ABSTRACT
From selling street food and counterfeit goods to performances and entertainment, night markets have been a critical ingredient of the bustling urban life in cities such as Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Mumbai, and Seoul.1 In Taipei’s notoriously crowded Shilin Night Market, for example, street vendors turn a once residential street into the center of a sprawling outdoor bazaar with a bewildering variety of local snacks, international foods, clothing, toys, gadgets, and accessories, taking over every square centimeter of the dense streetscape. This historic neighborhood is transformed every night by thousands of visitors, shoppers, tourists, and vendors, arriving by subway, in cars, on motorbikes, and on foot. Smells of pork buns and grilled sausages are mixed with dance music and shouting of vendors from the loudspeakers. Families, teens, college students, international tourists, and migrant workers literally rub elbows with each other in order to move from one stall to the next.
