I’ve been wanting to spend a couple of days over here to visit and interview some of the knife makers. Pretty historical place from what I’ve read and from people I’ve spoken with about it.
[quote]Kinmen seen veering toward China
Residents of Taiwan offshore island eyeing giant neighbor as a source of better income
By Yu-huay Sun, Bloomberg, Page 4, 2007-09-28 01:52 AM
Artillery shells from China have defined Wu Tseng-dong’s life. He ducked them for 20 years and earned a living making knives from their casings. Now he looks forward to meeting the enemy who launched them.
“Times have changed,” says Wu, 50, who lives on Kinmen, the island once known as Quemoy that was Taiwan’s military front line against China for almost six decades. “China was communist before but now they’re capitalist.”
Starved of the Taiwanese soldiers and visiting relatives who once kept Kinmen’s economy humming, the islanders are turning to their closest neighbor for future prosperity. Two-thirds of the 70,000 residents support buying electricity from China - just 10 kilometers away - and forming a special economic zone to forge closer ties, a survey by the county government shows.
Such views are anathema for Taiwan’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party government, which faces a presidential election in March.
“We should return to the motherland so we can have more business,” says Hsu Chi-sung, 48, a former artilleryman and Kinmen native, who now shows Chinese and Taiwanese tour groups - separately - around the island.
“Don’t forget, vote for Ma,” he tells a Taiwanese tourist, referring to Ma Ying-jeou, the opposition Kuomintang candidate, after visiting an underground pier housing naval boats.(more hilarity at the link)
Taiwan News.com.tw[/quote]
