Kinmen – The Friendly Frontier Island           (An article from February)                            

Jessica turns to me and patiently says, “The flight is cancelled.” I sigh. Again. I've just met Jessica this morning at the Taichung International Airport, and she's helping translate. It's Lunar New Year's Eve Day, and people are hurrying home. Initially, our flight was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. It's now mid-afternoon. We have boarded and deboarded twice already. For several hours we've waited for the fog-stew to thin enough for the pilots to see the runway. Fog hugs the huge airport windows. Water dots cluster, a drop forms, and then trickles down the pane. There's no reprieve. 

 

We are both struggling to reach Kinmen, one of Taiwan's many smaller islands, separated from China by a skinny bay a few kilometres wide. I want to visit and explore for three days. Jessica is returning to Kinmen to take the 10-minute ferry ride to her parent's home on Lesser or Little Kinmen to spend the new year's vacation with her family. It's not a hopeful situation. Tomorrow is booked. We're next in line, and we step to the counter. Miraculously, the fog has diminished, the pilots can see, and we're on!

 

Fifty minutes later, the propeller plane descends. Modern skyscrapers and dozens of large buildings line the distant shore. It's Xiamen, a Chinese city of millions and opposite Kinmen. I'm shocked at how close China is. The plane continues, and Jessica leans over, pointing to her destination, Little Kinmen. A minute later, we're over Kinmen. The island is patched with fallow fields, towns and villages. Traffic swirls around roundabouts. 

 

At the compact airport, we collect our luggage. I thank Jessica for all her help. The corners of her eyes crinkle behind her mask, so I know she is smiling, and we wish each other a happy LNY and head our separate ways. A ten minute, chatty taxi ride later, I check into my hotel, then venture out on a complimentary bicycle and pedal my way into the late afternoon light. The bike seat is low, luckily Kinmen is primarily flat. The quiet roads meander through sleeping fields that wait for spring to sprout the island’s two famous crops. 

 

The sun and layered coloured clouds fold away, and I turn my blinking bike lights on. On a dark, quiet country road, I pull over to check Google Maps and my progress. A vehicle, coming the other way, slows then stops, its headlights illuminating me. I glace up gradually, then return to my phone. The vehicle rolls on after a few seconds. I watch a camouflaged military jeep pass by. Another reminder that Kinmen is the defensive front line; that the fields, houses and people here are separated, at the closest, by approximately 2,300 metres of water from China, or if the water was solid a moderate 14-minute walk.  

 

From Bombs to Knives

 

It's New Year's Day morning, and I search my phone for the word wrench in Mandarin at the hotel's front desk. My low bicycle seat means my knees are practically horizontal to my armpits when I cycle. The romanized English form of the Mandarin word is Banshou. The word is slightly similar to the English word banjo, and since a wrench looks a little like the musical instrument, it helps me remember. With my bicycle seat raised higher thanks to a banjo adjustment, I head west. I want to see The Wu Family knife store and museum.  

 

Unfortunately, along the way, my cell phone bounces out of the bicycle's basket. Oblivious, I continue, and it's several kilometres down the road until I realize what has happened. The nearby tourist information centre's helpful lady calls my hotel. I retrace my route. I scan the pavement, ditches, and bushes, but no phone. I can only hope New Year's Day luck is with me, and I will see my phone again. Fretting, I keep going.  

 

In 1949, the Chinese Communist forces defeated the Chinese Nationalists in a prolonged civil war. The Nationalists or Kuomintang (KMT) headed government in China, then called the Republic of China (ROC), retreated to Taiwan and assumed governance of the island. Although Taiwan is 180 kilometres from China, the ROC still retains control over several islands next to the Chinese coast. These islands have been contested in mutual artillery shelling from the 1950s until the late 1970s. During those decades, Kinmen has adsorbed hundreds of thousands of artillery shells.

 

The Wu Family, already in the knife making business, collected these shells, and now the Wu decedents continue to create knives. The retail store is large with various knife styles and a museum complete with forge and heaps of shells to help explain the process. I buy a well-crafted kitchen knife and automatically own a part of civil war history. 

