Day 8 - A Train Love Story In Neiwan Old Street, The Long Walk South In Taiwan
Day 8 - A Train Love Story In Neiwan Old Street, The Long Walk South In Taiwan
The guesthouse we stayed at last night, did not offer breakfast.
So we got up early, packed our backpacks, thanked our hosts and started walking south.
We did not have a long way to walk today, because the plan was only to walk to the Neiwan Old Street where our next guesthouse is located, and spend the rest of the day exploring the old streets.
Half way to our destination, we stopped to look at the remnants of a local train station, that was converted into a cafe, shops and an information center.
The lady at the tiny information center told us that we should take the scenic train to Neiwan station.
It is a nostalgic love story train station, and since the day was not rainy, we could see the Neiwan Scenic Area that is encircled by tall hills and runs along the Youluo River.
We said that we were walking and that we were only about an hour’s walk to Neiwan and that we would not be taking the train.
Later, we thought that we should take the train tomorrow, since it is only four kilometers long, and we have to reverse our way anyway to continue our walk south.
The story of the discontinued train and the old station was written by a local man who grew up here:
“I was born in an old-fashioned farm house in Nanhe village of Hengshan.
Later, my family moved to a spot closer to Hexing station.
I entered Tadu primary school in 1947, when the local railway was still under construction.
I had the opportunity to witness the entire process of the construction.
I saw how deep the ground was dug to build an iron bridge, how three tunnels were made by human labor, how laborers hung in the air with a rope to bury dynamite in the sides of mountains, and how rocks and earth were carried away in push-carts.
Young and naughty as I was, I went to the construction site almost every day after school and watched the actual building of the railway.
In its heyday, passengers boarded the train without tickets and then adjusted fares with the conductor on the train.
I can still vividly remember the grass and flowers growing around the station, the marks on cross-ties left by rushing train wheels, the worn-out wooden switch indicator, and the whole process of turn-back operations of cars.
In a sense, l grew up with Hexing station as well as with Neiwan local line.
When I was a freshman at Xinzhu High School, I happened to see a couple of girl students crowded into a toilet-room on the train.
I knew at once they were from Xinzhu Commercial Vocational School, located next to ours.
One of the girls with a pair of large sparkling eyes especially drew my attention.
I strained my eyes, found out her student serial number on her uniform and bore it deep in my mind - 6626.
It would take half an hour, even at a quick pace, from my house to Hexing station, an hour's ride on the train from Hexing to Xinzhu, and then another half an hour's walk from Xinzhu station to my school.
In addition, the wintry wind used to be freezing cold to us commuting students.
However, from the day I came across Miss 6626, the commuting had become one of my greatest joys and pleasures.
At Zhudong station, where she would board the train, I would strain my eyes to search for her sight.
And on my way home, I would delay my boarding on purpose, jumping on the boarding deck when the train had already started moving, then walking through the cars one by one to look for her.
As soon as I found her, I kept a respectable distance from her, eyeing her sideways, wearing an expression of both nonchalance and tender-heartedness.
After about half a year's awkward courtship, Miss 6626 began to notice my presence and showed some reaction toward me.
I finally learned from a sister of one of my classmates that her name was Zhuhuei Peng, a top honor student in her school.
I started writing letters to her and received answers from her.
In the letters we mainly talked about studies at school and our daily lives.
In my third year at senior high school, I overslept on the morning of my examination day.
Consequently, I missed the train.
At that time, there was no taxi nor motorcycles, and if I missed the examination, that meant I had to repeat another year at school.
There was only one thing for me to do - to chase after the train to catch it!
Without thinking, I started running along the rails.
I knew that there was only 2.1 kilometers' distance from Hexing to the next station, with several curves on down-slopes so that the train had to slow down now and then.
In addition, the train had to stop by a cement factory to pull along freight cars with cement cargo, which would further delay the train.
I ran and ran, visualizing her sight in my mind, and in my mind's eye she was cheering for me.
Finally, the train that was stopped at Qiouzantou station, was in sight, and I could see the passengers putting their heads out of the car windows and waving their hands at me.
They were even cheering for me!
When I came closer, I could see the station master glancing at his wristwatch, looking as if he was wondering whether he should wait one more minute to let me catch the train.
Sweating all over and panting, I reached the platform and jumped on the train to the passengers' loud cheers and applause.
I chased and succeeded in catching the train, and several years later I also succeeded in catching Miss 6626 as my wife.
Now my three children are all grown up, either teaching at a university or starting his own business.
One day we invited Mr. Zhiyun Ye, a journalist and a good friend of mine, and his family to our town.
We showed them the scenic spots around the town, including Hexing station.
