Sunday October 30 7:30 a.m.

Jioufen,Taiwan

I believe Jioufen was my second trip out of Taipei when I first came to Taiwan. I rode my bike here and stayed at a relatively fancy place called Old Window. I wouldn’t normally have stayed at a place that cost that much a night, but everything else was booked. At least, the places I could find were booked. Since then I’ve driven through and dropped in on Jioufen a number of times on my scooter as I drove somewhere else along the coast. Only one other time did I stay in Jioufen, and at that time, I ended up back in Old Window because once again everything was booked. Even Old Window didn’t have a regular room available. I had to stay in what was practically a closet. At least it was cheaper. This time, my third overnight stay in Jioufen, I found a completely different place, though oddly enough, it is on the same tiny lane as Old Window. It’s quite an odd place – an old ramshackle building jutting out over the hillside. I’d seen this place before, but it had always been full. This time, the woman at the front greeted me with a big smile and then brought me upstairs to show me a small Japanese style room. Under normal circumstances, it isn’t the type of room I’d like. I like privacy, and a Japanese style room with sliding glass doors is not very private, particularly when there is an identical room attached to it. You can hear everything that goes on in the next room and the light pours in through the glass. There was a sitting room on the other side, and it had some chairs and a sofa and a TV. I noted that the TV was sitting right up against the glass walls above the head of my bed. If anyone watched TV late into the night or had a little party in that room, I’d be kept awake. Finally, none of the rooms at this place had private bathrooms. There was only one shared bathroom down on the main floor along with two shower rooms. However, this room had something in its favor – it was available. The last thing I wanted to do was head out into Jioufen and go looking for a room. Besides being available, I got good vibes from the place, and that is not something to discount. I liked the woman who ran the place. She was very friendly and not freaked out at all about dealing with a foreigner. There was a large common room downstairs with tables and chairs. The place was also very quirky – sort of slapped together at random as so many things in Taiwan are. The owner also had some kind of affinity with stuffed animals. My room had six shelves available – a good thing – but all six were filled with stuffed animals. As I type this in the TV room on the second floor, I am being stared at by a host of stuffed creatures – panda bears, Hello Kitty dolls, penguins, Totoros of various sizes, and many others. So at least I have company – of the silent variety.

I’d ended up in Jioufen this time rather by chance. I’d set off from Taipei on Saturday morning with the vague idea of heading to the coast. I simply wanted to see some ocean and perhaps scramble around on some rocks near the rock-climbing area of Longdon. I took the route out of Taipei that takes me past the zoo and then up into the mountains to Jingtun, Pingxi and Shihfen – attractive and interesting tourist towns along an old narrow-gauge railroad that once served the mines in that region. I was in the mood to cover some ground and I didn’t stop in Jingtun or Pingxi. I kept going until I reached my favorite roadside coffee place. It is a hangout for bikers from Taipei. They drive a mixture of cruisers and racing bikes, all of them the type of bikes you could drive across Canada without breaking a sweat – bikes with huge engines and lots of chrome. The guys driving the racing bikes are often decked out in leather from head to food with skid pads on their elbows, knees, and even backs. The skid pads on their backs look exactly like giant turtle shells, giving them a comic appearance.

This coffee shop is an outdoor affair with lots of trees and a fish pond or two. They serve a good cup of coffee and there is a lot to look at, from the fancy motorbikes to the bikers to the bikes racing past on the highway just a few meters to the left. Twice I’ve seen an accident on this stretch of road, though never with motorbikes. Motorbikes are designed to grip the pavement on high-speed turns. No, the accidents always involve scooters. Guys drive them like they are motorbikes, and they really aren’t designed for that kind of driving. Lean them over on a tight curve, and the body of the scooter will touch the pavement and lift the rear wheel off the ground, and the scooter goes skidding off the road – hopefully not crashing into anyone or anything.

