A Door to the Philippines:

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.

Taipei’s “Little Manila” is the place in Taiwan where you can get maximum exposure to the culture of the Philippines. The photo was taken at the MassKara Festival held in Little Manila.

Gen Huang has been in Taiwan for 16 years and is very active in the local Filipino community. The shaved ice treat “halo-halo” that Huang is shown here enjoying in a Filipino restaurant is one of the best known sweet treats of the Philippines.

Little Manila, which is crowded on the weekends, has a distinct Southeast-Asian ambience.

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.

Boxes filled with love

EEC and a number of freight shipping companies provide international shipping to the Philippines. Items must fit into cardboard boxes of fixed sizes, and shipping costs are reasonable. Many migrant workers take advantage of their days off to buy goods which they send to family and friends in the Philippines. Because these boxes are filled with love for their homes, Filipinos call them “holy boxes.”

Filipino Catholics attend a Tagalog-language mass at St. Christopher Church.

St. Christopher Church secretary Gemma P. Huang lights a candle and silently prays at the shrine outside the church.

Catholic icons

There are several different religious icons in the shrine outside St. Christopher Church, including the Black Nazarene, which is popular in the Philippines, the Baby Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, and the Virgin Mary dressed in blue and white.

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.

Filipino pop music

When Filipinos gather together, they love to sing. Besides the karaoke machines installed in small eateries, Maya, the Filipina owner of the fashionable Maya Bistro beside Shuangcheng Park, has installed high-quality karaoke equipment offering songs in Chinese, English, and Tagalog. Taiwanese are welcome to come and enjoy the fun.

Filipina caregivers use a public space inside St. Christopher Church for a training class.

Filipina caregivers use a public space inside St. Christopher Church for a training class.

Handmade sweets and desserts

Filipino cuisine mainly uses relatively simply cooking techniques, but the Philippines offers an enormous variety of sweet treats. Tropical plant expert Ray Wang explains that the orange-red color in Filipino sweets comes from annatto, while the purple coloring comes from purple yams.

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.

In this beauty parlor in the King Wan Wan Shop Mall, both customers and owner are Filipino.

Signs on the wall show the names of the shops inside the King Wan Wan Shop Mall. Filipinos decide which ones to patronize based on recommendations from their social networks.