Gao Jian Bucket Shop (高建桶店)

Gao Jian Bucket Shop has traded on Dihua Street for more than seventy years, now run by its third generation of family ownership, from a modest storefront at No. 204, Section 1, in Taipei's Dadaocheng district. The shop's inventory reflects a Taiwan that predates plastic housewares: bamboo baskets woven for market shopping and for temple offerings, wooden buckets and steaming baskets, hinoki-cypress bathtubs, and wicker and rattan household goods sold alongside more conventional kitchen tools. Dadaocheng was once Taipei's dry-goods and trading hub, and shops like Gao Jian are among the last working links to that history, still supplying the woven and hand-turned wooden goods that once outfitted every household in the district. The shop has become a fixture on Dihua Street's tourist trail, particularly with Japanese and Hong Kong visitors drawn to its handmade wares and cash-only, no-frills retail style; staff are able to communicate with Japanese-speaking customers directly. Where department-store housewares emphasize uniformity, Gao Jian's stock is defined by material and craft — bamboo, wood, and cypress worked by hand rather than injection-molded — a distinction that keeps a small family shop relevant on a street increasingly given over to souvenir stalls.