Update: Well I went and checked out a few things over there, and AI was only a tiny bit helpful, it turned out. The most important things I got to do were those that I asked about, of others, in person. ‘Where can I find tea houses and trains and mountains?’ ‘Alishan!’ Or, ‘Which bookshop is going to be friendly for an English-speaking… oh. None? None of htem. Okay. What should I do then? Go to the university? Sure, okay, I’ll do that, then.’ Because I follow the ‘drift’ way of doing things (learning from the writings of the Situationists, and the music of jazz artists has taught me this), I didn’t enjoy trying to follow the script-that-was-AI-generated. I am not going to do that ever again. I’m getting my plans togeether for the fall in Cambodia and the spring in Japan to make more zines with people I haven’t met yet. But the flyers are nice. Discord, LINE, Signal, Telegram, and Instagram onversations about how to make, make more, make in a community and make it so that the making keeps getting made. That’s my role: holding the rooms together, building the scaffolding, letting it be… as fun as we can make it. That’s my hope. Make zines
//
Original post. One thing I do before heading to a new place, like Taipei this week, where we will go to check out the zine and book arts scenes, is look for little shops to visit and leave flyers.
It is the one time I use AI… to help crunch and cross-refer some names and see if I want to go there on my short visits to see stuff. Here is an example. My draft list for this coming up trip.
Must-Visit Taipei Indie Hubs, Zine Shops & Museums
重本書店 Weight Books. Zhuyuan Village, Zhongshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan. Tucked away in the Zhongshan District, Weight Books is a spectacular visual-culture haven co-founded by graphic designer Yeh Chung-yi,. Named after typography parameters (“font weight”), this space-odyssey-inspired shop specializes in graphic design, typography, and self-published international visual art. By night, it transitions into a sleek bar offering curated cocktails and desserts alongside its collection of rare, inspiring books. Update: I didn’t go here.
The 1 Bookstore. Jianming Village, Datong District, Taipei City, Taiwan. Hidden away in a cozy narrow alley near Taipei Main Station, The 1 Bookstore is integrated beautifully with the Flip Flop Hostel. It features an incredible cloud-filled ceiling installation and a whimsical spiral staircase. It is the ultimate quiet refuge to browse local Mandarin literature, look through indie titles, and enjoy a coffee under asteroid-themed lighting. Update: I went and found out it is closing very soon, if it hasn’t already. But they were very nice about zines and flyers.
朋丁 Pon Ding. Zhengde Village, Zhongshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan. Located in a three-story vintage building in the historic Zhongshan district, Pon Ding seamlessly weaves a bookstore, an art exhibition space, and a cafe together. The first floor is meticulously curated with international and local art magazines, photography collections, and indie zines. Update: I didn’t go here.
Wild Flower Bookstore (荒花書店) Jiantai Village, Datong District, Taipei City, Taiwan. Hidden away in the Datong District, this fiercely independent and highly characterful shop is loved by locals for its raw indie spirit. It’s a fantastic spot to pick up quirky posters, pins, and deeply personal artistic zines crafted by local creators. Update: I didn’t go here.
moom bookshop. Cheng’an Village, Da’an District, Taipei City, Taiwan. Over in the lively Da’an District, moom bookshop caters beautifully to the visual side of the zine world. It focuses heavily on photography-related art books and niche, independent photo-zines from around the globe, wrapped up in a sleek, minimalist aesthetic. Update: I reached out to them through their contact email, about something they were advertising about that felt very much like our zine club and things. But no one wrote back, so I didn’t go here.
Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Yuanshan Village, Zhongshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan. As the city’s premier modern art institution, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum is massive, geometric, and a massive champion of the local subculture. It officially organizes major boundary-pushing events like the Taipei Biennial, making it a crucial spot to see how underground, grassroots Taiwanese visual language scales up to a museum level. Update: I didn’t go here.I did go to another museum cafe. But it felt overpriced. Only one show was on, it was free, it was curious–some grass and stuff. I can’t remember the museum name. Maybe Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Regional Contrast
AI says, ‘If you zoom out to look at Southeast and East Asia, the flavor of independent publishing changes drastically from city to city. Contrasting Taipei with Bangkok and Singapore shows just how much a city’s political and cultural landscape dictates its paper underbelly. Bangkok’s zine and indie print scene is explosive, sensory, and fiercely defiant. (Update: I ca’nt say that this would be the case, sinceI haven’t been in ages, but I would not say it is ‘defiant.’ Nothing in Thailand felt like it was that way, to me, because you’re not allowed tosay things that are defiant out loud.) Driven heavily by political friction and a youth culture pushing back against rigid social norms, Bangkok zines often have a gritty, punk-rock, street-level energy. While Taipei enjoys complete legal protections and a deeply supportive institutional network (as seen by contemporary art museums funding indie book fairs), Bangkok’s community operates with a thrilling, rebellious edge where political critique has to be incredibly clever to survive. Singapore’s zine scene is highly polished, deeply intellectual, and intensely structured. Because of strict public printing regulations, Singaporean creators are master boundary-pushers within constraints, often focusing on hyper-niche architectural documentation, exquisite high-end design typography, and deeply poetic, quiet subversions of urban life. While Singapore leans into pristine, immaculate, and deliberate minimalism, Taipei’s scene is far more chaotic, unapologetic, and emotionally raw, leaning into untamed LGBTQ+ themes and messy, overlapping visual formats. Ultimately, Taipei’s zine scene thrives because it sits in a golden zone: it possesses the raw, emotional freedom of a radical subculture, yet it is celebrated openly by indie bookstores and institutions alike.’ Update: I like the feeling of Taipei and hope some people who are there will find my flyers, and our community. Let’s see.
How accurate will this be? I will go see.