Furniture Care, Haggling, Language and More

Bill Thayer comments on yesterday's post from Les Duffin and also talks about haggling, learning Taiwanese and other things:

Les and Don, we also purchased a number of furniture from Ricardo Lynn, the store that Les mentioned on the traffic circle in Shih Lin. We have had very little problem with cracking. The main problem that we have experienced was the glued pieces becoming unglued. I think this problem may have resulted from several factors such as the wood drying and becoming smaller and the use of inferior wood glues. I have been able to fix these problems, for the most part, with American carpenter's or wood glues, which when dry last virtually forever.

The other thing that my wife and I practiced in Taiwan had to do with what we called, at that time, the "two price" method of retailers. That is to say that there was one price for indigenous people and a higher price for foreigners. To offset this assumed methodology, we would shop and decide what we wanted, leave and my wife who is Taiwanese would later return alone and make the purchase. We also used this approach when we had visitors such as those who came TDY/TAD and we took shopping.

Having made many return trips to Taiwan since mid-1970's the latest of which was two years ago, the "two price" method has been greatly reduced and practically eliminated in the larger urban areas such as Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. However, it is still practiced in rural areas and among certain small street vendors and retailers who do not put price labels on the items they sell. I attribute the diminuition of this practice perhaps to the increased presence of foreign owned businesses such as the large Japanese owned department stores like Mitsukoshi and Sogo and American owned businesses or franchises such as McDonalds, 7-Eleven, Starbucks, etc.

It also helped that I spoke and understood to a degree the Taiwanese (Amoy) dialect. In the early 1960's, I was stationed at Linkou. One day, I was shopping at the Catholic bookstore in Taipei and happened upon two English-language lesson books for Taiwanese published by the Maryknoll fathers in Taichung. So I started learning the Taiwanese dialect, mainly so I could ask my wife's mother who only spoke Taiwanese and Japanese for her daughter's hand in marriage. When I finally became sufficiently proficient and acquired enough courage to pose the question, her response was a resounding and emphatic "NO". Well, anyway over time my wife's family was sufficiently impressed that I had learned some Taiwanese, they finally consented or maybe acquiesced.

Anyway, back to the Taiwanese lesson books. About ten years ago, I visited the Maryknoll language school in Taichung and a priest gave me a tour, including their bookstore. Maryknoll priests are headquartered in upstate New York, but they developed their own phonetic system for the Amoy dialect. Maryknoll priests who are assigned to parishes or missionary work in Taiwan, Singapore or Fujian province attend the school to learn the Amoy dialect. Since I purchased my first books back in the early 1960's, the Maryknoll language school has come up with a vast array of teaching materials, including CD's and English-Taiwanese and Taiwanese-English dictionaries, and greatly enhanced lesson books of more advanced Taiwanese dialect. The language school is located on the grounds of a Catholic church on San Min Lu in Taichung.

Taiwanese, by the way, is more difficult to learn to speak and understand than Mandarin, simply because there are more tones. but not as many as in Cantonese or Shanghainese. It is also made more difficult, because of the lack of written learning and teaching materials, which until the mid to late 1990's resulted in the enforced learning of Mandarin.

Larry Fields Memories

One of the purposes of this blog is to provide a platform for others to talk about their assignments in Taiwan.  I recently heard from Larry Fields, who was with US Army Stratcom Taiwan from 1977 to 1979.  Though he wasn't assigned to USTDC, many of his memories are familiar to those of us who were.

We arrived in Taiwan on 12/09/1977 and I was one of the last USAStratcom members to be assigned to the island (maybe even the last one).  We stayed in a guest house located outside the back gate of the West Compound.  It was a nice enough place but I was glad to get into a house.

We moved into our house on Super Bowl Sunday (Monday in Taiwan) when the Broncos played Dallas and lost 27-10.  I had a small radio that I unpacked first thing so I could listen to the game while we unpacked (I was a Denver fan, and I ended up living here in Denver for the last 28 years).

We lived in Tien Mou , originally in the old BOT housing that was off of the circle at the end of Chungshan Bei Lu.  I’ve seen some pictures of an older house called the “White House” in Tien Mou and that may be the house I lived in.  It was in that area across the street from an orphanage.  We lived there for about 6 months then moved to the newer BOT housing that was down by the movie theater and ball fields, where the new Taipei American School is now.

