Many have declared film a dead medium --- one used merely as a nostalgic novelty. The process of shooting on film is much more laborious: after a roll is completed, the film must be physically delivered to a developer and undergo photographic processing before the images can be realized. Film photography can capture ephemeral moments in a delicate matter. Unlike photos taken on digital mediums like smartphones or digital cameras, each of the 26 shots on a roll of film must be intentionally handled from start to finish. The lack of an LCD screen on film cameras prevents you from seeing the images right after taking them, and strips away the instant gratification that we are so used to in today’s world. 

For me, the inconvenience of shooting on film is exactly why I find the photos so beautiful and captivating. The images are not perfectly polished. They are often over-exposed, slightly out of focus, and sometimes a person walks into the frame right when you thought you had the perfect shot. When I am finally able to capture a person’s pure and candid emotion, or the beauty of my surroundings similarly to how I remembered them on film, it makes the photograph all the more personal and meaningful to me. 

Between the time I press the shutter and when I can finally hold my photographs, I often forget many of the photos that I took. 

Each photo in this series is a memory. Some are my personal memories from my trip: the food I tried, the streets I wandered, the people I met. The images have been compiled in a similar order as the itinerary of my two-week trip to Taiwan. We started in Taipei, the island’s bustling capital, and travelle south to Tainan, Taiwan’s oldest city and capital under the Qing Dynasty, and ended on the Eastern Coast in Hualian and Tatung, where natural beauty is ubiquitous throughout the mountainous terrain.

The following is a collection of photographs taken on disposable film cameras in Taiwan in March 2019. 

Datong District 大同區

Wandering through the alleys of the Datong District in Taipei, I was immediately engulfed in the rich global history of Taiwan. One of the first settlements in current-day Taipei, the Datong District’s proximity to the trading port Twatutia caused it to become a bustling center of foreign trade during the 19th century. In 1844, following the Second Opium War between the Qing Dynasty and the British, an international port was opened in Twatutia and foreign trade drove the economic development of the district. By 1872, there were five British trading firms working out of the Dadaocheng neighborhood, which is now part of the Datong District. 

Datong’s history as a center of commercial activity is still evident today, as little restaurants (such as the one pictured to the left) and dried fruit, meat, and seafood merchants crowd the narrow streets throughout the neighborhood. The remnants of Qing, Japanese, and western occupation are evident in the variety of architectural styles in the district. In a unique atmosphere where East and West meet, colorful shops crowd the alleys, and western style store fronts are seen directly beside traditional family-owned restaurants and Confucian temples. 

To the left, a woman shops at a fabric store in Datong District of Taipei. I was especially captivated by this image because of the relaxed composure of the woman who seems to be generally unaffected by the tremendous collection of colors and textures that surround her. I felt overwhelmed when I walked past this store in the alley -- I felt as though the feathers and unruly piles of material could physically consume me at any given moment. Comfortably engulfed in the elaborate, yet awe-inspiring materials store, I wondered if there are people who find a sense of inner peace even in this sort of restless environment. Datong was named after the Confucian conception of utopia, after all. 

A motorcyclist and his dog wait in traffic in the Zhongzheng District of Taipei. This photo was taken across the street from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School (臺北市立建國高級中學), the school depicted in Edward Yang’s 1991 cinematic masterpiece “A Brighter Summer Day.” Yang’s nearly four-hour long film delicately portrays the struggles of living under martial law in Taiwan during the 1960s through the lens of teenagers, attempting to navigate the confusion of adolescence. As families who had fled to Taiwan with the Kuomintang had to face that the possibility of returning to Mainland China was diminishing at a rapid pace, the film attempts to showcase the complexity behind the formation of a Taiwanese identity. 

When looking back at this image, it instantly reminded me of scenes from “A Brighter Summer Day” in which groups of boys walked through Taipei (although the movie was definitely more violent). In the background, the mix of Eastern and Western architecture is indicative of the many foreign influences which have touched Taiwan so far. For me, the palm trees lining the street and the dog riding on the motorcycle give the image a youthful, carefree mood which reminds me of the spirit of adolescence depicted in Yang’s film. 

Datong District 大同區

89 white steps -- one for each year of Chiang Kai-shek’s life -- lead you up to the main entrance of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. The Memorial Hall was constructed using Taiwanese marble, and the blue and red roof represent the colors of the Taiwanese flag. The roof was engineered to be in the shape of an octagon to integrate the number eight into the building because of its association with good fortune and abundance in many Asian countries. Each side of the octagonal roof was designed to form the character 人 -- meaning people -- to symbolize that Chiang Kai-shek was a man of the people. 