 

By mid-afternoon, I return to the hotel. Is there news about my cell phone? Yes, it was found and dropped off at the police station. A quick taxi ride, a friendly laugh from the desk officer, and I'm back at the hotel and on my bicycle. My cell phone must have landed face down and run over multiple times because the protective screen cover is shattered with dozens of spider cracks in every direction. Tiny pieces of grit freckle the surface. Amazingly, it works, and I'm relieved but also thankful for Kinmen's honesty. New Year’s Day brings me luck.

 

A Defining Battle and Beautiful Villages   

 

On Saturday, my final day, I'm off to the Guningtou Battle Museum and wander the nearby streets of Nanshan village and Beishan village filled with Fujian-style houses on the island's far west end. It's taxi time. My wobbly cycling legs are worn out.

 

The museum describes three days in late October 1949 when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) attacked Kinmen in a leapfrog effort to reach Taiwan proper and crush the retreated Nationalists. On Tuesday, October 25th, about 90 minutes after midnight, the PLA force sailed towards beaches near Guningtou village in blackness. The PLA troops were detected crossing the bay in wooden fishing sailboats, and the ROC forces lit the coastal night skies with flares. The descending flares illuminated billowing sails, and the battle was on. Both land batteries and ROC vessels bombarded the PLA fleet.  An ebb tide forced the soldiers to wade or swim the extra 600 metres to shore. 

 

Over the next three days, the PLA, with reinforcements, pushed through Guningtou village, Nanshan Village and others to make headway deep into Kinmen. ROC forces countered, and from house corners to courtyards, to backyards to cord-wood stacks. An urban conflict tore through the towns. Guningtou Village and Nanshan Village were retaken, and by Thursday morning, the remaining PLA troops retreated to the beach and eventually surrendered.  

 

Now, strolling through Nanshan and nearby Beishan, it's hard to imagine the sounds of crushing destruction. But one building remains, its walls pockmarked and missing chunks because of bullets. Thankfully, the towns are battle-quiet and display lovely showpieces of design and entrepreneurship. And after the museum, I'm refreshed by the locals' friendliness and openness. 

 

bullet marked house from Guningtou Battle

                                    

Kinmen contains lovely examples of traditional Fujian homes and villages filled with Swallowtail and horseback roof designs. Settlers from China's Fujian Province brought their dwelling styles to the island over the centuries, and now many consider the area deserving of a UNESCO's world heritage listing. 

 

swallowtail roof design

                                                      

 

horseback roof design

                                                     

Dusty historical relics? Not a chance. These multi-century old outdoor museums are bustling. People hang laundry, garden, navigate scooters down narrow lanes, and children's voices fill alleyways. Gaggles of tourist groups are lead to local landmarks, and cell phone cameras click away. Some converted homes are now B&Bs, restaurants and teahouses. One bakery creates snacks with an island speciality crop – peanuts. I load up on peanut cookies, peanut brittle and sesame peanut baked goods from the friendly grandmother, daughter and curious granddaughter. They laugh, watching me stuff a bursting backpack with goodies. 

 

That second well known Kinmen crop, which innocent enough looking fields grow, is sorghum grain. Distilled sorghum produces a potent, clear liquor called kaoliang. Widely enjoyed across many parts of Asia, Kinmen kaoliang is famous. And with many brands fermented to approximately 60 per cent alcohol by volume, or more, kaoliang produces a Clydesdale kick and should be handled with care. Prized, some aged kaoliang increases in value like fine wines.

 

Continuing with architecture, the government is renovating older and derelict Fujian houses across the island's vintage villages. Neat piles of patterned bricks and colourfully glazed tiles, crafted granite foundation blocks, beams, and terracotta roofing tiles are ready for construction. The craftsmanship is stellar, and rejuvenated homes shine once again. In one lot, the reconstruction looks more like archaeology. Ancient masoned stone blocks are numbered and scattered in the grass, patiently waiting for reassembly. 

 

restorations underway

                                                     

house waiting its turn

                                                              

Despite living beside a powerful neighbour and sharing a history of conflict, Kinmen continues. A tiny island packed with friendly people. Before I even arrived on Kinmen, a Kinmen woman helped me. And once on the island, it continued. I'll return for the friendliness, history and peanut snacks.