Taipei, Wanhua Neighborhood

While in Taipei, I visited one of the original neighborhoods on the Tamshui river, Wanhua. This was the heart of Taipei even before Japanese time, developed during the Qing Dynasty. The neighborhood has had a bad reputation for the gangsters that controlled it in the 1950's until recently. That Wanhua is the setting for a new movie called Monga. This big billboard was in the heart of the Wanhua neighborhood. The current residents don't like the attention the movie brings up about the violent past of their neighborhood.



















The City of Taipei has revitalized a city block of the old Wanhua neighborhood to show what it must have been like before WWII. It traces the origins of Taipei from when it was just a small trading town on the river to the current 2-3 million people.



















There are displays about what Taipei was like long ago when it exported tea and ginseng. I saw a bag of tea for export in which it says "black tea" in English and "red tea" in Chinese characters. So this difference is at least 100 years old. The dried leaves do look black, but the brewed tea is definitely red.



















And when foot binding was part of being an upper class Chinese women.


















As part of the revitalization there is fountain system with a 5 minute display that cycles, here is a small portion of it.