The Memorial Hall was completed in 1980, and remains a major tourist attraction and historical landmark in Taiwan. Two guards face each other and stand at attention in front of the huge bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek. Behind the guards, inscriptions on the walls which read, “The purpose of life is to improve the general life of humanity” and, “The meaning of life is to create and sustain subsequent lives in the universe.” Directly above the statue of Chiang Kai-shek, the words ethics (倫理), democracy (民主), and science (科學) from Sun Yat Sen’s “People Power Principle,” which was a lifelong source of inspiration to Chiang Kai-shek. Once an hour, there is a meticulous changing of the guards ceremony -- every step executed in perfect synchrony. 

Since Chiang Kai-shek’s death in 1975, the “Republic of China” that Chiang Kai-shek left behind has evolved tremendously as Taiwanese people began to forge and fight for their own identity. The park and square surrounding the memorial became an important gathering center for pro-democracy demonstrations in the 1980s and 1990s. Most notably, during the Wild Lily student movement in March of 1990, over 22,000 people participated in a sit-in at Memorial Square. In 2007 under DPP President Chen Shui Bian, the monument was briefly renamed to the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (台灣民主紀念館) in order to “bid goodbye to the old age and to show that we Taiwanese are all standing firmly behind the universal values of freedom, democracy, and human rights.” However, in 2009, KMT President Ma Ying-Jeou immediately restored the Memorial back to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. 

In 2017, Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture announced a plan to transform the hall into a center for “facing history, recognizing agony, and respecting human rights.” The incessant turmoil surrounding the monument is representative of Taiwan’s struggle to acknowledge the tragic history of the 228 incident and the White Terror while simultaneously managing the cult of personality  that Chiang Kai-shek constructed.

Shilin Night Market 士林夜市

Open every day from 4 p.m. until midnight, the Shilin Night Market gives visitors the opportunity to explore the seemingly endless stalls of games, eccentric stores, and food vendors.

Children and adults crowd around the colorful games and prizes that fill the night market. The sounds of darts missing the balloons and hitting the wooden walls, an occasional scream from a child, and the clacking of mahjong pieces fill the warehouse-like structure housing the games at the Shilin Market.

The second I entered the night market, I found myself drifting towards the goldfish scooping game that I played countless times during my childhood at summer festivals (omatsuri) in Japan. In the game, players receive a plastic scooper draped with a thin and delicate piece of paper as the net. I thought of all the times I begged my mom for just one more try, and all the goldfish scooping advice she would give me as she, too, had grown up playing this game at the summer festival. 

I watched the children at the night market became flooded with joy as they thought they had captured a goldfish and groan with despair when the fish would inevitably slip through the paper. For a moment, I wished I could speak Mandarin so I could tell the kids the tricks I had learned over the years. Scoop quickly! Move gently! Aim for the smallest fish! I realized that I had become so consumed with the game that my hand had already started digging around my purse to scrounge together enough coins, ready for my own turn. This is what night markets do - they make us children again. They remind us of the playfulness and wonder that we tend to tuck away as we get older. 

Tainan 台南

After a week in Taipei, we travelled south to Tainan, the island's oldest city and capital from 1683 until 1887 under the Qing dynasty. Tainan displays Taiwan's interesting history through remnants of Dutch colonialism, Qing rule, and Japanese rule in the city’s historical monuments. Known for its traditional Taiwanese cuisine and culture, Tainan's charming old-school streets are easy to fall in love with. 

Tainan was established in 1624 by the Dutch East India Company created a trading base called Fort Zeelandia, which became the center of Dutch trade between China, Japan, and Europe. In 1661, Koxinga expelled the Dutch and claimed the city as the capital of the Kingdom of Tungning. Tainan remained the capital of the island until 1887 when the new provincial capital was moved to Taipei under the Qing Dynasty. From 1985 until 1945, Tainan was under Japanese rule, and today Tainan remains under the Republic of China. Tainan’s ability to maintain its rich folk cultures despite a tortuous history with colonization and foreign rule is why the city has been nicknamed “the Pheonix City” (referring to the long-living bird in Greek mythology which could be reborn). 

The monuments scattered around Tainan are remnants from a variety of different periods of Tainan’s history. The first image depicts Chihkan Tower, which was originally built as a Dutch outpost known as “Fort Provincia”  built in 1653. During the 19th century, the fort was destroyed by an earthquake and was rebuilt as Chihkan Tower under the Qing Dynasty. The name “Chihkan” was drawn from the word “Sakam”, the name of the Taiwanese aboriginal village which had originally inhabited modern-day Tainan. 