I was barely awake as I drove up to this coffee shop. I rarely come fully awake on the weekend until Sunday morning. I get enough sleep, but I never seem to get enough rest during the week. Because of that, I didn’t do much while I sat in the coffee shop. I mostly sat there and watched the bikers. It was much colder than I’d expected and I hadn’t dressed properly, so I was a little cold and I had to warm up my hands around my coffee in order to type. I got out my maps for a while and thought about where to go after this coffee shop visit.

I like these towns along the railroad lines, and as I drove past Shihfen, I couldn’t resist the urge to stop. The cold and slightly overcast weather had kept some people away, but Shihfen was still pretty busy. A good seven or eight colorful tour buses were parked along the main road and the rest of the space was taken up by cars. People also come to Shihfen by train. They can take the train from Taipei and transfer in Ruifang to the narrow-gauge line up to these towns. It is a great deal. I did it once, and I believe the ticket was about NT$45 and you could ride the train from any town to any town as many times as you wanted all day long. The problem with that – a problem it has in common with most things in Taiwan– is that the trains can be very crowded. I saw a few of them go by as I wandered around Shihfen, and they were packed with people. I could see them pressed up against the windows like they were on a commuter train during rush hour.

I walked around Shihfen taking pictures and taking in the sights. It’s a great place, a type of place that could never exist in Canada. For one thing, the main drag is essentially the railroad itself. It runs right through the town, and all the shops and restaurants are lined up right there. People come to Shihfen to light sky lanterns and release them into the sky. Before they do that, they write messages on the large paper lanterns – usually wishes for the future – and these wishes go up into the sky. The problem from a Canadian point of view is that these lanterns are powered by open flames. The lanterns are made of thin paper stretched over a thin wire frame. Hanging from the bottom is a wire platform with some kind of material soaked in flammable liquid. When the lanterns are ready, people go out onto the railroad tracks to release them. This is usually a group activity and a photo op. People circle the lanterns and hold onto one of the edges. When it is time, someone from the lantern shop lights the flammable material. It burns with a dark and smoky flame and the lantern slowly fills with hot air.

There is something of an art to this. Release it too soon, and the lantern just flops over and bursts into flame. Release it too late, and the flames have burned out and there is not enough heat to lift it – and it bursts into flames. Release it at the wrong time, and the wind catches it before it clears the top of the buildings. The lantern hits the buildings and bursts into flame. Wait too long during the photo op and everyone has to scatter out of the way as the regular tourist train thunders through town. That is my favorite moment in Shihfen – the arrival of the train. Photography has taken off in Taiwan, and the tracks are generally covered in people trying to take low angle and artsy-fartsy shots of the tracks. Other people are taking pictures of their friends posing with bits of train stuff. Children are darting across the tracks to check out snacks on the other side. There are signs saying that people should not walk along the tracks, but apparently just hanging out on the tracks is fine. So when the train approaches, there is a sudden moment of panic and shrieking and excitement. Many people can’t resist taking a picture, and they stop right at the edge of the tracks and line up the camera. The train engineer isn’t too fond of that, and will let off a blast of the horn to back these people up – and that works. In that tight space, the air horn is deafening.

The funny thing is that even if everything goes right with the lantern, the result is that a flaming paper lantern is soaring up into the sky to come down who knows where. And many of the lanterns have long tails of firecrackers attached. These raise the stakes when it comes to releasing the lantern properly. You sort of want those firecrackers to go off up in the sky, not draped over some food stall at the side of the tracks. The point is that the safety police in Canada(ie, everyone) would never allow any of this to happen.

I couldn’t resist a second cup of coffee in Shihfen, and I popped into a restaurant and café attached to a very nice hotel in Shihfen. It has been in operation since 1922 according to the signs, and is a great place to hang out. My table was out in the garden with a nice view of the suspension bridge and the mountains. An entertaining parrot lived in a big cage right beside my table. This parrot was an attention hound. It did acrobatics and made all kinds of interesting calls to get me over to the cage. Once I was there, it ran up to the wires and stared at me and preened. I whistled and it whistled back using the exact same tones.

