Chiufen (Nine Portions) just outside Taipeh

My friends asked me what it was like to visit a gold mining town. Did I find gold nuggets?

Chiufen has such nice food!!

Chiufen is sea facing and located within the hills in northeastern Taiwan and is just outside Taipeh. To this day it is still considered a village.  At the beginning there were only nine families in Chiufen. Before the roads on land were built, all materials were transported via ships. The nine households would order nine portions every time shipments arrived from town. Hence, the place was called Chiufen, ‘chiu’ meaning ‘nine’ in Chinese.

When I visited Chiufen it was foggy and at the end of winter. However even though I was only wearing a thin jacket I felt quite warm because there were so many tourists around. We were almost shoulder to shoulder!!

When gold mining was at its peak at the beginning of 1900's the village was known as "mini-Shanghai" However, with the decline of gold mining activities in northern Taiwan, Chiufen has faded away.Movies made here made Chiufen famous e.g. City of Sadness directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, and the Japanese animation movie, Spirit Away by Hayao Miyazaki used Chiufen as a model of the story background.

Today bus loads of tourists will descend on Chiufen to see its narrow Japanese styled streets lined with teahouses and souvenirs and snacks shops.