Houtong is a village on the Pingxi train line, not far from where we were staying in Jiu Fen earlier in May (my mother’s home town, and a former gold/copper mining town). I plan to do something bigger with the photos I took in Jiu Fen, so stayed tuned for that! We had a good visit and met an 88 year old woman who lives across the street from my mother’s Uncle’s house (a cousin still lives there but it’s been more than twenty years since my mother’s seen him and she didn’t want to bother him). The woman told funny stories about the gold mine that is down the steps and here you see them pointing to it. One story involved a long snake she mistook for a vine.
Like Jiu Fen, Houtong was also a mining town, but there they mined coal. Once that industry shut down, much of the village emptied out, but a local convinced other locals to feed stray cats and soon the village became a tourist destination complete with a large cat colony and shops serving and selling cat themed foods and goods.
But enough about that. Here are the cats!
Until next time…
Adalena