Taiwan village gets the cream as local feral cats draw crowds
Print Edition
AS the train approaches Houtong, west of Taipei, a steward yells, “Kitty lovers, please get ready to get off,” and the crowded carriage is suddenly empty.
Houtong in northern Taiwan was once a mining center served by a railway. But the trains that arrive there nowadays are not carrying coal, but tourists, on their way to see the local feral cats.
After falling into decline with the closure of the mine, the village has risen again as a feline paradise.
More than 120 wild cats live in the old community beside the station. In packs or individually, the furry residents are seen roaming or relaxing everywhere in the hilly neighborhood.
When the mine ended production in the 1990s, most young people left the village to seek work in the city, leaving behind only a few elders and a colony of unwanted cats.
Feline fans began arriving in 2008 and the hamlet soon became known as “Cat Village.”
Locals believe their kind treatment of the cats brought them good luck and, indeed, visitors now flock to the village in search of the felines.
In Houtong cats rule the roost and drive the economy, but the human residents have also benefited.
In 2009, cat photographer Chien Pei-ling was so grateful for the elders’ caring for the moggies, that she launched a campaign calling for people everywhere to help renovate the community into a more habitable place for humans.
By 2010, Houtong was a booming tourist attraction, and locals now make their livings as tour guides or selling drinks, snacks and souvenirs.
The village’s cats are beloved mascots, revered like saints, housed in shrine-like huts and fed on canned fish.
A footbridge was built last year to provide the cats with safe passage across a busy rail line, and in 2010, when star cat Blacknose died, even Taiwan’s railway authority expressed its condolences by funding a 1.8-meter statue and presenting a conductor’s cap as a tribute.
The beckoning conductor still stands at the train station, greeting passengers and watching over his home village.
In the eyes of Chien, now head of an association for cat lovers, the true wonder of Houtong is not how it has changed the fate of so many cats, but how it has educated humans.
“Tourists fall in love with cats after playing with the felines of Houtong. I hope such interaction inspires them to treat all animals kindly and not abandon their pets,” she said.
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