We went through one major typhoon while we were there.  I had to drive up to work, stayed for about 30 minutes, then they told us to go home.  I had to give another member a ride down to the compound, and on my way home a lot of the streets were flooded so it took me a while to wind my way around the streets.

We also had earthquakes, one that did a lot of damage.  If I remember right, it killed six or seven people.  A new building being constructed by my house caught fire and was burned pretty badly. I don’t remember if it collapsed or not. Earthquakes were a way of life there as we all know.

We had a couple of Amahs; I still have pictures of them, but over the years we lost contact with them.

Like a lot of others I stocked up on teakwood furniture (some that I still have), some

rattan furniture, lots of fishbone carvings (still have those too), some marble pieces, and some pottery from Kinmen (which I think you could only get at certain times from one place in Tien Mou).  The fishbone we got from a Chinese guy who was mute, but would deal with you by writing everything down on a tablet.  He rode around on his motorcycle and would stop by the house about once a month.

My favorite place to eat was the old Tien Mou BBQ.  We also used to eat at a BBQ place across from the China Seas club, but after one of the floods the food started tasting bad so we quit going there.

We did spend a lot of time at the China seas, where my wife dealt with a lot of the locals exchanging money and stuff for the slot room. Caught a couple of good shows there, but mostly hung out and played pool, watched TV or played the slots.

There wasn't much TV:  Donnie and Marie show, Starsky and Hutch and Baa Baa Black Sheep (played on Thursday nights and I never missed an episode).  There was a movie in English on Saturdays and I think two on Sundays, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. We also started watching a reality type show from New Zealand and a Chinese talent show (that we actually started understanding).

Chop men would stop by the house every Saturday. We had my oldest son trained to

Say “Nothing to chop.”  I sold a nice refrigerator, some stereo gear, and miscellaneous stuff to the chop men before we left.

I worked at US Army Stratcom.  I worked shifts for a while then got assigned to quality control team.  I flew to a missile site down-island where we climbed up on the MW tower and could see the mainland.   We got fogged in and had to drive back -- 45 minute flight up, 11 hour drive back. We did get to see a lot of the island.

I made a trip to CCK Air Base to do QC testing and got to spend three or four days there. Dave Wyandt and I went down.  We had a great time, since work only lasted three or four hours a day and the rest was play time.

I did a little work in downtown Taipei (where the main switch was) and at Seven Star Mountain. I was supposed to go out to one of the islands, where at one time there was a communications site.  As they were making the arrangements for me, there was a shelling of the island and everything was destroyed so I ended up not going (which was a good thing).

I also got trained as a customs agent, and when someone would leave the island I’d go out and inspect the outbound shipment.  I think I did this four or five times.

I attended the University of Maryland Taipei campus.  I became friends with some local Chinese
students who attended classes, one of whom eventually married Chiang Hsiao-wu, Chaing Kai-sheks grandson.  I still have some of the grade slips and some of the Instructors' names. One of the instructors was Ellen Klossen whose husband at the time worked at the American Consulate.   In the last few years I’ve been able to get in touch with a couple of them, thanks to the internet.

I played softball  on the Grass Mountain team for one of the seasons then got to play on the TDC team.  I didn’t play much; mostly coached first base.  After the Carter announcement, we regularly had softball games against the Chinese unit stationed at the compound. We shared gloves and bats and had a very good time with all of them. They were very professional in every way.

I golfed at Peitou.  The course was across from a military base and once in awhile they would

fire off  a cannon. There was also one hole that you hit across a wide ravine.  The first time I played it I thought I hit a good shot but it went about halfway over then straight down.  I didn’t try to find my ball.  You couldn’t go out of bounds either because of snakes etc.   The last hole had a big rock in the middle so you had to go to one side or the other.  I think I bounced a few shots off of that rock.

I drove a 1978 Ford LTD, which I bought for $8,000 and sold for $11,500.   I never did any maintenance on the vehicle and wore the tires down to nothing before I sold it.  Driving was quite an experience but once you got used to it, it was easy.   I remember the lights turning from green to amber to red and if you were going the other direction, it was all about who could beat whom through the intersection.

