Taiwanese Town in LA

Taiwanese? Young? Hip? Pocket full of cash? LA has the place for you:

Just before 11 on a Friday night, the Dream's parking lot is half-empty. Yet a few moments later, as if triggered by some hidden signal, baby Mercedeses and Lexuses, BMWs and tricked-out Hondas stream in, disgorging men with spiky hair and women in jeans, mid-calf boots and revealing tops. In a matter of 15 minutes, the lot is nearly full.

Inside, a bartender in a black jacket embroidered with dragons pours a drink into a funnel-shaped glass and lights it on fire. As his friends clap and chant in a mixture of English and Mandarin — "Suck! Suck! Kuai! Kuai! [Fast! Fast!]" — a man with a shaved head downs the flaming concoction through a straw and backs away triumphantly.

Some of the waitresses wear brightly colored cheongsams that barely cover their rear ends. Knots of twentysomethings gather around low-lying tables, where bottles of Grey Goose ($160 each) and Johnnie Walker ($150 for Black Label) are standard orders. "Are you ready to dance?" the DJ cries out in English.

Until a year and a half or so ago, this area along the 60 Freeway — Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights, Industry — was known primarily as a bedroom community for immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and as a second Chinese food capital behind much-celebrated Monterey Park and San Gabriel. The residents spent their off-hours helping the kids with homework, not imbibing at watering holes. But all that is beginning to change.

For the first time, the Los Angeles area has a concentration of stylish clubs and pubs where Mandarin is the principal language. Though it's just in its infancy, it is drawing a good local crowd as well as out-of-town celebrities — namely, Taiwanese actors and pop singers. But that doesn't mean the scene is completely closed to non-Asian barhoppers: They're more likely than not to find new friends here.

[Taiwan]

LAX There and Gone

Flew to LA this week on business, back to America, that strange country where, if you pay someone to have sex in a public place, video it, and slap a name on it, it's called porn and it's perfectly legal, but if you pay someone to have sex in private, and don't film it, it's called prostitution and it's completely illegal. And to think economists treat humans as rational choice makers.....

I spent the week hanging out in Westwood, near the Hammer Museum and UCLA. Everything was so...orderly. I noticed after a few hours of walking around that the only person jaywalking was me. Not a vendor in sight. Everyone stopped at the red lights. All the pedestrians were on the sidewalks. No cops out directing traffic -- I even saw a police car make a stop on a moving violation -- three times! And it was spotlessly clean. It was like I was in another country or something. Culture shock. I found myself looking for people speaking Chinese so I could feel comfortable again....

I actually visited the Hammer Museum, where I saw Moreau's Salome Dancing Before Herod and fell madly in love, like the time I saw my first Jun ware or heard my first Pink Floyd song. I wasn't all that impressed with some of the other works, especially the contemporary stuff, but the two Moreau pieces there make everything worthwhile, and the photography was wonderful. If you're in the area, it's definitely worth a stop. Went down to Ocean Blvd and walked around the expensive shopping areas there. Realized I'm so dated; I still think game store means a place where you can buy D&D stuff or Third Reich, not Xbox and PC games.

I meant some wonderful people and had some very interesting experiences, but the funniest Taiwan-related experience was actually the ride back to the airport. There I met a taxi driver from Ghana, who turned out to have been a factory laborer in Chungli between 1988 and 1992. He still remembered all the political stuff too, knew his Hau Pei-tsun from his Lee Tung-hui, and recalled his employers with great fondness. He was really a kick.

Anyway, apologies for the long blogging hiatus. I'm hoping to get my website back on line soon, and get to work on the long list of posts I have in draft.

[Taiwan]