Tattoos, pop music, trendy fashions, imported goods, movies – today’s Ximending is a veritable temple of youth subcultures. However, in the late Qing Dynasty, this area, directly outside the Ximen ( 西門) or West Gate of the old walled city, was a cultural wasteland. It wasn’t until Taiwan became a Japanese colony that the Japanese, in a show of strength and dominance, created a high-end entertainment and commercial district here, and mapped out residential quarters for Japanese nationals. Fifty years of Japanese rule left the Taiwan people deeply influenced by Japanese popular culture, and it was here that the first dedicated movie theater in Taiwan appeared. Ximending became a key center for the growth of Taiwan’s film-entertainment culture. After the end of the Second World War, Taipei absorbed a flood of refugees from the mainland China, and business-savvy immigrants from Shanghai, in particular, took to opening department stores and other businesses in Ximending, turning it into a pleasure zone for singing, dancing and shopping. In the 1960s, the China Plaza was built along the Ximending and old walled city area boundary line, linking the two and in a single leap creating the nation’s commercial and entertainment heartland.