aeeble

Chongjian Street is Tamsui’s very first commercial street; many of the area’s noted political, financial, and educational figures have lived here for generations. Originally a meandering historic thoroughfare five or six hundred metres long, its hillside stair-step neighbourhood formed the Upper Street during the old Tamsui (Hobe) period. From the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth it flourished, offering visitors the true flavour of Tamsui’s mountain town. While the crowded Zhongzheng Road is popularly known as “Tamsui Old Street,” the real “old” street lies directly behind Fuyou Temple on that same road: Chongjian Street. First called Jiukan (“Nine Shops”) Street after the nine stores opened here by Fujian immigrants, it is the earliest commercial artery developed in Tamsui, with a history of more than two centuries. Only a temple away from bustling Zhongzheng Road, it possesses a refined, stately air; stone slabs climb gently upward, and century-old houses rise terrace by terrace with the slope. With commerce shifting elsewhere, the river-mountain townscape has been reborn as an emerging creative district. Antique façades meet vivid murals that tell Tamsui’s stories. In the Lovers’ Lane—where physician-author Wang Chang-hsiung and painter Lin Yu-chu once walked hand in hand—enjoy an old-fashioned date, lift your hand to your brow alongside the Thousand-Li-Eye atop Fuyou Temple, and gaze over the poetic vista of the Tamsui River and Guanyin Mountain, writing your own version of “If I Open the Door of My Heart.”