I was drawn to the twin night markets of Kaisyuan Night Market (凱旋觀光夜市) and Jinzuan Night Market (金鑽觀光夜市) in Kaohsiung based on their reputation as the largest in Taiwan. Supposedly they are both approximately 30,000 square meters in size and feature 500 to 1,000 stalls—but these figures may represent the sum of both night markets. At any rate, I was a little surprised to discover how poorly attended they were on a Sunday night, particularly as I had just arrived from a brief tour of the busy Ruìfēng Night Market (瑞豐夜市) in Zuoying.
I tend to be fairly methodical about my night market expeditions so I decided to work from back to front starting with Jinzuan Night Market. This game plan quickly hit a snag as most of the back of the night market is completely empty. Some stalls look closed but many others are completely unoccupied, something I’ve never seen on this scale. Maybe Jinzuan is one of the largest night markets in Taiwan by total area but what good is that if there aren’t any vendors there?
The few people milling around the front of Jinzuan Night Market were mostly Chinese tourists from what I could tell. Coach buses idling nearby confirmed my hunch. A free shuttle bus was regularly dispensing smaller groups of people coming from the MRT system (myself included) but locals seemed slightly outnumbered. Yes, some of the Chinese tourists were rather loud, but many more acted like anyone else at the night market.
After making quick work of Jinzuan I wandered around the partition and entered Kaisyuan Night Market. It was slightly busier on this side of things but many of the stalls were closed and there weren’t too many people around except near the front. It was amusing to watch the occasional Chinese tourist cut in line and jostle with the locals, most of whom exhibited no reaction apart from slight frowns. Those few Chinese tourists who push people around don’t seem to mind if you push back, in good humor. I jostled a few fellow tourists while in line for a cup of watermelon juice but there were no bad vibes.
Kaisyuan was low on energy but high on spectacle. The now-famous penis cakes were available, a familiar sight to anyone who has been to Shilin Night Market (士林夜市) in Taipei. When business is brisk it isn’t at all abnormal to walk by and see a bunch of people taking cheeky photos.
It is normal for young women to work the gaming tables at night markets across Taiwan. Sometimes these women dress up in cute outfits including schoolgirl uniforms. What I haven’t seen, however, is actual schoolgirls squaring off against bored, lonely dudes over mahjong tiles. I can’t escape the feeling that there’s something not quite right about this.
Kaisyuan Night Market is also the location of a German pig knuckle vendor advertising an image of Hitler. Apologists of this sort of crass advertising might say he’s a famous and recognizable German, but it’s not a great look. I’m guessing the vendor knew exactly how offensive his sign might be since he smirked as I walked by after snapping a photo.
The absolute best thing about Kaisyuan Night Market was the impromptu auto show in the parking lot around back. Here there were about a dozen insanely modded cars blasting EDM at maximum volume while jets of flame erupted into the sky. One car was emblazoned with the rising sun flag of Imperial Japan, a fitting compliment to the German pig knuckle vendor inside the night market. Sometimes I wonder if people have no sense of history or if they simply don’t care. Whatever the case, I had a blast wandering around checking out all the crazy mods and blinking LED lights.
I left the twin night markets of Kaohsiung feeling unimpressed. Yes, they were large, but I didn’t sample anything particularly good, and there were several cringeworthy sights. I suspect some business people got together a few years ago and said “let’s open the biggest night market in the nation”, opting for an “if you build it, they will come” approach that hasn’t yet produced reliable results. Maybe these night markets are busier on a Saturday—but Ruifeng was doing just fine that night. Having only visited once I am far from an expert on the matter but I’d say the biggest open air night markets are still likely to be Dadong or Huayuan in Tainan, or the surprisingly massive Douliu Night Market (斗六夜市) in Yunlin.
So sad to see such a low turn out