Way down to Xinzhu

For my fieldwork I went to Xinzhu last week. Transportation system in Taiwan is convenient. In addition to buses and airplanes, I can choose trains or the High-Speed Rail. When I arrived in the Taipei train station, the clerk asked me “do you want to take ‘Local Express’?” I don’t know what “Local Express” is, but it sounds interesting so I got the ticket and took the train right away.

“Local Express” means the train goes through different regions in certain area; for example, the train I took goes south until central Taiwan and stops at every city on the way. After the train took off, I was like having a regional tour, and saw different cities and towns passing by outside the window. The trip took 1 and half hours, and I stopped at the Xinzhu train station, which is an architecture built during the Japanese Occupation period (1895-1945.) Nowadays many cities in Taiwan still maintain the old train stations as cultural heritage. However, some cities, such as Taipei, admits that the old train station is not big enough and thus built a new one.

Xinzhu is an “IT city”, which means a lot of IT companies are located here, and I heard that the income of its residents is one of the highest in Taiwan. However, for my fieldwork I went to its old downtown and visited some temples, and thus didn’t see anything high-tech. The city guard temple in Xinzhu is beautiful. There is a square in front of the temple, and so many vendors sell delicious food. Small streets, small shops, and street vendors remind me of my early days in Taiwan.

The Xinzhu train station

The platform at Xinzhu station

Local Express

Inside the Local Express