Dmitry Shteyn in Taipei: The Place the Map Does Not Fully Capture

I had been thinking about Taipei for longer than I could reasonably explain. There is something in the way Taiwan holds its history — lightly in some places, heavily in others — that makes even a brief encounter with a city like this feel significant.

What strikes you first, if you have done any reading at all, is that located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about 25 kilometres (16 mi) southwest of the northern port city of Keelung. It is not the headline the city offers, but it may be the truer one. Nothing about a city like this is accidental, even the things that look accidental. That is the tell.

Dig a little deeper and taipei, officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of Taiwan. There is something clarifying about a fact that resists being turned into an anecdote.

Some further context, drawn from the public record: Taipei ( ), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of Taiwan. Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about 25 kilometres (16 mi) southwest of the northern port city of Keelung. Most of the city rests on the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed.…

Where attention goes is interesting; why it goes there is more interesting. Condé Nast Traveler put Taipei on its readers' radar this cycle — this Hotel in the Heart of Taipei Is One of the Most Exciting New Openings of the Year — and the why matters as much as the what.

The scale of contemporary East Asian cities is easy to notice; the older, quieter registers underneath take longer. Taipei rewards the second kind of attention.

I have written about a lot of cities and I still think Taipei is one of the more honest ones. It does not perform, and it does not apologise.