I had one accident while I was there.  Coming home from the China Seas, I rear-ended a guy -- $2500 damage to my car but not much to his.  I didn’t get into too much trouble.  By the time the FAP’s got there (it was a cool night) I was sober ( I think).   Dealing with the insurance company was an experience.  I remember having to take my car to a repair shop on a little back street that was barely wide enough for the car. They did a good job on it though.  What was the insurance guy's name?  Jimmie something, I think.   Oh yeah, still have my Chinese drivers license.

One of my sons was born at the Chinese Naval Hospital in Tien Mou (Sept 1978).  It was a real experience since none of the doctors or nurses spoke English.  On the night he was born, I was waiting in the hospital and saw a young nurse come to the door and look at me three or four times but she never came out.  After about 5 hours, the Chinese interpreter assigned to US personnel came out and congratulated me on my new son.  My response was, “Huh?”  The young nurse was supposed to have come out to inform me but her English was poor and she didn’t want to embarrass herself.   When I went to see my son for the first time, I had to walk outside of the room that was round, with all of the newborns inside.  Since I didn’t speak Chinese I had no  clue what to do, so I just started walking.   All of a sudden one of the nurses came running up to the window and instructed me to go back.  My son was the only non-Chinese baby and she recognized that. My wife didn’t like staying in the hospital because she didn’t understand the language and all they served was Chinese food.

I had to get my son's birth recorded so I got all of the paperwork from the hospital, got it translated, and took it to the consulate.  I don’t remember how long it took, but I had to go back down to the consulate after the Carter announcement, and there were long, long lines of Chinese.  I managed to work my way to the front where one of the Marines saw me and let me move to the head of the line.

After Jimmy Carter's announcement, we stopped driving our cars and took a van to work every day to be safe, but still had rocks and other things thrown at the van.  I heard a noise one night at my house and thought someone was breaking in.  I got up to check it out and there were six or seven police officers sitting on the bumper of my car in my carport.  Eventually the Chinese army moved a company of soldiers into the area and we had no problems from then on. There were a couple of stabbings and one or two servicemen were assaulted during this time frame but for the most part the Chinese were pretty decent to us.

Near the end, the post office stopped processing any shipments being made by personnel that weren’t stationed in Taiwan (Lots of folks would come from the Philippines and  elsewhere to buy stuff to ship back).  My wife became friends with a couple of them, so I would stand in line and ship their stuff for them (and sometimes it was a lot of stuff).  Then they would send us stuff from the Phillipines (or Okinawa or Japan).   We ended up with some nice stuff from those places.

I came back with a bunch of pirated record albums that I got from the record store across the intersection from the Roma hotel.   We would buy them cheap and record them on tape because they only lasted three or four plays on the turntable.

We departed 3/21/1979 and were on the next-to-last plane to leave. Our Amahs rode out to the airport with us.  There were lots of tears, knowing that we probably wouldn’t ever see them again.  It was pretty rough leaving, more so for my oldest son, who was four years old when we left.

Taiwan Furniture

Many of us purchased locally made furniture when we were in Taiwan.  A couple of years ago, I wrote about the coffee table and end table set I bought during 1974.  I can't recall the name of the shop, but I know it was within easy walking distance of the compound.  As I wrote earlier, I started looking at these shortly after my arrival in 1973 and finally bought this set a few weeks before my departure.

When we decided to downsize about four years ago, one of our daughters asked for the set, which she and her husband hauled up to their Minnesota home.  We drove up to the Frozen North a few days ago for a visit and I took a couple of pictures to post here.

This is an example of what was called an "APO set" because the coffee table could be disassembled into three sections and mailed through the post office back to the States.  The set is made of teak and camphor woods with marble set into the tops and solid brass pulls on all doors.  It is quite heavy and I tried to avoid moving it around the house as much as possible.  After several household moves and exposure to numerous kids and grandkids, it has a few small nicks and scratches, but it still looks almost as good as the day it was delivered.

I don't have any idea what a similar set would cost today -- if you could find one -- but I think I paid about $120 for it in 1974.  That was still a princely sum in those days, but very reasonable for something of this quality.

