Wanhua

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**Wanhua District**
萬華區
Ximending (Hsimenting) (西門町)
Old name: Bangka (艋舺)
Region	Southwestern Taipei (postal code 108)
Director
Area	Ranked 10th of 12
Total	km²
Population	Ranked 9th of 12
Total	199,569
Density	22,545/km²
Villages (里 li):	36
Neighborhoods (鄰 lin):	725

Wanhua District (Traditional Chinese: 萬華區; Hanyu Pinyin: Wànhúa; Wade-Giles: Wan-hua; POJ: Báng-kah), formerly Bangka, is Taipei City's oldest district. The district is home to ancient buildings such as the Longshan Temple, which is Taipei's oldest temple, and the Red Playhouse, which is the first and largest teahouse playhouse in Taiwan. Taipei's oldest, but decaying garment district is also here.

Near the Longshan Temple is the Huaxi (Huahsi) Street Tourist Night Market (a.k.a. Snake Alley). The market once served snake and turtle delicacies, but changed its focus to seafood upon protest from animal and environmental groups. The area is also the site of Taipei's former "red light district". The place has been largely cleaned up since prostitution was outlawed in the 1990s, though prostitutes can still be readily found.

Ximending (Hsimenting), another main attraction of Wanhua, serves as a counter-culture, trendy shopping center and as Taipei's main movie theater district.

Old retired servicemen of various sexual orientations known in Chinese as 怪叔叔 or 怪爺爺 (pinyin: guài shùshu or guài yéyé, literally strange uncle or strange grandfather) are reputed to frequent some of the fast food restaurants and coffee houses in Ximending, trying to solicit sex from people or among themselves. Their original favorite meeting place was the Ximending McDonalds, but when McDonalds relocated to a nearby location within Ximending, these people scattered to other parts of the area. Some of them also now spend their time at the Taipei City (Underground) Mall located just north of the Taipei Main Station in the Datong District. Malaysian-born Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang portrayed a guài yéyé in the movie The River.

The name Wanhua is derived from the Mandarin pronunciation of the Japanese kanji 萬華 (manka), which were coined for their phonetic resemblance to the Taiwanese name báng-kah (艋舺). In turn báng-kah is thought to be derived from an even older Austronesian word bangka, for canoe. See Bangca.

External links

[Official Site]

The Longshan Temple was built in the 18th Century.

	Districts of Taipei
	Songshan \| Xinyi \| Daan \| Zhongshan \| Zhongzheng \| Datong \| Wanhua \| Wenshan \| Nangang \| Neihu \| Shilin \| Beitou

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