Roxy 99

I haven’t seen one of my best friends, Thomas, in Taiwan for years. Last weekend he called me “do you want to go to a ‘night shop (Ye Dian)’?” Of course! A night shop doesn’t mean a shop open until very late, since all shops open until very late in Taiwan; instead, it means a club or a pub. I guess this is a new term which was invented recently.

So Thomas and I had dinner together, but we kept talking and forgot the time. When we realized it’s already 12:00 I said since I stay in my friend’s place it’s not very nice to go back late, can we go to a cheaper place and I’ll leave before 2:00? He answered :“Ok, then let’s go to a ‘secondary mortgage’.” Roxy 99 is called “secondary” by him because in addition to the cheaper admission (approximately 11 CDN), people go there are not as fancy as those who go to a “primary mortgage (charging 20 CDN or more)”.

We had a good time in the secondary mortgage! Roxy 99 has been actually in the market for decades, and I still remember I often visited it when I was in Taiwan. Now its space has changed into a club style and better for dancing. There were a lot of people, and everyone was dancing and drinking. The DJ is good. He divided the music into several sections including techno, rock n’ roll, hip-hop and Latino. We heard Madonna's "4 Minutes" and got excited. I looked at Thomas dancing and said “I look like a man when dancing with you!”

Roxy 99

Everybody was dancing, including the dressed-up old gentleman.