Bill Kling Family Arrival

MAY 1973:

I arrived on the island as an Army E-5/SP5 with my young wife and six month old son.  As some background, I was a communications type person and while previously serving in Vietnam I worked with those in Taiwan  keeping communications circuits working between Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and Hawaii.  Of course these people told me that if possible I should get assigned to Taipei.  As luck would have it, after serving at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey, for 18 months I got orders for Stratcom Taiwan.

So I left from SEA-TAC airport via a military charter (Flying Tiger) and after many stops along the way was met at Sung Shan airport (the only airport) by my sponsor SSG Peredo.  He took us a short ride to the Formosa Guest House where we would live for the next 75 days.

To get to the Formosa GH, you would exit the East Compound via the back entrance, cross the street and make a left at the first alley (there was a furniture store at that spot), walk about 50 feet and there it was.  The first few nights we had trouble sleeping as we had to get used to the smells and noises of Taipei.  The GH owners were a family with two young daughters 11 & 12 and a mother-in-law.  THE WU FAMILY.  They ran the GH which consisted of three floors and perhaps as many as six apartments.  These people became friends and we are still in contact with the daughters today.

It seemed we ate many meals at the cafeteria located on the West Compound, and many meals at the 63 Club and a few at the FASD Dining Hall on the East Compound.  As Taiwan "rookies" we didn't eat on the town often.  It seemed we were always walking to the East Compound, as that was where the 7-11 type store, the housing office, bank, PMO, education center, and almost everything I needed for the family were located.  The weather could make that seem like a long walk sometimes, especially with an infant. 

I remember the adjustment my wife had to make.  This was her first overseas assignment and she had to learn how the military worked while being away from friends and family with a new baby.  She was great and thanks to the family at the GH, she learned her away around Taipei, how and where to shop, how to look for a place to live (we ended up in the old BOT housing in Tien Mou), speak basic Chinese, and meet other new families. She really did a lot of things to help me, as I worked on Grass Mountain, probably a 30-45 drive via government van from the Compound area.

A few other things I remember, in no specific order, were:

• learning what water to drink and where to go to get it.  
• Learning about the different units in Tapei.
• Tthe role of the Air Force, Navy, and Army.
• How to live while waiting for our household goods on the money alloted by the government.  We had to provide receipts for everything to the Army every 10 days for every expense you can think of, including the cost of the GH, meals, transportation, laundry, etc.  I didn't realize what a benefit this was at the time!  Just imagine living almost free for 75 days today while still getting your regular pay.
• Getting on the BOT housing list.  If I wanted a New BOT 2 bedroom house, the waiting list was 9 months with the cost being about 3600NT a month, or an Old BOT house with no waiting list for 2300NT a month.  The decision was easy for a new family so as soon as our furniture arrived we moved into the Old BOT housing.  Again, looking back that was sooo cheap with the exchange rate of 38NT to the dollar combined with the housing allowance I recedived it was a good deal.  However, I did need to get a house guard, yard boy, amah, but all in all a sweet situation.  As a point of reference private housing in the Tien Mou area was much more expensive, plus BOT housing was close to the area where the movie theater, snack bar,bowling alley, and pool were located.

I was lucky enough enough to serve my tour, return the States and come back to Taipei a year later.

Typhoon Gloria Aftermath

I've posted a number of photos and comments about Typhoon Gloria that hit Taiwan in 1963.  There was tremendous damage from flooding and high winds from what was then the largest typhoon to ever hit the island.  The HSA and USTDC compounds were both flooded.  I remember seeing a plaque on the wall of either the commissary or the exchange that showed the high water mark from that typhoon.

Les just sent me some photographs of the east compound that he took after the waters had receded.  The first two show items being set out to dry from the exchange and the third shows the line of military personnel and their families lining up to buy flood damaged items at deep discounts.

Directly ahead in the third photo is the base theater and library.  The library was just to the right of the theater.

Yet Another Bird Sighting

Titojohn alerted me to this shot of TDC's C-118 aircraft. I never left Taiwan during my 15 month tour, but many at TDC rode this bird to other shopping meccas like Hong Kong. I sometimes "house sat" for TDC families who were making those trips.

