Illī Qui Vagantur

Jiufen

Drew and I didn't know what we were going to do today. Originally, we were just going to study Chinese and look in his guidebook for something to do later in the day in Taipei. We took the express train from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang and a bus from Ruifang to Jiufen. But we started flipping through the pages in his guidebook and decided to take a day-trip to Jiufen instead. We took the express train from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang and then a bus from Ruifang to Jiufen. At the bus stop, I had my first picture request of the trip. A girl asked if I would mind if she took a photo of me. She said I was pretty and that she liked my hair. I said I didn't mind. I never mind when people ask, I only mind when they "toupai." Literally "steal a shot". Well, sort of. Actually, part of the reason I dyed my hair black is to avoid intense stares. The lighter your hair is the more people will stare at you. I noticed this last time I was here, when the lighter my hair got from the sun (it almost turned blonde, but I dyed it), the more attention I received. But even when my hair was dark it happened on occasion that someone would toupai.


The worst was while I was waiting in line to take the gondola up to Maokong. I was talking to my friend Loren, and we noticed this old man who kept talking and waving his hands at us from a distance. We thought he was weird so we just ignored him. Later, I realized he was trying to let me know that another guy with a giant camera was taking a bunch of photos of me. I finally noticed and then opened my umbrella in his direction to block his shot and to let him no I wasn't pleased. His face turned red and he stopped. But don't think he is weirdo. He is probably a perfectly nice guy. Taking pictures of foreigners here is a hobby in its own right. I was complaining about it to some of my Taiwanese friends once, and then I noticed they were kind of quiet. It turns out they have toupai-ed foreigners too. When I asked them why they wanted a picture of a stranger and what they do with it, they said that they like to take pictures of foreigners they think are good-looking, nicely dressed, or otherwise intersting and that they usually just show eachother. It isn't anything sinister, but nevertheless I prefer to be asked first.

Anyway, the topic of this post is Jiufen, so back to Jiufen...

Jiufen is an old goldmining town developed by the Japanese, but with a history predating their control of the island. It is built on the side of a mountain and the shops are built along the sides of narrow staircases that twist and turn their way up the mountain (like the one above). Red lanterns hang down everywhere and there are many tea shops with wonderful views overlooking the ocean. Drew and I stopped at the Sky Lantern Teahouse for some tea I can't recall the name of at the moment. We were the only ones there and our table was outdoors with a great view. The waitress was really nice (which isn't really surprising since Taiwanese people are probably the nicest people on earth). She spoke to us in Chinese and showed us how to prepare the tea. They brought out an earthenware pot and heated up coals inside of it. Then they brought out a teapot and placed it over the coals. I wish i had brought a little notebook to remember all of the names of the tea things, but I haven't purchased one yet, so I forgot. We drank the tea there and cooled off a bit. We were so drenched in sweat from walking around in 114 degree weather that my faux hawk had melted into a no hawk. Somehow drinking hot tea cooled us off, I don't know, but it did. We got to keep the tea that we didn't drink and Drew bought extra for himself since he liked it. They also gave us a lot of free samples of other types of tea. It was really nice.

When I went to have the leftover tea put in a bag, the lady behind the counter asked me if I was from France. I said no I am from the U.S. Sadly, I have learned that if someone thinks you are from anywhere in Europe that is a complement, but if someone thinks you look like you are from the U.S. most of the time it is an insult (it means you are either fat or not fashionable or both). Then she said I had very pretty eyes. I said thanks out of habit, then immediately regretted because it is not polite to say thank you after being complemented in Chinese. I should have denied it and said they weren't anything special. Its not really a big deal, people don't care and they know you aren't trying to be rude, but I know better so I just think I should try not to do it. Anyway, overall the day was good for my self-esteem.

After the teahouse we wandered around a bit more and found two temples. We even got to go on the roof of one of them, which was really cool. Every part of a temple has intricate sculptures or other decorations. I always want to take a picture of every part, but it is too hard because there is too much detail even on one temple. On the roof the edges are all capped with round dragon faced tiles. One of them was broken and laying on the ground. I was tempted to take it home because it would be cool to have, but I didn't know if they were going to reuse it or not and taking a piece of a temple just seems wrong anyway, so I just took a picture of it and put it back on the ground where I found it.