A wire tunnel ran around the entire garden, and at first I thought it was for the parrot to be able to go out exploring and move to different cages. When I investigated, however, I saw that it was for squirrels. There were about ten squirrels living inside it, and the tunnel ran along the garden for perhaps fifty or sixty meters and went up into the trees. Along the tunnel was a series of containers – squirrel nests – and squirrels were constantly popping out of these things to dash along the tunnel to the next nest. It was an ingenious sort of arrangement.

It started to rain while I was in Shihfen, and I considered saying there for the night. I saw an intriguing place right on the railroad tracks that looked like a backpacker hostel. Like many of the places in Shifhen, it was painted in bright primary colors. There was some information there in English that said they had rooms, guided tours and free information about Shihfen. Unfortunately, the door was closed and the shop’s neighbors indicated that the owner was out of town. I took a chance and called the cell phone number that was listed, and a half an hour later I got a call back. The rumor was true, and the owner was out of town. Too bad. I had some snacks along the railroad tracks and got some more information about a homestay in Shihfen, but try as I might, I couldn’t track it down. That, plus a hint of clear skies to the east, convinced me to give up on Shihfen as a place to stay and drive on.

I soon became very glad I decided to keep going. The rain was confined to the mountain area, and once I got closer to the coast, the rain stopped and everything dried up. It hadn’t rained there at all. My plan was to drop in on Jioufen and hang out for a while and then drive to Keelung. On a recent trip to Keelung, I’d learned that there were a number of affordable hotels behind and around the train station. If I stayed there, I’d be in a good position to drive down the coast in the morning or back to Taipei if the weather was awful.

I love driving up to Jioufen. I remember the first time – when I came here by bike – it was all a great adventure. It took quite an effort to figure out the roads and navigate my way through Ruifang. Now, after doing it so many times, it is just a lot of fun. Coming out of the mountains, the road goes straight down to practically sea level at the small town of Ruifang. There, you turn right and follow the road along the river until it climbs again and brings you right back up into the mountains at Jioufen.

Jioufen is a very busy place on the weekends, but that doesn’t bother me at all. On a scooter, the heavy traffic is not a problem. You can easily drive beside the stalled traffic and go anywhere you want. Parking is an issue, but enterprising local people have turned it into a thriving mini-industry. Every scrap of available pavement has been turned into a parking lot with excitable people on the streets waving you in. I found a convenient little lot just past the main curve and I pulled in and parked my scooter for NT$50.

The main curve in Jioufen is an exciting place. It is essentially where the main road goes through the town. There is a tight curve with a big 7-11 right there, and this is where the action begins. Taxis stop there to drop people off and pick them up. Buses jammed to the ceiling with visitors try to navigate that tight curve. At the end of the day, around six o’clock, when everyone is trying to get home, police have to set up there and orchestrate the traffic allowing traffic to flow from only one direction at a time. Otherwise, two buses would meet and get stuck and there would be even more chaos.

Right beside the 7-11 is an unimposing alley, and this is the entrance to Jioufen’s old street, Jinshan Street. This alley is jammed with people on the weekend, and anyone who enters it had better be willing to give up a good chunk of their life to make it out the other side. I never seem to mind, though. It’s not like one comes to Jioufen to be in a hurry. I just let the crowd carry me along. There are more than enough sights to keep you entertained along the way. If the crowds get too much for you, there are numerous opportunities to either go up or down some narrow winding staircase leading somewhere new. That’s the great thing about Joiufen – it is a true rabbit warren of little alleys and lanes and tiny staircases leading in all directions. Towards the end of the madness, Jishan Street intersects with Jioufen’s other main attraction –Shuqi Road. Whereas Jishan Street runs level along the mountainside, Shuqi road goes straight up and down. It is essentially a steep stone staircase. Along it are dozens of teashops, restaurants, homestays, galleries, and everything else you can name. Also here is the Shengping Theater. The façade of this old theater was under construction on all of my previous visits. This time, I was surprised to see that it was completed. In fact, Jioufen as a whole presented an entirely new face. I was astonished at the differences. I do remember on my previous visits that there was a lot of construction going on. The typical bamboo scaffolding was in evidence everywhere. It just seemed to be part of the Jioufen experience. Now, it is almost all gone and all that construction has resulted in dozens of more shops and galleries and homestays. It almost seems like a different place. There are also new signs everywhere pointing in Chinese and English to the various sights. There is even a brand new garbage disposal system. On all my previous visits, the weekend rush resulted in massive piles of smelly garbage all over the place. There didn’t seem to be any kind of system for dealing with it. Someone must have noticed that and done something about it because there are new garbage containers in several convenient locations. Not only that, the garbage is disposed of and not simply allowed to accumulate and build up into mountains. I was astonished and pleased to see this change. I associate almost all tourist attractions in Taiwan with piles of smelly garbage. Jioufen has done away with that tradition. In fact, I’m sure that there has been some kind of organizational change in Jiouefen. There must be some kind of association (one with funding) behind all these changes.

