Nine Portions. Nine Families

What's in a name?  An unusual name of a place known as "Jiufen" [九份] (nine portions) in Taiwan?

It is said that long time ago there were only nine families in Jiufen.  Before the road transportation at Jiufen were built, all material were transported by ships at the nearby wharf.

Thus a habit was formed that nine pieces of the same items were purchased at one time for reservation.
Hence, the place was called Jiufen.

Jiufen used to be the center of gold mining.  It is located within the hills in northeast of Taiwan.  The village is next to the mountains and facing the sea.

In 1890, someone struck gold near Jiufen.  The poor village with only nine families soon attracted prospectors of 4,000 families for the gold rush.  The village once was gold city of Asia and called "little Shanghai" or "little Hong Kong".

However, with the decline of gold mining activities after World War II, Jiufen fades.

A Chinese movie "A City of Sadness" was filmed on location at Jiufen and it was awarded first prize in Venice Film Festival in 1989.  It revived the memories of Jiufen with prosperous old streets, buildings, mines and the glamorous gold digging days and the original buildings, the mountain villages with clobbered uneven streets, dangerously steep and narrow remain in their original conditions for authenticity.

Jiufen today is untouched by modern day highrise buildings, architectures, designs or road developments found in the cities all over the world .....

Please watch the movie "A City of Sadness" [悲情城巿] directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien here.

九份：台灣最傳統的小鎮  (Jiufen: Taiwan's most traditional village).  

The mountains look towards the sea (Photos below).

One Day Trip to Jiufen

This is the day of the trip as shown in the big calendar on the wall of the "Ah Hoon Fish Ball Noodle" shop.

With the courtesy and hospitality of Dharma Sister Xiao Qing (曉菁師姐) of Taiwan as guide, we travelled from Taipei to Jiufen by MRT, TRA (Taipei Railway Administration) train and taxi.

Outside the Ruifang Train Station

The yellow cabs were waiting for passengers in this photo.

Arrived at Jiufen

Photo courtesy of a contributor on the Internet with thanks.

This young gal wasn't playing games on her iPhone.  She was introducing the product information from the iPhone on her hand, her job :)

Ah Zhu Popiah Peanut Ice Cream

This is a very crowded popular Ah Zhu stall with "live" demonstration for the patrons.  The smooth taro ice-cream is served on traditional popiah skin and sprinkled with shaved peanut bits.

Ah Hoon Fish Ball Noodle Shop

The above old newspaper articles were displayed on the walls of the shop.

This YouTube video is selected on the blog with the courtesy of the contributor with thanks.  Best educational and informative video to learn about Jiufen.

An interesting trip to Jiufen video (in Cantonese) uploaded to YouTube by Freeminder Emi with thanks  to share on this blog.