View of Taipei 101 from Shangri-La’s Far Eastern Plaza Hotel
I leave a Taipei on the cusp of change. Yesterday I spent a day wandering the streets, popping into cafes, eating at roadside stalls, and exploring the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, the enclave for Taiwanese artists.
While I was doing that, the people of Taipei were voting. Their decision, in which they have voted out the incumbent party, is a resounding call for change, and the implications are enormous for this country that’s always been on the knife edge of relations with China.
It also has enormous implications for the rest of Asia, where from country to country, the region is seeing a massive social change as a younger generation wakes up to their heritage and rights.
It also has enormous implications for tourism. This is the new generation of consumers – mobile, engaged and empowered. Technology has not only given them the tools for change but a bigger world view and a different mindset from their parents’ generation.
They will travel differently from the previous generation.
I sense Taipei’s role within Asia is set for change. From a manufacturer of hardware, it will emerge as a soft power. Its influence will be increasingly felt through its tourism, service, creativity, entertainment and the arts.
The attitude towards service in Taiwan is exemplary. There is a genuine desire to be of service. I saw that in the staff at Shangri-La’s Far Eastern Plaza Hotel and almost everywhere I went, from traditional restaurants to spas to taxis.
Walk around Taipei and you will see an amazing outpouring of creativity and individual expression in its cafes, shops and hotels.
Songshan Cultural & Creative Park: An enclave for Taiwanese artists
George Dai of Taipei Inn Group, which opened the first design boutique hotel in Taipei, Ambience, 10 years ago tells me there are two to three independent hotels opening a week now that tourism is so hot.
His group, a collection of 10 properties including the budget City Inn brand, is an eclectic mix of hotels, all centered around design and the arts. Lobbies are showcases for young Taiwanese artists to display and sell their work.
Sure, there are lots of “me too” establishments but the spirit of entrepreneurship is being channeled into areas beyond real estate. Youths have no access to that anyway as it’s all been sewn up by the “landlords” – same story in Taipei as it is in Singapore or Penang.
Frog Cafe: Nature-inspired theme and the scones are recommended
At the Frog Café in Yongle, an upcoming district that’s being gentrified, a group of youths have opened a business that gives them an outlet for free expression of their aspirations and interests. One of them wears a T-shirt that says, “F… the government.” Their shop sells art and craft that’s nature-inspired. And would you believe it, their scones are simply delicious.
Young people in Taipei are expressing themselves in different ways.
A global world enables such moments of surprises to be created. Who would have expected scones, so traditionally English, to be made so well by young Taiwanese?
Of course, aspiration can sometimes lead to pretension in any society – there’s a thin line between gentrification and petrification in my book – but you sense a sincere desire to keep it real.
Tan-Chi Hsieh, typical of a young Taiwanese girl who’s returned to Taipei after finding a job that suits her with Expedia Taiwan, told me, as we were enjoying ourselves over an eclectic feast of bagels, radish cake and latte, that this was like “a moment of secured happiness” (literally translated from Mandarin).
“Since we can’t afford the big things like our own apartment or economic growth, we must learn to be happy with our ‘moments of secured happiness’,” she said.
She explained that this means creating little pockets of happiness around friends and family and not be too caught up with economic growth and monetary things.
I like the new Taipei.