The funny thing is that back in 1963-64, when I was stationed at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, I caught a hop on a C-47 to Taipei for a shopping trip. I was able to get a hop back to Kadena on a C-130 whose pilot and crew had flown to Taipei (on a "training mission" I'm sure). They came to the standby counter right after they landed and offered several of us a ride home if we'd help them load all the furniture and other stuff that they intended to buy.

By the way, even with the earplugs they gave us, the C-130 was by far the noisiest aircraft I ever flew in!

Black Marketing in Taiwan

Another hat tip today to John Quinn for identifying the Google News Archives as a resource for articles about Taiwan. There was a story in the August 21, 1965 edition of the Deseret Times (Salt Lake City, I believe) about black marketing in Taiwan that I've clipped and added below. You can click on each section to view a larger and easier to read image.

By the time I arrived at TDC in 1973, I don't recall that this was a major issue. On the other hand, as an unaccompanied guy who rarely used the commissary or the liquor store, I probably wouldn't have been impacted by it as much as many others.

I'd like to hear comments from the rest of you about this. Of course anyone directly involved in this practice would probably not want to discuss it, but what about not being able to find items in the exchange or commissary because it was finding its way to embassies or to retailers in Taipei?

Bootleg Phonograph Records

Jim Sartor recently made a comment about the record albums that you could buy at places like the Lin Kou Bookstore, shown here as it was in the 1970s. Someone else mentioned that the bookstore is now called "Caves."

Jim wrote:

Does anyone remember buying those knockoff LPs at the bookstore? They were 10NT each and were made in various colors and were transparent. We soon caught on that they were only good for a couple of plays before losing whatever quality they had. The secret was to buy them, take them home and immediately copy them onto your reel to reel tapes and then throw the LPs away.

I sometimes browse eBay for Taiwan related things and I just discovered that you can still find those bootleg albums for very little money (probably more than they're worth!). If you do a search on anything like "taiwan record" at the site, you'll likely find several like this one.

Note the "Xerox" quality photograph on the reverse side of the album cover. That was typical of any photos in the knockoff books as well.

Taiwan Report - Chapter 13

I thought I had posted all the chapters of the Taiwan Report over the past several months, but I apparently missed chapter 13, which had to do with stores, restaurants and health precautions. Those pages are shown below. As always, you can click on any of the pages to see a larger version.

Taiwan Report was the publication we mailed out to those being assigned to USTDC and other military units in the Taipei area. The publication date was 1973, and if there were earlier or later editions I'm not aware of them.

Within the next day or two I plan to post an index to all of the chapters in the booklet.

Electronics at the Exchange

Like a lot of the buildings in the compounds, I can't recall what the interior of the Navy Exchange looked like back in '73-'74. I'm sure they had all the usual items like clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, etc., but I just can't picture the layout of the place.

It seems to me that their cameras and electronics were located in a small room toward the back and to the right, but I can't swear to it. I bought a small Sony portable TV and a Panasonic portable radio shortly after I arrived in Taipei, just so I'd have something to watch and listen to in my spare time at the hostel.

I remember that Pete Ayling, one of my Army buddies and a great deal-maker, scoffed at my proud purchases, saying that I wouldn't be able to make a big profit on them when it was time to head back to the States. He was right, of course, but I didn't buy them to resell. Now my fridge, on the other hand....

Many of my friends bought expensive cameras, televisions and stereo equipment at the Exchange. I remember that one of my Navy buddies, Ken Royce, had a really nice reel-to-reel Akai tape deck and amplifier at the apartment where he and his wife lived that probably drove his neighbors crazy. Another Navy friend, Larry Driscoll and his roommate had a monster sound system with Bose speakers -- the first of that brand I'd ever heard. I was stunned at how clear and crisp they sounded, even back then.

My TV and radio both lasted for many years and I got a lot of use out of both. This morning I searched the internet and was pleased to find these photos of the same models that I bought. My radio was black instead of white but that's definitely the same model.

Do any of you recall what you blew your money on (in the Exchange!) while you were there?

Clothing in Taiwan

Chapter 11 of the Taiwan Report described what types of clothing were generally worn, as well as their availability in-country. It also provided tips for clothing maintenance.

