“Managing the hot spring bathhouses has always been tricky. Each household is required to pay an annual management fee of NT$300. This should cover the entire cost of the hot spring water. However, some residents either did not live here anymore or no longer used the bathhouses. As a result, I could never collect the management fee from everyone. I never knew whether it was better to try harder or just give up. Usually, I had to use the village chief’s work subsidy to cover some of the expenses.” - Zhang, Yu-Wen (Born in 1963)
“I never went to the public bathhouse because my skin became dry whenever I used it. My husband used to say that not going to the bathhouse was a waste of gas at home. I told him that I would feel itchy if I took a bath there. He did not believe me at first. However, after a while, he stopped going as well. He told me that he never felt itchy after bathing but then he did. There was a period when mosquito larvae were found in the bathtub. You could see them just by scooping some water up. Everyone was shocked and we quickly drained the water to clean the bathtub.” - Jin-Yang, Xiu-Yun (Born in 1945)
“I remember that the hot spring water in the bathhouse was very hot. I used to go there with Auntie Zhao when I was a kid, so I always went to the female bathhouse. It was probably also because young women did not go to the bathhouse. Sometimes the water did not seem that hot and I would go back and forth between the male and female bathhouses through the hole at the bottom of the wall where the water flowed.” - Zhou, Tian-Min (Born in 1968)
