posh.” I’m with her. The east side is nice. It’s the place to go if you want to buy something expensive from Tokyo or get a frappuccino. But it’s a bit anonymous. Nothing like Dihua Street, on the west side, with its eccentric stone buildings and shops filled with curiosities (like an opulent old chandelier lit by fluorescent tubes). Not to mention the astoundingly good beef noodle soup place on Taoyuan Street, known simply as Tao Yuan Jie Niu Rou Mian, or the Beef Noodles on Taoyuan Street.

Like so many creative types in Taipei, Yeh spends a lot of time in China these days. When we met, she was in the middle of shooting a movie on the mainland. China’s 1.3 billion people are an enticing audience, and working on both sides of the Taiwan Strait might be a way to survive Hollywood’s invasion. (In Ximending, American films must have outnumbered Taiwanese 10 to 1, maybe 20 to 1.)

But she worried that “whatever cultural influence Taipei had has been usurped by cities in China.” A few days earlier, the artist Chen Chieh-jen told me that a European curator had solicited his work for a show, thinking he was from China; when the curator learned that Chen lives in Taiwan, he took back the invitation. Many Taiwanese artists and curators have moved to Shanghai, where foreign cash has flooded local galleries.

Working in China, however, can mean cultural compromises. “A lot of subject matter can’t be filmed,” Yeh explained. I asked what kind. “Um — Falun Gong. Or ghosts — in the end, there has to be a scientific explanation, or the character has to have been imagining it all. Also, nothing too political. Or homosexual.”

Yeh said Hong Kong movies have changed, become more Chinese. Whole themes have disappeared. And it’s not just movies. “Hong Kong lost its culture,” she insisted. She could imagine the same thing happening to Taipei. “What makes Taiwan special is going to become more and more marginalized. It is going to be less and less important for young people.”

We ducked down an alley, barely wide enough for two people to pass. The shop awnings almost touched overhead, and strings of tiny lights and colored balls dangled between them, a kind of canopy. It felt a bit like walking through the forest, except the wildlife was getting its nails done and the buzz of tattoo guns stood in for crickets and bird song.

“Are you hungry?” Yeh asked. I answered, “Here? Always.” She led me to a tiny restaurant with dim, fluorescent lighting and white walls. It was called King Garden Pork Chops. (I like a restaurant name that tells you what’s good. Like Swan Meat City, across town.) A cook sat at an empty table, chopping pork off the bone with a heavy cleaver. He took our order.

“I love this place!” Yeh said, clapping her hands. “My parents went here when they were dating.” The food came almost instantly: bowls of thin yellow broth with clear noodles, cabbage and crispy fried pork. It was cheap, greasy and delicious. Two teenagers next to us ordered steaming pork and rice; they left their headphones on and ate in silence.

The pork chops will probably still be here in 10 years. But the rest of the city, the economy, the culture, it’s hard to know what will become of it. Democratic Progressive Party leaders have talked up continued independence from China in recent years, but they lost big at the polls