In all fairness, my visit to Jioufen was on the wrong day and and under the wrong circumstances. Jioufen is actually a very interesting town and loaded with character. I saw none of that. There were far too many people and my time there was strictly limited. I hope to go back one day when the streets are not so crowded and I am able to stay longer. According to what I have read, Jioufen was once a gold mining town, totally outrageous and excessive.... so much so that it was tagged, "Little Shanghai." Th
e gold dried up within a decade or two and the town quieted down. In 1989, one of Taiwan's filmmakers, Hou Haiso-Hsien, filmed the movie,
City of Sadness, in Jioufen. It was a movie about Taipei, but Jioufen was the stand-in for Taipei, because it was to depict Taipei in the 40's. the success of that movie brought artists to live and work in Jioufen. It also brought a throng of visitors. In a small way, the town suggested to me what a small, old Seattle might have looked like with the hills and mountains and layers of buildings at different heights with a large body of water close enough to feel in the air. There are stone steps and laddered streets. But for me and Myra (a foreign teacher friend in my county who makes a great travel partner), it was a flood of tourists and barely room enough to slither throu gh the crowds unscathed.
In all fairness, my visit to Jioufen was on the wrong day and and under the wrong circumstances. Jioufen is actually a very interesting town and loaded with character. I saw none of that. There were far too many people and my time there was strictly limited. I hope to go back one day when the streets are not so crowded and I am able to stay longer. According to what I have read, Jioufen was once a gold mining town, totally outrageous and excessive.... so much so that it was tagged, "Little Shanghai." Th
e gold dried up within a decade or two and the town quieted down. In 1989, one of Taiwan's filmmakers, Hou Haiso-Hsien, filmed the movie, City of Sadness, in Jioufen. It was a movie about Taipei, but Jioufen was the stand-in for Taipei, because it was to depict Taipei in the 40's. the success of that movie brought artists to live and work in Jioufen. It also brought a throng of visitors. In a small way, the town suggested to me what a small, old Seattle might have looked like with the hills and mountains and layers of buildings at different heights with a large body of water close enough to feel in the air. There are stone steps and laddered streets. But for me and Myra (a foreign teacher friend in my county who makes a great travel partner), it was a flood of tourists and barely room enough to slither throu gh the crowds unscathed.
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