A Changhua boss puts coins in to dial a public phone every day just to avoid being demolished

Li Tian'an, the 88-year-old owner of Xing'an Cake Shop in Changhua City, only sells Mid-Autumn mooncakes for 15 days a year because of his age. But one thing he does every day is to take coins to call the public phone in front of the store, just to avoid the public phone being dismantled and to maintain the call capacity of the public phone. As for, who to call? Li Tianan said with a smile that it was just the home phone to call the store!

Li Tianan said that he opened a shop selling cakes in 1962 and moved to the current location on Minsheng Road in 1967. The following year, in 1968, he applied for the installation of a public phone at the entrance of the store. There were no mobile phones in that era and the use rate of public phones was very high. At that time, the people's livelihood underground tunnel had not yet been built in front of the store. The door was only one level crossing away from the fan-shaped garage. There was busy traffic every day, and the public phone was also very popular.

Li Tian'an pointed out that when public telephones were installed in the early days, Chunghwa Telecom's predecessor, the Telecommunications Bureau, would also give a commission to the stores at the installation site. He remembered that it was 300 yuan per month, which was quite a small supplement. People often came to change the change and make calls. Later, when pagers were introduced, people would look for public phones to make calls when they received the pager outdoors. After the popularity of mobile phones, everyone had a mobile phone, and almost no one used public phones anymore.

When Li Tianan learned that public telephones would be demolished if their utilization rate was too low, in order to keep the public telephone at the entrance of the store, he called the public telephone every day. He would prepare coins to make calls, and then directly call the home phone in the store. He would hang up when the home phone rang. He laughed and said that in the early years, he could make money by installing public telephones, but now he has to spend money to make phone calls in order to prevent the public telephones from being dismantled.

Li Tian'an said that times have really changed a lot. In the past 58 years, he has changed several models. In the past, you had to call a public phone and sometimes you had to queue up. Now everyone has a mobile phone, and the main function of public phones is to make free emergency calls. However, he is not willing to let the public phone in front of the store be demolished. He will continue to invest money to make calls every day to keep the public phone in front of the store.