 Pingxi
Coal Mines 
Pingxi is perhaps best known for its Sky Lantern Festival,
which takes place at night. I��m going to show you
what you can do before the festival, during the day.
From Taipei, you can take the train to Ruifang, then
hop on the Pingxi Line. The scenery along the way
is quite nice - lots of mountains and trees, which
are very soothing to look at. We��re going to get off
at Shifen Station.
We��re here, and I want to show you this place, an
old coal mine.
Pingxi was the largest coal mining area in Taiwan.
These carts used to transport both coal and workers.
This is an old mine shaft, and it goes straight in
for about 1,000 meters. Out here it��s really wide
and it feels a little bit chilly, but as you go in,
it gets narrower, deeper and hotter. It gets so hot
in there that some of the menu used to work only in
their birthday suits.
Coal seams in Taiwan are relatively narrow. Here they��re
only about 40-90 cm wide, so workers would have to
excavate on their backs, on their sides and sometimes
on their stomachs. It was really tough work.
Not only was the work tough, it was dangerous, too.
Where there��s coal, you��ll probably find methane gas.
One tiny spark can cause a fireball that will burn
up all the oxygen in the shaft. The ones that don��t
die from the fire might die instead of carbon monoxide
poisoning.
Because of the risks involved, they were paid quite
well. But for a lot of the workers, as soon as they
were paid, they��d spend the money, knowing that they
might not make it out alive after the next work day.
The dangerous profession was put to an end in the
last century when coal became much cheaper to import.
Walking around the old coal mine really reminded me
that you never know when life is going to end, be
it your own, or that of someone you care about. So,
we should try to enjoy it while we can. You should
come.
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