Nine families and a journey from riches to rags and back

Jiufen [Photo/sohu.com]

Until gold was found in Jiufen in Taiwan in 1893 it was a rather sleepy town, and indeed in its early days, during the Qing Dynasty (1368-1644), just nine families are said to have lived there.

Because of poor transport at the time, whoever went out of the then village, located in what is now Ruifang district of Xinbei city, usually bought everything in nine packages, one for each family. Thus the name Jiufen, jiu meaning nine and fen parts.

But when gold was discovered there in 1893 the mountain-side village was transformed into a town in which 40,000 people eventually lived, and tightly packed buildings eventually competed with one another on the hillsides, linked with labyrinth of narrow, winding paths.

The Japanese colonizers of Taiwan between 1895 and 1945 took control of the gold reserves along with the Yan family in the town of Keelung, near Jiufen. More than 80 gold pits operated at the height of the gold boom, and many of its inhabitants led affluent lives in a buzzing town that never seemed to sleep.

Predictably, as the gold resources began to dwindle in the late 1950s, the town's life blood seeped slowly away and by the early 1970s the gold was finished and the town became a sleepy relic of what it had been for nearly 80 years.

But it started to attract artists with its beautiful landscape, winding paths and old buildings, and as sculptors and ceramic artists began to move in there was a mini renaissance.

That began to be cemented in the early 1990s after the release of the film A City of Sadness, which was filmed in Jiufen, and which won the Gold Lion award at the 46th Venice Film Festival in 1989.

The town has now become a tourist magnet, and its shops, restaurants, teahouses, cafe and home-stay inns have become thriving businesses. Many of those who visit the town are there for less than a day, so one way of experiencing it at its quietest best is to stay for a night or two.