I started off writing about Jioufen saying that I didn’t mind the crowds here. The scooter makes the traffic snarl easy to navigate. I don’t mind walking slow in the narrow alleys. But the best way to deal with the crowds is to stay overnight. At six o’clock, hundreds and thousands of people rush to the buses and to their cars and scooters and head home. Just those staying overnight remain, and suddenly it feels like I have the whole town to myself. On previous visits, I really did feel like I had the entire place to myself. It was practically empty at night and in the morning and I could explore everywhere on my own. This time, there were more people out and about. Perhaps Jioufen has changed or perhaps it is because of the current photography fad. As I walked around last night at around 9 o’clock, I encountered quite a few people out and most of them were taking pictures. They had tripods and were trying to get classic shots of the harbor lights near Keelung and of the teashops on Shuqi Road with their bright lanterns.

I walked along Jinshan Street and then up and down Shuqi Road last night enjoying the colorful lights and the dozens of cats that seem to own this town at night. I spent about twenty minutes inside one shop on Shuqi Road that was still open. I might not have gone in, but the owner – a friendly and energetic man – insisted on it. I couldn’t get away without seeming to hurt his feelings. I’ve been in his shop before, but he seems to have expanded it. He doesn’t sell anything or offer any service. He simply collects what he calls 1980s nostalgia and puts it on display for people to enjoy. Going into his two-story ten-room place is like entering the largest garage sale in the world – and it smells like one, too. I don’t know that his collection has anything to do with the 1980s exactly. It seems to span many decades, and it is mainly western stuff. He hasn’t worried about the condition of his material or how he displays it. He appears to simply grab anything he can and then just piles it up here and there. The walls are covered in old record albums – Donnie Osmond and Marie Osmond were there along with the Bee Gees. There were piles of old stereos complete with 8-track players and turntables. A table covered in old cameras interested all the photographers passing through. And, knowing his market very well, this man had set up two areas where people could dress up in various costumes and pose for pictures. I have no idea what motivates this fellow to do this or how he pays for it, but it is an interesting place to explore. I saw far more things there that were once a part of my life than I care to admit. I often have that feeling, though. I often see things in museums that are still a day-to-day part of life. For example, he had a display of a Kodak carousel filled with slides. I suppose even the cameras would have fallen into that category except that just in the past year I finally gave up shooting film and switched to a digital camera. I guess I am keeping up the times a little bit. Wandering through his collection was a bit like wandering through my own life – a record of the technology that has come and gone – 8-tracks, cassettes, LPs, manual typewriters, electric typewriters, and Sony Walkmans just to name a few.

I’ve been writing this in the lobby of my homestay. My hostess made me a cup of coffee and a few slices of garlic bread for breakfast – included in the NT$500/night rate. It looks to be windy and cold outside. It also looks like it could rain, so that doesn’t bode well for my plans to go hiking along the rocky coast. Perhaps I will spend some time around Jioufen and Jinguashi and then take my time driving back to Taipei.

 

 

Tags: lantern, Taipei, train