Many people had clothes custom made while I was there in the mid-seventies, though I think it was more common a few years earlier. Friends of mine who visited Hong Kong said that they could visit a tailor in the morning to pick out a suit style and fabric and be measured, return for a fitting in the afternoon and have the suit delivered to their hotel by evening.

My wardrobe was pretty simple in those days. Still is, come to think of it. Anyway, what I remember most is how the high humidity and frequent rainfall made everything feel damp most of the time. I had just spent about five years in Colorado Springs, with its cool and dry climate before heading to Taipei, so it was quite an adjustment.

After leaving USTDC, I was assigned to a base near Houston, Texas, and barely noticed the high humidity there.

Maxing Out Ration Cards

I had a nice note from Steve Segall a few days ago. Steve was assigned to USACC from 1974 to 1976 and he had a humorous story to tell about the Embassy Shop piece I wrote back in August:

I enjoy reading your website with stories and photos of Taiwan. I was stationed with the Army and worked out of the USACC Headquarters at the HSA compound in Taipei from June 1974 to June 1976. Bill Thayer was in charge of Personnel at the time and a wonderful and wise fellow he was.

I unfortunately got hooked up with a young lady who took my Embassy Shop card, bought expensive liquor, and sold it for many times the amount on the black market. She also maxed out my cigarette rations. I didn't realize what was going on until Colonel Ashby and the Sergeant Major checked ration cards during a troop formation and noticed that mine were maxed out. I should mention that I neither smoked nor drank.

The Colonel ordered the Sergeant Major to have me see the Alcohol Abuse Sergeant at headquarters every week to be swayed from my wayward ways. I would go every week and deny that I ever drank alcohol and every week the sergeant would tell me that I must admit my drinking problem.

I enjoy telling the story about my alcohol abuse classes to friends and family members since they know I never indulged.

Steve Segall USACC TDC and TME Microwave 1974-1976

Great story, Steve! Thanks for sharing it. I rarely used my liquor ration card, but I'll bet there were a lot of other guys who found themselves in situations similar to yours.

Embassy Shop

The Embassy Shop was located in building 302 in the West Compound, just around the corner from the service station. It was basically a discount liquor store, and without all those bothersome federal and state taxes that you have to pay here in the States.

No doubt there are many stories to be told about this place, but I'm afraid that mine isn't among them. I think the only time I was ever in the place was when I purchased a bottle of Napoleon brandy there. I had been invited to a local home for Moon Festival dinner and someone told me that it would be an appropriate gift to bring.

I know that booze was rationed, but I don't recall if there were separate ration cards for the commissary, certain Navy Exchange items, liquor, etc.

It's probably safe to say that some of the alcohol purchased at the Embassy Shop found its way downtown to the local clubs. For the record, I have no personal knowledge of any such goings-on.

Currency

When I was at USTDC, the exchange rate for US dollars to New Taiwan (NT) dollars was forty to one. I think today's rate is about thirty to one. The local currency at that time was as shown above.

If you were buying anything on base, you used US dollars. If you bought anything off-base, you were supposed to use only NT, though some merchants would offer you a better deal on some items if you agreed to pay in US dollars...or so I heard anyway.
I remember cashing my paycheck and asking for a stack of NT notes to pay my rent at the hostel every month, with a little bit extra for routine expenses like the houseboy, taxis and local shopping. It was just one of those rituals that most everyone did on payday.

American military people stationed around the world today still go through the same process every month, except that there's direct-deposit and now they have ATMs that spit out both US and local currencies.

Navy Commissary

I seldom shopped at the commissary in the HSA compound because I lived in the hostel and rarely prepared food. I had a refrigerator, an electric coffee pot and a small toaster oven in my room but the oven didn't get much use. I remember preparing frozen dinners from time to time but not often.

Am I correct in thinking that lunch meat could be purchased at the commissary but it was always frozen?

What about dairy products? I was never much of a milk drinker but I remember that on Okinawa back in the 1960s, they sold something called "recombined milk" that tasted like...well, let's just say that it didn't taste much like milk.

I wonder how much food went directly from this place to Taiwanese homes in the surrounding area? I'm not picking on the locals, by the way; I've seen the same thing happen at Air Force bases in the States. It ticked me off then also.

