Taiwan: The Allure of Night Markets · Global Voices
I-fan Lin

After sunset in Taiwan, when the stars start to twinkle, night markets are crowded with people from all walks of life. To Taiwanese, night markets are more than mere eating places. In a traditional night market, people eat, shop, and play games at the same time. Taiwanese love night markets, and now the culture of the night market has become a distinctive and precious touristic experience for foreigners visiting Taiwan.
Grace, a Taiwanese in New York City, writes about a visit to Taiwan:
My friends were asking me what I was going to do when I got to Taiwan…knowing my family, I knew we were going to drop off our bags and head straight to the night markets.
However, once upon a time, the “night markets” were much less famous than the “morning markets”. Liang-Lu Han explains:
早晨拜廟之餘再祭祭自己的五臟廟就成了廟口早市的起源。早市因廟口而起，但夜市則依菜市場和交通要道而生…早市的城市性格是農業社會的，日出而作、日落而息，但夜市卻代表了城市的工商業性格，離開土地、家園進入工廠、異鄉的人們，在傍晚之後在都市的街道尋找食物、商品的刺激與慰藉。
Night markets keep evolving alongside with the Taiwanese society. A Japanese traveler was amazed by the efficiency of the vendor in the night market:
神業としか思えない包み作業に見入っていると、待ち時間もあっという間サ～。
20人待ちぐらいで10分待ったかな？
番号札もらってあまりの待ち人数に「ゲェッッッ！？」と思っても、次々と出来上がるので心配ご無用。
While every Taiwanese loves night markets, the idea of a good night market differs and can be conflicting. Recently, the Tourism Bureau held a nationwide night market competition. According to the event spokeswoman:
The competition aims to select (the night markets) that are the cleanest, the most friendly to foreign visitors, the most interesting, the easiest to stroll through and the richest in culinary diversity.
On the other hand, some people prefer to preserve local culture and do not agree with the evaluation based on these “international standards”. Chensumi says:
找美食菁英來評比夜市，就好像辦部落格文學獎一樣，夜市之所以存在的理由，就是「不需要被美食菁英指指點點就可以靠底層生命力活得好好的」。
逛夜市的目的是什麼？就是去擠啊，去吃熱量很高又不健康的比臉孔大的炸雞排啊，吃廉價的豪邁的又會滋滋響的鐵板牛排啊…何況還可以撈金魚打彈珠…你永遠記得禮拜幾晚上，那片空地突然亮起燈泡，穿著拖鞋短褲就可以去吃東西，去玩耍，去看有趣的歐吉桑拍賣喊價。
The fried chicken that is bigger than the girl's face. Photo courtesy of koadmonkee under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Chensumi’s article about night markets has attracted a lot of enthusiastic discussions in the comment section. Some people argued that it is not fair to ask the night markets to be as spacious and clean as a restaurant. Maggie said:
我家附近的某塊空地，去年租給許多小攤過來擺夜市，非常空曠，完全不會人擠人，所以不到六個月就全部撤攤。該位美食專家應該很難體會到「人擠人」對於商家的重要性吧。
Shilin Night Market. Photo courtesy of koadmonkee under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Little babe said:
很多人都提到夜市有髒亂的情形 (人多的地方哪一個不髒?). 但是辦完夜市後呢?還是髒嗎,這就不盡然了吧! 大部分的攤販在營業結束後, 都會清理自己的營業範圍, 隔天去看並不會有髒亂的感覺.
Stanley talked about how the night market in his hometown changed after becoming a “tourist night market”:
夜市變成了”觀光夜市”後, 雖然這樣可以帶動經濟繁榮, 但相對的在地的味道就會少了很多, 在地人對那個夜市永遠就只能變成回憶了.
Old pinball game. Photo courtesy of chia ying Yang under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
What will the future night markets look like? Miesiao said:
政府介入其實是因為那些夜市店家也很愛期待政府做事,有商機…但這些觀光化的目標應該還是國外旅客,或許可以想更多觀光化的手段,而是不是害怕觀光化…
For example, Joe has pointed out that we should discover the distinctive character for each night market:
我喜歡夜市的美食，卻也討厭各地的夜市都長得一個樣子。我覺得，人有不同的樣子，風景有不同的樣子，狗狗有不同的樣子，怎麼夜市卻都同一個樣子呢？其實，更仔細的品味，也許我會發現每一個夜市不同的樣子，不同的個性。
Recently, to catch the wave of smart phones, the most famous night market in Taiwan (especially amongst foreigners), the Shilin night market, has an iPhone app now.
Writer's note: Thank you to Portnoy for providing some of the information and Tomomi for helping with the Japanese translation.