Seven years ago, at the end of my tour through the first old historic building I ever visited, was a huge crowd of people. This crowd consisted of people of all ages. When people saw this crowd, they would yell something in Chinese, and then quickly run over to join crowd.
Needless to say this sparked my curiosity. I asked my friend what was going on. She said they all were getting stamps. My next question was "is it free?" and she replied that it was. After hearing this and seeing the huge crowd that was full of excitement, I ran over myself. I figured this must be some one of a kind super old and rare historical postage stamp that is worth millions. Judging from the pandemonium, this is all it could be.
When I finally made my way up to the front, I saw that it was just a stamp that you press on an ink pad and then press on a paper. I went back and asked my friend what does this stamp do? Is it traded in for a prize or for money? She replied that it wasn't. When I asked what the point of it was, she said "as a souvenir."
Basically every historical monument has it's own stamp, and as a souvenir people bring a travel book and put the stamp in it. Although most people actually just stamp the brochure of that place they were in (most have a spot on the last page for a stamp). It seems that people actually collect these stamps, and as a way to get people to come to the museum or other place, they have special ones for special events, or exhibitions, in order to encourage people to come back to visit while getting the new stamp.
Not only this, each county in Taiwan has it's own stamp, and quite a few people will travel all over the island to get a stamp in their book from each county. Although you don't actually have to do it yourself. I've heard some stories of friends taking their friends' books on their trips and stamping it for them. While this may seem to defeat the point and take away the chance to see a new place, this action is actually considered a very sweet gesture.
To get in on this action, many hiking trails have "rubbing stations" (i must admit when i first saw a sign pointing out that a "rubbing station" was ahead, i was very scared about what it may turn out to be) such as the one pictured above. This is a small stand that has a metal plate with a design on it. The idea is you put a piece of paper over it, then rub a pen or pencil over the paper and the image appears on the paper.
