting, snacking and relaxing.

Like this guy.

All in all, not a bad place to spend a rainy, overcast day - and I picked up more beading supplies, too!

Large Size Shoes For Women!!!11!!!!1

!!!!!11!!!!!!!11111!!!111

(Yes, this is that big of a deal. I had to break out the "1"s.)

Shu Flies already covered this in her post about plus-size stores in Taipei, but I didn't want to post about it until I'd checked it out personally.

Sandy Ho Shoes

#68 Zhongshan N. Road Section 1, Zhongshan District, Taipei

台北市中山區中山北路1段60號

#100 Nanjing E. Road Section 4 Songshan District, Taipei

台北市松山區南京東路4段100號

#336 Zhongshan N. Road Section 6, Shilin District, Taipei (Tianmu, near Whose Books, The Community Services Center and Best Buy clothing, a bit south of International Square)

台北市士林區中山北路6段336號（天母）

#100 Meicun Road Section 1, West District, Taizhong

台中市西區美村路1段100號

#71 Ximen Road Sec. 2 Zhongxi (Middle West) District, Tainan

台南市中西區西門路2段71號

#342 Zhonghua W. Road Qianjin District Kaohsiung

高雄前金區中華西路324號

#165 Wufu 1st Road Lingya District Kaohsiung

高雄苓雅區五褔一路165號

#289 Minsheng Road, Pingdong City

屏東市民生路289號

Or you can browse here. They're also mentioned here in a great article about larger-sized clothing stores for women in Taiwan. (As a curvy Western woman who has to shop in these stores, I do intend to put a review of them up later).

Sandy Ho has three locations in Taipei, one in Taizhong, one in Tainan, two in Kaohsiung and one in Pingdong City. Her stores aren't large but carry a fair selection of women's dress shoes in all sizes - some were even too big for me (that has honestly never happened before). I even met a Taiwanese girl who has to leave the country once a year to buy shoes, or at least she did until she found Sandy's store. As the first Taiwanese girl I've ever met who has feet that are actually bigger than mine (I wear a US 10 - it's hard to find nice shoes in a US 10 in the USA), I greeted her quite enthusiastically. "我很，真，這麼那麼高興見到妳啦！"

Most of her shoes are in the $60 US range, which for shoes of fairly good quality, I am OK with. If she's only got a few left of any one style, it goes on sale - I got one pair for NT $600.

The important thing is that they're dress shoes. I can get effeminate men's running shoes that could easily pass for women's sneakers here. I wear flip-flops or Birkenstocks (or even Tevas) as sandals, so those are easy to find in men's sizes. I have a pair of Grandma-tacular Obasan local-style cloth shoes (the quilted ones with rubber soles) in black for comfy days when I don't care how trendy I look - not that it matters as I wear boot-cut jeans.

But I do have a job that requires me to work in many different offices in Taipei and Xinzhu (not that my Xinzhu clients care one jot what shoes I wear: they're engineers. The best engineers in the country. They wear jeans and spectacularly unfashionable shirts every day). My finance/banking clients, however, probably do notice.

I posted a question about just this thing on Forumosa - "Where can I get large-size women's dress shoes" and I got a bunch of crap back that told me the following:

- where to get large-sized men's shoes

- where to get sneakers / running shoes / sandals that women can wear (because you know most foreigners here are either students or work in some kid's school where it doesn't matter)

- that I have to go abroad - "oh, go to Thailand and have someone make them for you" - as if. The whole point was asking where to get shoes domestically.

...all of which was ridiculously unhelpful.

So yes, I am very excited about the discovery of Sandy Ho's business. Not all of her shoes are to my taste (there are a few designer-style disasters like the plaid upholstered heels and lots of shoes with blingy crap on them, and some '80s monstrosities) but quite a few suited me perfectly. They had a fine selection of office shoes, flats, kitten heels, low heels ("court heels" apparently) and high heels. They even carried sizes too big for me to wear.

I am happy that their selection of flats was so good: a lot of companies in Taiwan erroneously believe that high heels are mandatory office wear for females, which is of course utter bollocks, to borrow a phrase from the British.

So, hooray for Sandy, and all you foreign females out there, give her your business!

Things You Never Knew Until You Looked

We decided to spend the day - sun! Finally! - lolling about Dihua Street and looking at the puppetry (bu dai xi) museum one block over (coming from Nanjing E. Road, turn left at Xiahai temple on Dihua and it's at the end of the lane on the right).

Afterwards we got shaved ice at the old-skool place under the old Dihua market facade; the famous one with only three flavors of ice - red bean, green bean and almond - and coffee around the corner. That's when I noticed that the ugly newer building behind the old market facade had businesses in it! I'd assumed it was closed because the only other time I looked, it seemed abandoned.

The only market I knew about was the fairly small one that doesn't seem to be connected to this one, also with lots of fabric vendors, but including fruit, meat and religious item stores as well.

It's not abandoned - the inside is a massive fabric, clothing making, alterations and clothing accessory/bead/feather/ribbon/string market. You can buy any cloth imaginable - from silver tutu fluff to elaborate Chinese silk to fake black fur with white fur hearts on it to old-fashioned floral-print cottons. You can get the cloth made into almost anything, or get old clothes altered or repaired.

And to think - I used to believe that the best way to shop for fabric at Dihua Street (well-known among locals and in guidebooks as a mecca for cloth) was to go into each separate store and vet their inventory!