Jiufen's gold mine
A few months ago, I went back to visit my home country of Taiwan. I grew up in the southern countryside and even our biggest city, Kaohsiung, isn't really advanced or modernized compared to other major asian cities. Nevertheless, I took this chance to visit parts of the north this time, and we went to Jiufen (九份).
Jiufen (九份) is a mountain area whose name literally translates as "Nine Portions". Back then, nine isolated families lived in these mountains, and because going to the city was a heck of a travel, often times they would delegate a single family to go and buy enough for all nine families in the mountain. Thus, whenever they went to town, they could be heard asking for "nine bags of rice", "nine bottles of soy sauce", and "nine portions of takeaway bentos" to bring back up the mountain. Because of this, the locals called this entire mountain area "Nine Portions".
There's also a gold mine (turned into a museum) up here that was run by the Japanese, and I'm going to chronicle this particular visit.
Taiwan is a country still suffering from the effects of Japanese colonization. During WWII, the British were defeated in the battle of Singapore and all the PoWs were shipped to Taiwan to work in the gold mines to fuel the war effort.
One in twenty soldiers in Nazi PoW camps died.
In Taiwan, one in three soldiers in Japanese PoW camps died. This is considered a conservative estimate. The reason, or so I've been told, is because the Japanese considered it honorable to fight to the death. Surviving PoWs are therefore dishonorable and deserve death--so they were worked to death in the mines.
The picture below is where the Japanese family set up to oversee the gold mine lived.
After this, there is a wonderful mountain hike that takes you towards the gold mine and museum.
We went on a super rainy day and the fog rolled in, quite beautifully, in fact. We may have gotten drenched but it was well worth it.
After which, you can make a turn to see the gold mine. Regulations require a hard hat and a visibility vest.
With the storm on the day, there was a constant trickle of water running through the rocks and a steady drip-drip inside the tunnels. Some excellent horror ambience. Really made me wish I had my audio recorder with me.
Once you're out, you're routed back to the main attraction which is the gold museum. There's a superstition here that if you touch gold (the bigger the chunk, the better!) you'll be sure to receive a prosperous fortune. Times like these remind me of our culture's drive towards money above all things. My grandparents never told me to find love or be kind to others--they believed that those things followed naturally once you accumulated a massive fortune.
If you listen, you'll hear a tragedy behind every single asian family that arose from that worldview.
While I was trying to discern if the hunk of gold was real or not, I overheard a conversation between a group of tourists wondering if it's possible to steal it. They goaded each other into trying.
(Anyway, I touched the gold brick and I am pleased to report that that I am NOT swimming in riches like Scrooge McDuck.)
Once you enter the gift shop, you're greeted with this amazing thing:
It's gold Jesus! Such ideals are extremely common in Taiwan. In all things does our society ask us to min-max. If you can have one blessing (from gold), you'd be stupid not to DOUBLE UP the blessing with the help of Jesus. And no, you don't need to believe in Christianity. The point of this cultural ideal of min-maxing is that you do it, just in case.