The station was quite deserted, with once blooming flowers either stolen or withered, and weeds growing almost as tall as men.
Even worse, the toilets in the lavatory were vandalized, and the doors and windows were all broken, a painful sight to see. Standing there, I was overwhelmed with emotion and burst out saying "I am going to adopt this station!"
To my great surprise, Mr. Ye wrote my emotional outburst into a feature story and put it with pictures in the next day's newspaper.
About this time, a social scandal broke out between a graduate student and his girlfriend, which shocked the people of Taiwan.
As I was once young and very much in love with Miss 6626, I decided to write a book about what happened to me when I was young, under the title "Chasing the Train," along with a letter to the young generation, hoping for them to have a correct attitude toward the boy-and girl relationship.
I also expressed my desire to adopt the station and take good care of it.
My press interview was telecasted on several television stations and reported in several newspapers.
From that day on, I started employing workers to look after the station, fix the broken facilities and weed the grounds nearby. By the time Taiwan Railway Bureau had finally approved my application for the adoption, the station was nearly restored to its old self.
In later years, Neiwan has become one of the sightseeing places in the county, drawing a crowd of tourists every day but especially on weekends.
In addition to fixing the water fountain and keeping carps in the water, I planted more trees and flowers and turned the waiting room into an exhibition room with color photographs of Hexing station taken from a satellite as well as from a helicopter.
Sometimes I wonder whether my wife’s numbers "6626" have some special meaning or significance.
When taken apart into individual figures and added up (6 + 6 +2+6), the sum is 20 or *2 times 10*, and the figure "ten" means "perfect" in Chinese!
The figure "6626" is also a lucky number, because the figure "six" means "excellent luck" in Chinese, and "6626" can be analyzed into "6 + 6=2x6"; that is,
"Two great strokes of luck put together" or "Excellent luck grows twice as much"!
I admit that this is a little bit far-fetched, but I honestly believe that I was born under a double lucky star!”
People come here to do fly fishing in the river, go on a reminiscent train trip, walk along the picturesque scenery of the emerald green woods and cross the suspension bridges.
Neiwan is known for its five suspension bridges over the river.
Under the suspension bridges, visitors enjoy catching shrimp and crabs in the shallow pools of the riverbank or swimming in the stream, barbecuing, camping, and having holiday outings.
As we neared the village, we saw go-kart tracks and carnival-like attractions, which made me realize that the area might attract lots of families with young children.
A black car stopped near us and a man came over to us.
He asked us a few questions in Chinese, which I didn’t understand linguistically, but I understood that he was asking us if we were staying in town for the night.
I said yes and showed him my phone map with the address of the guesthouse that we’d booked for the night.
He said that he was the owner of the guesthouse and that he and his wife would take us there.
I said that we wanted to walk there, maybe eat something along the way, but he was adamant that he wanted us to check in now.
We got into his car and he drove to the guesthouse.
There were almost no cars on the narrow winding streets.
He showed us our room, which was spacious and decorated with dozens of fluffy toys inside glass cabinets on the walls.
He showed us how to get water and tea from the dispenser and how to operate the air-conditioner, collected the payment and bid us good day.
After cooling off in the air conditioned room and drinking some tea, we went for a walk around the old streets.
It was clear that this was a place that thrived only on weekends.
Even though we saw plenty of other tourists walking around, most of the stalls lining the streets were closed.
The streets are narrow and hilly, and I was happy that we were not here on the weekend, when the streets are full of flag-following tour groups.
We had lunch at a small Hakka restaurant, where we ate some local veg dishes of sautéed lily stems, wild mushrooms, local noodles and rice.
The owner told us that he’d seen us walking, and gave us a delicious high mountain hot tea and a big discount, for no apparent reason.
There is a beautiful temple behind the old street called Guangji Temple.
I read that in the nearby stream, there is a traditional Hakka setup for doing laundry by hand, and that you can still see the old residents of the town doing their laundry on that street.
The area is also popular for viewing fire flies in April and May, and people come from all over the country to see the fire flies that are native to the area behind the village.
We walked the Old Streets of Neiwan, bought some green, grassy glutinous rice dumplings filled with preserved lily, a specialty of the area, and some air freeze-dried fruit to snack on.
Later, we returned to the same eatery to have our dinner.
We ate a yummy dinner of sautéed baby eggplant, wild mushrooms with wood-ear mushrooms, a local tofu and rice.
Again, the owner gave us hot tea and a discount.
The restaurant was full, mostly with people staying at our guest house, but he did not give them the same treatment.
I was touched.
With love,
Tali
Today’s Stats:
Steps - 14,994
Daily Distance - 10 km.
Total Distance To Date - 109 km
