Taipei, Taiwan (台灣，台北) – 2014/2015
Life is a mistake and that’s how I ended up in Taipei. There’s slightly more to it than that but we can fudge the numbers a bit here for the sake of attempted brevity. At least I had the foresight to bring my camera. Or maybe I just like photography. Maybe I just like carrying a camera so I have somewhere to put my hands and not feel awkward. Maybe I just like putting one more barrier between myself and the world.
Anyway, Taiwan is a independent nation in the east Asia-Pacific region. It is made up of one main island and some surrounding smaller islands in the nearby vicinity. It consists of a majority of ethnically Chinese people, followed by a small percentage of Taiwanese aboriginals. There are also significant populations from Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines who emigrate to do manual labor, clean or unwittingly become sex slaves for overworked Asian businessmen who have it all…except social skills.
Taiwan was previously ruled by Japan, which is very apparent in the cleanliness (at least in Taipei) and sense of order that is so odd, yet welcome after visiting other nearby countries populated by Chinese people (namely China, but not excluding Malaysia).
I’m sure none of you came here for a history lesson or my opinion, so let’s just look at some pictures.
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- My first Taiwanese taxi driver and his many redundant GPS gadgets competing for his attention…
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- Riding in the back of a taxi, trying to get a glimpse of my new home, Taipei, all the newness temporarily subduing my anxiety levels.
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- Confused and sweating my ass off near Da’an Park. I love getting lost and oriented in new cities.
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- Airbnb’n it in DingXi neighborhood. Probably looks like a shithole to most of us but behind the dirty garage doors was an actual nice house.
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- Tea time for sad bear who lies on his back in a reverse egg that cracked and cooked sunny-side up on the streets of a Taipei suburb.
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- A cat peers off a roof down at me and wonders why the hell people walk down on the ground. Ancient wavy clay tiles feel so much better on your paws, no gel insoles needed.
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- Just a lil street scene proving that all Asians aren’t skinny. I promise this wasn’t staged.
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- Trip to the very touristy Shilin Night Market with some friends so we could eat pig’s blood and look at penis-shaped cakes.
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- Aforementioned penis cakes and popcicles, some with yummy frosting oozing out. Go ahead, put one in your mouth; it’s fun for all ages…
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- Educated pople not litter here pls. Hello Kitty sticker let you know we’re serious.
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- My fascination with taking pictures on public transportation was enhanced tenfold here…I’ve got a thing for pink shoes I guess.
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- Outside the National Palace Museum, which houses artifacts taken from mainland China during the Chinese Civil War. Most of it was boring seemingly cryptic shit unless you know about Chinese culture. 0/5 Stars.
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- This is that hideous building that Taiwan is famous for, “Taipei 101”. It would be better if this building were built 101 stories underground instead, funneling all who entered it Earth’s magma-filled core for a pleasant ancient-Chinese inspired fusion death.
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- God love psychiatric clinics…that why he made us crazy…but don’t worry, God accept all insurances.
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- Taipei is full of faggots and queers and it’s one of the best cities in Asia because most people are perfectly okay with that. Massive pride parade in Taipei. We saw people from all over Asia in attendance.
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- Awesome turnout for the pride parade. I had never been to one before. It was nice to see people of all ages and colors being accepting (what is there really to accept…) and showing their support.
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- Taipei is a town for superheroes…the only problem is that there’s no crime.
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- My neighbors had these two plants on our roof. I talked to and saw more of them than my actual neighbors.
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- Great view of my neighbor’s front porch from my front porch. I think about one-third of the photos I took in Taipei were on my balcony. Lots of awesome natural light.
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- A middle school near my house. Observing all the students inside their mega-schools felt kind of creepy, but not for the reason you’d think.
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- The most modern of dishwashers in a vintage, retro-chic world. Colorful clean-up area with notes of lemon and appleberry.
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- I was taking a picture in this empty alley (for a series on alleys I am working on) and then this taxi driver honked at me and fucked it all up. He smiled and waved at me as I moved out of the way, seemingly taunting me about the difficulties of being an artist.
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- Constant improvement, smog byproduct graces our ant colony—who cares, we’re wealthy and they do this on television.
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- A very luxurious and beautiful (not really) housing complex on the outskirts or the city. Six of these nearly identical 20+ story buildings stood next to each other. There was a car parked in the overgrown field directly in front of them.
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- My office in Taipei; it doubled as a laundry room, storage closet and place to hang bags of oranges on the wall.
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- Happy Uncle sleeps shoeless in 7-11. He looks kind of like my landlord but less professional.
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- The view facing west from the roof of my apartment. I often try to look in other peoples’ windows to see how they live because it never really feels like I’m doing it right.
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- I love pussy so much. Usually at nights I just went out looking for pussies on top of things to photograph.
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- This street, Yongkang Jie, would be immensely populated by tourists during the day. After the famous restaurants shut, it quickly became a ghost town. This was one of my favorite times to wander around. Taipei is incredibly safe at night. The number one cause of injury/death after 21:00 is “unintentional pseudo-self assault”, namely “tripping on one’s own shoelace”.
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- A newly-developed species of tree designed to produce chlorophyll off of artificial fluorescent lights. After the fireman put the sun out to prevent global warming from taking over, all plants will be grown like this.
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- A woman glares in my direction, wary of my superior parenting vibes, while she carries her child like a paper bag of groceries. That’s an ancient Chinese poem I wrote.
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- I followed this guy (convenient because he happened to be headed the same direction I was) on my way home from a friend’s house. To be honest, I thought when I caught up to him I was going to get Jason Alexander’s autograph but unfortunately it was just some Taiwanese guy.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ll be back with some more photos from everywhere else in Taiwan soon.
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