In addition to the Dutch monuments, Tainan holds more Buddhist and Taoist temples than any other city in Taiwan. The second image portrays a man painting at the Dacheng Hall (大成殿) at the Tainan Confucius Temple. The temple, just like most other things in Tainan has a complicated history. Originally built under Koxinga in 1666, it was renovated in 1917 during the Japanese Era after a series of natural disasters and battles had destroyed parts of the temple. The temple’s elegantly simplistic design and lack of bronze or gold adornments is intended as simplicity was a principal value of Confucianism. 

Across the street from the Confucian temple, small vendor stands and charming cafés line Fuzhong street. Tainan’s old-school streets and easy-going pace made me feel like I had been transported to another time. Young and old couples hold hands as they leisurely strolled down the street as children ate ice cream and strawberries on a stick as an afternoon snack, all under the shade of the blossoming bougainvillea tree and calm afternoon breeze. I love this photograph because although there is so much going on in the surroundings, if you look directly in the middle of the shot there is a couple in matching yellow shirts holding hands, looking at each other tenderly. The intimate moment captured in this photograph emulates the dreamy charm that made me fall in love with Tainan.

Worn down by a long week of travel, I fell asleep the moment we got to the hotel in Tainan. After a quick nap, I woke up dazed, confused, and hungry. A friend and I decided to go on a determined mission to find a night market for some cheap food. On the way to the night market (which we never ended up locating), we found an alley in the West Central District that was illuminated by a single line of colorfully painted lanterns gently swaying in the late night breeze. We stopped take a few pictures, but decided to keep walking to find a restaurant.

When we walked a few blocks forward, we realized that the single line of lanterns we had seen earlier was part of a much larger spectacle as we stumbled into the Phoo Tse Lantern Festival. Suddenly, the sky had been consumed by painted lanterns and the street was overflowing with people gazing up as if they were looking for constellations. Each lantern had been thoughtfully painted by a child to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Hundreds of hopes and wishes for the upcoming year, drawings of smiling pigs, and clumsily painted flowers covered the sky in a chaotic but magical fashion. 

Energized by the glow that was brightening the night, I followed the rows of lanterns until we reached the temple hosting the event. Behind the haze of smoke from the incense burning in front of the temple, dozens of people surrounded tiny temple that was tucked away at the end of a long, narrow street. Eventually, the spell of the lanterns wore off when we remembered how hungry we were.

Close to the lantern festival, we ended up finding a congee (rice porridge) restaurant. Confronted by huge plates of unfamiliar foods and a language barrier, I meekly pointed at three or four plates and spoonfuls of fish and vegetables were tossed into my bowl. I sat down in the tiny plastic stools in the store and whispered to my friend that I felt like Anthony Bourdain in an episode of No Reservations. We tried to figure out what we were eating, but gave up pretty quickly after we realized we only cared about how satisfying and flavorful our meals were. 

In Japan, we have a dish called okayu that is basically the same thing as congee. I thought about all the times my mom had forced me to eat rice porridge when I was sick during my childhood. I also thought about memories from my freshman year when my Chinese roommate would make congee for anyone in the house feeling sick. To both of us, this simple combination of rice and hot water really comforted us when we were homesick during our first year in college. Now, even in a foreign environment, the congee in Tainan had given me some sort of ease and familiarity. 

Hualien County 花蓮縣

It’s not difficult to understand why the Portuguese called Taiwan “Ilha Formosa” -- meaning beautiful island -- when Portuguese navigators arrived on the island in 1544. Throughout the island, there are 286 mountain summits over 3,000 meters, providing Taiwan with a beautiful backdrop for the magnificent fields of flowers, rice paddies, and pineapple farms.  

Hidden behind the gift store at a seemingly ordinary rest stop, we found this beautiful garden. Butterflies fluttered delicately over what appeared to be a never-ending field of well-attended flowers, all under a sky of fluffy clouds infused with the mountains surrounding the garden. (Unfortunately, the clouds were not captured accurately on the film).

Hualien county, located on the east coast of Taiwan, is the largest county by area but is one of the least populated regions in Taiwan because 87% of the land is mountainous. 

Industrial boats sit calmly on the Pacific Ocean in the Hualien Harbour. Constructed under Japanese rule between 1930 and 1939, the Port of Hualien remains an important center of International trade, as the annual container volume of port is nearly 13 million tons, making it the thirteenth largest container port in the world.

Luye Highlands, Taitung 鹿野高臺

The view from the Luye Highlands, 350 meters above sea level.