Many signs in Chinese characters were posted on the main street

Walking down a bustling avenue in Tainan, I took in the scene around me. Shops of all sizes lined both sides of the street, their signboards filled entirely with Chinese characters. This is Taiwan, after all—a place where the visual language of the city is woven seamlessly into the fabric of daily life.

I paused for a moment and took a closer look at the signs. Many of the shops in this particular area seemed to be jewelry stores. Their gold-lettered names, emblazoned in elegant, traditional script, stood boldly against their storefronts. The sight of them, one after another, created an illusion—as if the glow of finely crafted gold had merged into the very essence of the street itself.

Even though Japan also belongs to the Chinese character cultural sphere, shop signs there are rarely composed entirely of kanji. Instead, katakana and the Latin alphabet dominate the urban landscape. In Japan, a shop that chooses kanji for its signboard often does so to convey a sense of tradition, or to create an aesthetic that feels distinctly "Japanese." In contrast, Western-style typography—clean, sleek, and modern—is often used to evoke a sense of sophistication and contemporary style.

But here in Tainan, there were no traces of borrowed foreign scripts. The Chinese characters themselves, standing unaltered and unadorned, were the only language of the street.

Perhaps this reflects Taiwan’s deep cultural pride—a testament to the people’s reverence for their linguistic heritage. Here, words are not just functional signs; they carry history, identity, and an unbroken connection to the past.

Comment via

日本語