[ Dec.2012] One of the reasons why I wanted to visit Taiwan is this small village, Jiufen.
I like the Japanese animation film ‘Spirited Away’ and I heard that Jiufen was one of the places which gave the inspiration to this film making.
So we chose the tour which included this place.
When we arrived at Jiufen, it was already dark.
The main attraction of this place is the long staircase with numerous lanterns, so being dark was good.
But it was raining very hard when we got off the bus.
So hard that my jeans got soaked, though I had the umbrella.
Actually in the film, too, I remember, there were a lot of rainy scenes.
Our guide said that it is really rainy area in Taiwan.
She told us that there were only 9 families were living originally, and because when they went down to the town to get some foods and others, they always said ‘ for 9 ‘ and that was the origin of this village’s name–Jiufen literally means ‘for 9’.
At the end of 19th century, gold was found here and suddenly it was full of people.
But this did not last long.
When the gold was dried up, the village became backwaters again.
Then in 1989, Taiwanese successful film called City of Sadness was filmed here and became a tourist attraction.
It is really a picturesque place and definitely worth visiting.
