Little Manila, which is crowded on the weekends, has a distinct Southeast-Asian ambience.
In warm early morning sunlight, a throng of people with foreign faces congregates on leafy Zhongshan North Road Section 3 in Taipei. They are brightly and cleanly dressed, and they speak in Tagalog peppered with English. The shops and vendors are selling products and foods from Southeast Asia that are not often seen elsewhere in Taiwan, and the atmosphere is relaxed and welcoming.
Taipei’s “Little Manila” is mainly located along the east side of Zhongshan North Road Section 3 between Minzu East Road and Nong’an Street, and along Nong’an Street and Dehui Street.
To get the full experience, we asked Gen Huang, a Filipina who has been living in Taiwan for nearly 16 years, to act as our guide. Huang is the founder of the social networking platform Hello PhilTai (a.k.a. PhilTai The Voice). She is very active in Taiwan’s Filipino community and knows Little Manila like the back of her hand.
Filipino Catholics attend a Tagalog-language mass at St. Christopher Church.
Yuanshan Metro station
To help us get to know Little Manila from a Filipino perspective, Huang arranges to meet us at the nearby Yuanshan Metro station. She explains that this location is meaningful in multiple ways to Filipinos who come to Taiwan.
Huang introduces the Filipino community by saying: “Filipinos in Taiwan fall into several major categories. There are tourists, migrant workers, and white-collar professionals, and there are also ethnic Chinese Filipinos, Filipinos who are married to Taiwanese, and Filipinos who are married to ethnic Chinese Filipinos.”
Yuanshan Metro station is a place where Filipinos meet up on their way to Little Manila, and is also a transit point for Filipino tourists on their way to visit the Grand Hotel.
Leaving the Metro station, we stroll through the crowded Taipei Expo Park and come to Maji Square, a lifestyle market where Filipino stir-fry once occupied an exalted position. The park’s Expo Hall (a.k.a. Butterfly Pavilion) is especially famous among Filipinos because former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte visited there in 2016. Because the hall is spacious and offers shelter from the elements, every weekend many Filipinos gather there for picnics, to practice street dance, and to rehearse for the beauty pageants that are a popular form of recreation.
Huang points to the Hai Pa Wang restaurant next to the Expo Hall and says: “This is the first choice for many Chinese-Filipinos to hold weddings and banquets!” She herself has served as master of ceremonies at such weddings.
Patron saint of travelers
We eventually come to the center of the action: the Catholic church of St. Christopher, located directly across Zhongshan North Road from Tatung University. It is especially fitting that a church named after this saint should be the center of faith for Filipinos in Taiwan. Why is that? Different religions all have holy figures who protect travelers—in Taiwanese folk religion the best known of these is Mazu, while in Christian culture St. Christopher is seen as the patron saint of travelers.
The church’s being dedicated to St. Christopher is connected to the original reason for its construction. Built in 1957, the church served American servicemen coming to Taiwan for rest and recreation during the Vietnam War. After the departure of US military personnel from Taiwan, the tradition of holding mass in English continued, attracting large numbers of Filipinos with their fluent English and Catholic faith.
Taiwan has no shortage of Catholic churches, but only St. Christopher holds as many masses as it does. There is one mass every 90 minutes on Sundays from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. The church has ten resident priests, including clergy from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, and offers masses not only in English but also in Tagalog (one of the main languages of the Philippines), and in Vietnamese.
This means that every Sunday there is an endless stream of people entering and leaving the church. Besides Filipinos, there are also many Western faces. Church secretary Gemma P. Huang says: “Because there are so many masses, it is very convenient for migrant workers or travelers who are pressed for time.” Statistics indicate that each Sunday St. Christopher Church receives over 3,000 visits. And for those who do not attend mass, there is a shrine outside the church that is open 24 hours a day, where believers can freely light candles and engage in silent prayer.
Besides religious services, St. Christopher also provides a kitchen and classrooms for believers to use free of charge. Gemma Huang says that the faithful have formed 17 different groups based on their status, with groups for factory workers, caregivers, long-term immigrants, Chinese-Filipinos, and even Vietnamese. Climbing up to the second story, above the worship space, we see groups engaged in various activities in different rooms, such as holding a class or birthday party. Without a doubt, the church is an important center not only for the spiritual wellbeing of these people living and working away from home, but also for their material welfare.
In this beauty parlor in the King Wan Wan Shop Mall, both customers and owner are Filipino.
King Wan Wan Shop Mall
Leaving St. Christopher Church behind and walking southward along Zhongshan North Road, we pass two famous Southeast-Asian chain stores: EEC Elite Express and RJ Supermart. These stores sell foods and other products familiar to Filipinos, including popular gift and souvenir items. Because they have such a comprehensive selection of such goods, there is a ceaseless flow of people through these businesses.
There is also a shopping mall named the King Wan Wan Shop Mall, squeezed between residential and commercial buildings, which Gen Huang describes as being “just like home.” Built in the 1970s, King Wan Wan once specialized in imported goods, but after trade declined the structure was left all but abandoned, until it was discovered by Chinese-Filipinos who began to move in and open up small businesses.
Walking into the two-story mall, we see densely packed displays of products on shelves, cabinets and walls. The first floor is mainly devoted to sales of mobile phones and other electronics, along with clothing, accessories, and gold jewelry. Gen Huang explains: “Filipinos generally believe that gold holds its value well, so they like to buy it.” On the second floor are cafeterias offering Filipino cuisine, and a mix of shops selling cooked food, food products, clothing, and toys, as well as a quite a number of beauty parlors and nail salons.
There is a high degree of similarity in the products sold by the various shops, so that at first glance there appears to be little difference between them, and entering King Wan Wan seems like walking into a maze. However, Filipinos who come here will have particular shops they habitually patronize based on advice from interpersonal networks or family and friends, and they always go directly to their favored establishments. Besides spending money, more importantly they also chat with other people from their own home regions, so that the space has a lively and warmhearted ambience. At this point we suddenly understand what Gen Huang means when she talks about King Wan Wan being “just like home,” for it is a place where Filipinos feel completely at ease.
For more pictures, please click 《A Door to the Philippines: Taipei’s Little Manila》
