Taiwanese sometimes refer to the road and the girls as Wu-Mu 五木.
There, fixed it for ya. 
Or used to be. As said, now it is housing development after housing development… especially due to its proximity to the MRT stations… and lack of customers.
No, it still is, the jiudians have all moved to upper floors, but there are at least 20 large ones in the area each of which housing a ton of girls, then bookending that you have the Japanese area south of the Regent Hotel and the sad sack combat zone in the north.
More discrete then? 
But many old buildings have been torn down and development is hot in the area. Dunno how much longer they can stay.
They’ll find a way although I wouldn’t be surprised if the business is reducing over time as times change.
Interestingly most of the jiudians in Taichung have shut down over the last few years, almost all have had luxury type apartments built in their former locations.
They are all the way up and down Linshen North Road, basically if you see a building with a couple of dudes hanging out behind a podium, its a jiudian, if you see a random building with a huge scotch billboard on it, its a jiudian.
They don’t take up the entire building, just one or two of the upper floors. Hell, there are like ten within a stones throw of the Wego Love Hotel down in that area.
When you go they whisk you up the elevator, then you are in an empty lobby on an upper floor, someone knocks on a huge metal door, and when it opens it is like Sodom and Gomorrah, tons of noise, tons of birds running around scantly clad from KTV room to KTV room and lots of gangster dudes keeping an eye on things. These places are huge business, they won’t go anywhere any time soon, and they certainly aren’t affected by new development, they just nestle into a floor or two of a highrise, well above street level.
Wow, you guys really know your whoring! And to think I’ve been here a few years now and never heard of any of this stuff. 
I thought this “activity” was “legal” in Taiwan…But presumably some zoning laws would apply…?
It is, unfortunately, part of the business “culture”.
Yeah but you work for the government…
I’m with impaler for once. Impressive details on the scene. Forumosa knows all.
All 5000 years of it 
I must say, I’ve never been “entertained” by business contacts in these establishments. Maybe I look too innocent or something. I know a couple of people who have taken to the places where the girls are paid to coo and giggle over your drunken rambling (the modern equivalent of geishas, I guess), and apparently it’s a lot of outlay for what you get out of it, i.e., essentially nothing.
Ouch!
Actually, mostly I know is because the wives -or actually, nowadays ex-wives- of local business guys. They hate this, even the guys hate this, but they feel they need to do it because of guanxi, most business deals are discussed in this “private” atmosphere, it shows them as successful and “rich”, etc…
If at least they didn’t drink themselves into oblivion, I’d understand the “business” excuse.
The girls at the American-style pubs are just for talking, mostly. The girls at the Japanese places are for take-out.
Congrats on continuing to be the most abrasive poster on this forum.
I’ve been a few times for business way back, its mostly harmless stuff sitting beside you pretending to be interested in whatever drunken shite you are talking about, light touching at most. Some of the girls will try to suss how rich you are to see if they can extract an LV bag or two out of you. Some of them make themselves available for ‘extra work’ or ‘relationship’ but most don’t.
They have these dancing girls that will come in aswell that make everybody ‘high’ if things are flagging (yes it’s as sad sack as it sounds) and you basically pay per girl accompanying your group aswell as drinks, it’s really expensive. It’s about flashing the cash and doing business.
They are not all products of broken homes, many just realise they can make quick money compared to being an office lady or working in a shop, some are also students.
The Japanese love to go when they come to Taiwan so if you have Japanese customers…it’s often on the schedule. If you go to Tokyo or Osaka it’s the same thing, they have these tall buildings with floor upon floor of jiudian and bars, so Linsen bei lu is just becoming like that I guess. It’s actually not much fun because it’s really hard to figure out which place does what and if you are welcome or not.
There are plenty also with nakedness, drinking games, that finish rather happily. Take out service on demand. That is how dudes roll around here.
I don’t have anything against prostitution - I couldn’t care less what consenting adults get up to, whether it be sex or bare-knuckle fighting - but I can’t ever imagine getting in the mood via financial transaction (and not mutual attraction). I’m not doubting it can be done but I’m just not that kind of animal. The first week I was in Taipei I fell in with a bunch of rich young Taiwanese guys who, after a few hours on the turps, wanted to go and buy some girls, including one for me because I was their guest. I just told them straight out I couldn’t do it.
Once, back in Australia, I had the misfortune to find myself as a tour guide of sorts in Townsville, for a group of red-blooded lads who were more ‘out of town’ than I was, if that makes sense. I say misfortune because quite early on in the night they wanted to go to a strip joint and I’d never been to one (in Townsville, at least) as that’s just not my scene. Anyway, I thought I knew the location of one on the main drag - the big windows at street level were all blacked out, the entrance was baffled like a darkroom, and a smoking-hot, mini-skirted young woman was always stood out front, soliciting customers - so I took them along to that. We moseyed on in with me in the lead but once inside, and much to the utter disgust of my charges, we saw nothing but wall-to-wall dildoes and other assorted sex toys (one giant pink phallus in particular, a centerpiece of sorts, sticks in my mind). I couldn’t stop laughing, all the way to the next, real :discodance: strip club. I ‘ghosted’ a couple of beers after that, as the place was full of dirty, lecherous old men. As my old man would say, fuck that for a game of soldiers.
Yeah these places are mainly for people who can’t get laid or can’t stand the wife anymore, it’s all very manufactured and boring for young people.
Finally I got around to it. And ^ This. Is accurate.