The Making of an Ordinary Woman | Narrow Door Café Alley — Sixty Years Old and Sixteen Again

Chu Ying grabs Chen Jin-wen's hand and pulls him out of the restaurant mid-meal, down the street and into this alley, and the two of them stand against the wall laughing like teenagers. The official Tainan City caption ends on the line that makes it: for a moment the two of them are back in their youth.

They are both in their sixties. He is married. Nothing happens. That restraint is the whole reason the scene lands.

The alley is the point of pilgrimage and it is free. At its narrowest the gap is about thirty-eight centimetres — you turn sideways to get through, and your shoulder blades touch both walls at once. The walls are old rendered brick, patched over and over in different mixes, with a painted service pipe running the length of one side. It is the exact texture the scene was shot against.

You come out of the slot directly opposite the Confucius Temple wall, and the noise floor drops the moment you are through. Traffic on Nanmen Road becomes birds and the occasional scooter.

The café at the top of the stairs is a private business on the second floor of an old house, and the alley is the only way in. Order something if you go up — the stairs are not a tourist attraction with a coffee shop attached, they are a coffee shop with a famous entrance.

Walk the slot once and then stand still in the middle of it. Two people escaping a restaurant had to come through here one at a time, holding hands, which means one of them was pulling and the other was following. That is the whole relationship, built into the width of a wall.

Location data: Tainan City Government tourism and the official filming location map for the series.