Navy Exchange

Les Duffin has sent several photos from a publication called Taiwan Report - Taipei Edition, which was a booklet mailed to service people who were being assigned to USTDC and elsewhere in the Taipei area. I remember this particular edition very clearly because it was the 1973-1974 version, the period when I was there.

I'll be posting a number of photographs and other things from this booklet in the weeks ahead.

One of the busiest spots in the HSA east compound was the Navy Exchange. Army guys always called it the PX (Post Exchange) and we Air Force guys called it the BX (Base Exchange), but it was the same type of department store that you'll find at military installations all over the world. Here you could buy clothing, shoes, cameras, radios, televisions, records (you do remember records, don't you?), books, magazines and hundreds of other items.

I think there was a small building just to the right of the Exchange where you purchased major appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners. These were rationed to discourage black marketing, but you were allowed to sell them before you returned to the States. I think most guys had an agreement with someone to purchase the items almost as soon as they bought them, with the actual transfer taking place when they left.

If I remember correctly, there was another small shop to the right of the major appliance place where they sold things like custom desk nameplates. I had one made with a metal plate that had dragon designs around my name and I used it for many years, before finally tossing it a couple of years ago.

Taipei At Night - 1959

Stev Pitchford sends along these photographs and comments:

Here are a few pictures of downtown Taipei at night from late-1959. As you can see, downtown was just as busy after dark as it was during the day.


















The two pictures below are in the area known as "Hagglers' Row" or "Ptomaine Alley," depending on whether you were just shopping or looking for something to eat.



















This was a group of shops and restaurants in little sheds that ran along both sides of the train track from near the Shin Sheng Theater back towards the train station. In July, 1960, over the July 4th holiday, an army buddy and I rode the train from Taipei to Taichung to visit his wife's family. When we left Taipei, all of the sheds were as busy as ever. When we came back two or three days later, they were all gone and both side of the tracks were bare. I guess that was urban renewal, Taipei style.

1959 Taipei Images - Part 2

Here are the rest of the 1959 Taipei photos that Stev Pitchford just sent to me:














Even then, the street vendors had daycare for their kids.















Most places were within easy walking distance but pedicabs were always around if I needed a ride.





Just as the area around the old Keelung River Bridge has changed, I'm sure I wouldn't recognize downtown Taipei today.

1959 Taipei Images

Stev Pitchford provides us with some views of Taipei as it once was. I'll post more of them tomorrow.

These are some pictures showing Taipei in late-1959. To go downtown from Grass Mountain, I'd catch a bus and ride down to a bus stop near the train station. If I was already at the TDC compound, I'd just call a cab and tell the driver to take me to Shiminding (I think that translates to West Gate District).

I'd have the cab driver let me out on this circle near the Shin Sheng Theater. The Chinese were big movie fans and there were several theaters in the downtown area showing American, European and Asian movies. Shortly after this picture was taken, "The Big Country" starring Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons opened in the Shin Sheng. The theater occupied a whole city block and had entrances on all four corners. When the movie first opened, people were lined up from each entrance back to the next corner to buy tickets.



















Downtown Taipei was always a busy place. Besides the theaters and restaurants, there were shops and street vendors where you could shop for just about anything you could think of.

Florida Bakery and Back Alley Market

Sarj Bloom mentioned the Florida Bakery and the Back Alley Market in his Trip Down Memory Lane comments.

Today Kent Mathieu sent in some photos of the area that he took in 2006. He also provided a link to the bakery's website. Do you suppose they'd consider a delivery to Illinois?


During my visit to Taipei in 2006, we walked south on ChungShan North Road from the old Navy Exchange area and we stopped at the Florida Bakery for a snack. These photographs were taken inside the bakery shop. You can see the shop and some of the racks of goodies. The folks you see are my family members.

After a short rest, we walked a few doors down ChungShan North Road and discovered the walkway front entrance to the old Back Alley Market.










Careful; if you walk too fast, you will miss the entrance.










The hallway looks much cleaner today than the old area that I remember from the mid-1960s.










As the hallway ends, we step into the Back Alley Market and immediately see a customer ordering up a live chicken, probably destined for tonight's dinner.

These photographs were taken early on a Saturday morning and the stalls were just starting to open.