2025 Encounter: 媽組人生：台南母域/M(Ｏther)HOOD: Matri Zone- Tainan Edition
20/11 *M(Other)Hood is heading to places that is feeding and fed. We went to Shuixian Gong Market (水仙宮市場) — one of the oldest surviving markets in central Tainan.
The word “traditional” often refers to markets that existed before the wave of modern redevelopment and the rise of chain supermarkets — places established during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945) or even earlier in the Qing dynasty era. Before refrigeration and large-scale retail, these markets served as daily provisioning spaces, where people consumed not just food but life, community, and rhythm.
The light is already dimmed, only some stalls remain open, we guess we must be too late... Most of the vendors are glancing at their phones between tasks. Some put them down to giving time for this act of listening and presence.
Through these conversations, many spoke about how the flow of the market opens their sense of relation to others, to difference, to life. People come in all kinds, and it doesn’t matter — what matters is “Kindness” (善).
I could feel it — that energy circulating, entangling buyers, sellers, smells, sounds, hands, and the act of consumption itself. And, this movement is fed by this abstract concept, and feeding it as a felt experience, no god or goddess they mentioned, but maybe it is in the air of Tainan, filled with the influence of Temples and burning scents. Even something as ordinary as buying or giving becomes part of a meshwork of care. *Thank you Maurice Lai, for capturing all these moments.
