The train station remembered by the author has been since torn down over a year ago. The
orignal writing in English dated back to July 1, 1996, was rewritten in Hoyloy and the title changed
from 'The Same Old Railway Station in My Home Town' to 'The Railway Station in My Childhood'.
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The Same Old Railway Station in My Home Town
by Vunshik Zan
Even though I must say that there is not much I can remember about my early childhood in my first home town, what I know I shall be missing, when I get back there, is the train that would carry me and my family for travel, pulling into or out of the railway station of the town. As a child, I would always enjoy a great deal taking a trip to and back by train. It struck me with deep sorrow therefore when I was told one day that the railway had since discontinued its operation many years ago. After then, every time I have a chance to come and see my home town again, I stop off to take a look at the railway station which remains there. The building, a little wooden house, is still fairly firm and tangible and so are the rails lying between the two platforms. The station is quite small and similiar in construction to any other ones of its size on any other railways under operation, except that it is now old and deserted and I wonder for how much longer it will keep being there. Recently I decided to pay another homage to it.
When I walked through the entrance, leaving the main street behind me, I saw the lone gate to the platforms straight ahead of me at the end of the lobby. On my lefthand side was the waiting room with benches against walls. Most part of each wall was occupied by glass windows so that there was plenty of light inside. All lightings which had been hanging under the ceiling were there no more. The emptiness of the waiting room was paired by nothing but the solitary atmosphere inside the booking office behind the wall of glass panels on my righthand side. As I stepped toward the counter where passengers of the old days used to purchase their train tickets, my searching glance through the panels hit upon the station master's big desk in a partition in the rear. I knew that something had been removed from his desk: a tall box, painted in red and containing the instrument for traffic control, attached to the top of the other side of the desk in front of him. Since the gate was open I was enticed to move myself through it and into the annexed platform. The concrete floor of the platform under shelter of a wrecked roof was badly worn out and densely pitted. Over there I beated for several times, trying to bring back to myself the image of a choo choo train pulling out slowly with twisting blows of smog puffing from atop its locomotive. At the end of the platform, the exit gate was kept closed with a rusty padlock. And thus, I retreated through the lobby to the outside, thereby bidding farewell silently to the foresaken premises, beloved nonetheless profoundly in my heart.
Never mind about the train that won't be pulling in or out any more and never mind about my childhood that won't return to me any more either; knowing that the same old railway station is still there will always bring me as much joy as it had ever before, no matter how much my life and times have changed.
As early as the middle part of 19th century, however, the seaport had been so much impaired by
accumulated drifting sand over the years that now only small fishing boats or sampans found it
accessible for mooring. The prospects of business growth in the coastal town was further dampened
as the Japanese government, which took over the reign of the country from the Manchurian dynasty
in 1895, set out for construction of the modern seaports at Keelung and Takao, the transportation
network islandwide and the new cities along the main trunks. More and more people started to
move out of town in search of better ways to make a living. Prosperity has since then gradually
turned its back to this township. To most people nowadays, Lohcqang is known just as a place
of historical interests.
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