The Unextinguished Glow – The Golden Era of Jinguashi

Text & Photography by Li Xinyi

Unlike the hustle and bustle of Jiufen, the nearby Jinguashi sees relatively fewer visitors. Nowadays, Jinguashi embodies a serene tranquility after the flurry of prosperity, with its simple mountain life serving as its present-day portrait. But come to Jinguashi, and you can more or less still discern remnants of the gold rush era, catch the faint whiff of that lost vibrancy hidden beneath the serenity — whether in the rows of Japanese-style houses, the Crown Prince’s Guesthouse, or the mine entrances. It’s also in the expertise of the old miners who still live here, who spent their lives learning how to identify and smelt gold. Those hands, which once refined countless veins of ore, are more precious than gold itself !

The prosperity of Jinguashi dates back to the gold rush era. Ask about how rich the gold deposits here once were, and locals will surely mention the outcrop of the Honzan ore deposit known as the “Big Gold Melon.” The soil extracted from the Big Gold Melon was among the highest-grade gold ore, with a gold content of approximately 40 to 50%. There’s a popular saying among locals: “A bowl of scooped ore can wash out a bowl of flat gold,” referring to just how rich the gold content in the Big Gold Melon’s soil was. After the discovery of this massive “gold mine” in Jinguashi, the Japanese first carried out large-scale mining operations. In the following years, under subsequent management, Jinguashi established Shaft One, Shaft Two, Shaft Three … all the way down to Shafts Eight and Nine, which extended below sea level. After the entire Big Gold Melon was excavated, locals said it disrupted the feng shui, which led to Jinguashi’s eventual decline.

After the gold mine was discovered, waves of people flocked to Jinguashi, chasing their dreams of striking it rich. Chen Shicheng, a 77-year-old veteran miner, recalled those days, noting that at its peak, over 40,000 people lived here, and there were two elementary schools and two cinemas. Why two of each? Because the Japanese and Taiwanese were kept separate. What are now called cinemas were referred to as clubs at the time. The First Club was reserved for Japanese, while the Second Club was for Taiwanese. After the Japanese left, the First Club was repurposed by the Taiwan Metal Mining Corporation as Zhongshan Hall and continued to be used as a cinema. It’s said the name was changed to Zhongshan Hall to avoid taxation by the government.