Along the Northeast cost of Taiwan, there are several townships that have experiences periods of glory, decay, and re-invention. Those townships include Sui-Hong (瑞方) and Kau-Fu-A (九分仔).
In the early 1930's, gold mine was discovered. The Japanese colonial government set up a company to manage the gold mine. Tunnels and infrastructures to transport and process the gold mines were built. Population of townships shot up rapidly, and the township enjoyed period of glory and prosperity. This glory and prosperity continued after 1945 when the Japanese government surrounded to the Allies and the Chinese colonial government took over the mine management. Gold and mineral production of those township began to decline until it all ran out in the 1970s.
Those township began to experience a time of depression between 1970 and 2000. Jobs were gone. Young people left the town for the jobs in big cities.
Those townships reinvented themselves in the 2000's after a very successful movie, 'The Sorrowful Township' (悲情城市) shooting at 九分仔. Today, the townships have become a very popular tourists' spot. There are old shopping street, the gold museum that attract tourists all over the world; mostly, tourist from Japan. I do agree this is a great tourist spot. I enjoy very much with every details of the 九分仔.
Photo shows the shopping street of 九分仔.
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