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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Book tells history behind collection of train tickets
Author Anthony Ni, left, and his grandfather, Ni Li, hold up copies of the Chinese-language book Storytelling Through Old Train Tickets, released earlier this month, in Kaohsiung on June 9. Photo: Ko Yu-hao, Taipei Times
By Ko Yu-hao and Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Author Anthony Ni （倪京台） earlier this month released a Chinese-language book titled Storytelling Through Old Train Tickets （老火車票說故事） that shares the history of and memories behind his grandfather’s collection of more than 10,000 railway tickets.
Ni’s grandfather, Ni Li （倪立）, 95, is a retired photographer and avid collector of railway tickets who lives in Kaohsiung.
Anthony Ni, who is also the director and spokesperson of Animal Rescue Team Taiwan and a lecturer at National Kaohsiung Normal University’s English department, said he wrote the book to pass on the memory of railways, which is gradually fading.
He spent more than a year interviewing his grandfather and organizing the stories behind the tickets, the younger Ni said.
Ni Li’s train tickets are embodiments of the periods in which they were issued, the author said.
Among Ni Li’s collection is a Japanese colonial era platform ticket for Chiayi Station that he and Anthony Ni purchased on a Japanese auction site for ￥110,000 （US$994.40 at the current exchange rate）.
Printed on the ticket are the Chinese characters for “Showa [period], seventh year,” indicating that it was issued in 1932, Anthony Ni said.
Ni Li’s collection also includes railway tickets from now-defunct railway lines, such as the Taiwan Railways Administration’s Tamsui （淡水）, Donggang （東港） and Dongshih （東勢） lines, Anthony Ni said.
Anti-communist slogans, such as “Everyone has a responsibility to fight communism and save the nation,” and “Freedom will win; tyranny will fail,” are printed on the backs of some of the tickets from the 1960s and 1970s, he said.
The old, name-card-like train tickets have mostly been replaced by plain-colored, single-font tickets processed by computers, Anthony Ni said.
“It is a shame,” he said.
Anthony Ni and his grandfather said they hope that the book will evoke readers’ memories of Taiwan’s railway history.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
