The Night Market in Kaohsiung

As I used my eighteen month old son as a battering ram it suddenly hit me that an evening out at the night market can be quite entertaining! I used to get angry as rude eaters with blinkers on and betel nut stains on their chins rush past to get a seat at the one eyed bandits but now I see it differently. The mayhem and the crush, the shouting and the heat all combine to produce an occurrence that can happen nowhere else in the world, yet here in Taiwan it is a nightly event!

Night Markets are everywhere in Taiwan and cater to about everything from doughnuts disguised cleverly as pancakes to the latest in mobile technology and they are at their best between 8pm to 11pm!

We normally rock up at about 8 'clock, just when the traffic jams start to produce serious cases of road rage with boxed in moped drivers feeling the heat and when the local Buddhist beggar sets up shop in the middle of the main entrance! Most people eat first, balancing precariously on a myriad of stools, three legs to spilt level it matters not, and the food stalls make brisk trade! Best not to get too close as it is well known that the Taiwanese loose sight of reality when faced with food; "do not get between a man and his noodles"!

Soup, noodles, fried chicken legs, wings or feet, green leaf filled omelets, rice, squid balls or dumplings! The smells permeate the air thickly; standing room only and spilt dishes and leftovers are shuffled and trampled without remorse, the mess ending up underneath tables and stools for lack of anywhere else to go! Hot oil splatters over a young kid but his yelps go unnoticed and he is pushed aside by an eager business man and his wife who shout their orders whilst mowing down like skittles those waiting for their orders to be filled.

There is a crisis at the drinks stall; the jelly for the milk teas has run out but not to worry! In short order the new stock arrives, balanced precariously on the back seat of a moped driven by an eighty-year old, wizened man who wields his machine with less skill than a three year old test driving a Harley! The night's revelers are abruptly pushed aside as the mopeds handlebars, the hot exhaust and the drivers nobly knees and feet make jabs at anything in reach! Yet somehow the unlashed crate that is swaying precariously manages to reach its destination and in a cloud of un-burnt fuel and enough revving and noise to make any mechanic cry the moped moves on leaving mayhem in its wake!

Three or so rows of stalls cater to this food circus and once the eaters have sated themselves the next step is to shop, till you drop! Night markets are most famous for their cheap gadgetry and 'stuff'. To draw a picture: After an evening at the night market the family goes home to sleep. The next morning dad gets up and decides to fix the bathroom tap! Taking out the new spanner he purchased last night he puts it on the nut but whoops………it bends like putty! Meanwhile mummy is in the kitchen trying to work out how to get her hand into a new pair of rubber gloves with only three fingers on them whilst her daughter is crying because the head has just fallen off her new doll! Upstairs Grandma is upset because her new socks need darning already and the eldest daughter is wandering why the handle fell off her new handbag when she dropped the first change into it!, In the back garden grandpas confused because the shears refuse to cut the grass and the son is wandering why his new piggy bank has no hole in it!

Despite the cheapness of the goods and often the poor quality available people seem to buy and from stalls selling one-time-wear clothing to lackluster earrings (the thin shine long since having worn off) brisk trade is done in a happy and vigorous manner!

An interesting feature of all night markets is the set-up! Imagine a large car park; a stretch of concrete if you will with not much else on it apart from a stray dog and a car with no wheels! In quick order the stalls will come; collapsible tables, tarpaulins with frame and gaily colored table cloths to hid the stains and years of abuse! Behind the tables a plywood frame will be erected to set boundaries and to hang ones wares on and to connect everything up to 'light' a myriad of wires will run higgledy-piggledy, every which way but loose! These wires don't seem to have any order, one stall will have power and another stall across the road will run a cable from them across the aisle that people will walk on! Further up a suspiciously similar looking cable will traverse the other way, another one hangs overhead to provide light from above and one running up to run the ice-cream machine! A British Electrical inspector would either rub his hands in glee for the work involved or have an immediate heart attack!

There is the food, the shopping and last but not least we have the entertainment! Three rows of food, seven rows of stalls and at the end and around and about will be another three or four rows of combined fried-chicken vendors, basket-ball throwing machines, tea dispensers and "come-on now, last chance to win a bottle of champagne"!

To have got this far without eating or buying too much is a feat in itself, but here it is time to throw rings wildly, catch fish and to eat again like there is no tomorrow! And at ten O'clock it is time to crawl home with bags full of cheap trinkets won and a drink or two of lemon mixed with yacult and a couple of squid balls!