Taiwan store lets visitors get close with snakes ahead of Lunar New Year
STORY: :: January 23, 2025
:: Taipei, Taiwan
:: Celebrate the Year of the Snake with a
close encounter at this Taiwan pet store
:: Luo Chih-yu, Owner, Pythonism
"I provide a space for people to try and experience snakes, finding out whether they like them without any prejudice."
"It can be a pet, but when we appreciate it at home it can be a 'jewel', just like a valuable collection, we'd clean the glass to protect it. At the beginning, in the first few years, we sold them online through a workshop. We hoped people who buy the snakes could be someone who loves snakes. There was once a parent who came to complain, so it was very difficult to vet (customers) through online sales, that's why we started this space."
Taiwan has been plastered with images of snakes ahead of the start of the Lunar New Year, which starts on Wednesday (January 29) and whose zodiac animal this year is the snake.
Luo Chih-yu, 42, the owner of the Taipei pet shop Pythonism which opened in 2017, is offering potential snake owners the chance to interact with snakes over a cup of coffee.
The reptile has a mixed reputation in traditional Taiwanese and Chinese culture as a symbol of either good or bad. Some of Taiwan's indigenous peoples venerate snakes as guardian spirits.
