Whenever I visit I feel really relaxed; I guess itās the small island atmosphere that appeals to me. However, I realize that actually living there is another matter and maybe Iād get bored. Weāll see when the time gets here.
Whats the longest stint you have you have stayed there?
Five days: 2 days on Nangan, 1 day going around Xiju and Dongju islands, 2 days on Beigan. Beigan is my favorite.
I enjoyed my two visits to Matsu and I love to explore islands in general. But I think I would rather retire on an island further away from China, a bit larger than the Matsu islands, and a bit more nature. I like Green Island, but itās rather small too.
I would consider buying a small house on an island and spend there like a few months each year, but would not move completely.
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Never even thought about doing that.
I know the correct way to pronounce it, I speak Chinese. But since the video was directed towards English speakers, I used the common English name. I exclusively call it Jinmen when speaking to locals or with my Taiwanese friends. Itās kind of like how I say āTaipeiā when talking to foreigners, but I say āTaibeiā when talking to Taiwanese.
Understandable. When my son was visiting me here he got confused at first; he thought he might have taken the wrong MRT because I said āDanshuiā but he only heard āTamsuiā on the announcements. Iām not even sure anymore what the romanized signs say (@lostinasia ?)
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Orchid Island would be nice. Itās a little bigger.
I believe the MRT is all Tamsui. Youāll still see Danshui in a few places. Chunghwa Post tells me the Tamsui Post Office is in Tanshui District.
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The island is great, but on my only visit I had some moments where l felt like an intruder. Maybe itās different if you are a resident instead of a tourist, dunno.
No. I lived there for a while. Like, many, many years. Outsiders are outsiders. You are only welcome to live there long term if you are Kinmenese by blood, though there are a few foreigners I knew who acted blissfully unaware of the blatant discrimination they received. I didnāt know anyone who married into a Kinmenese family (from the main island of Taiwan or SEA) who wasnāt immediately treated like shit and eventually divorced (always a mess with husband and his family demanding the sons and not giving a crap about the daughters. These divorces were almost always started by a cheating husband). I knew it was time to get out when I realized I didnāt have a single real friend that was Kinmenese. I realized this because a friend of mine (one of the many women from Taiwan who divorced their POS husbands) dropped off a bunch of āåč³¼ā (āgroup orderā??) Costco food (that I actually liked) and told me something to the effect of āplease donāt pay me for it. We outsiders need to look after one anotherā. And I realized every Kinmenese acquaintance I had never went beyond a basic āhi, how are you?ā type exchange. Certainly not the kind of people you grab a drink with or chat for hours on end with. Donāt get me wrong. People in Kinmen are very welcoming. They appreciate your business. And your white face for their photos. They will happily walk with you up the āmountainā if youāre suffering through that hike together and tell you where the best Kinmen-style čé¤ is (itās a place in å±±å¤, though I donāt remember the name). They might even invite you to their BBQ and gift you your own bottle(s) of Kaoliang. But they donāt want you moving in.
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I was talking about Lanyu, but good reply anyway.
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Iāve never been to Lanyu, but I imagine youād encounter the same problems I just listed about Kinmen, only on a larger scale, since itās a significantly smaller space.
Kinmen has been really nice, Iām coming back to Xinbei tomorrow and Iāve enjoyed myself. On another note, unlike in Taiwan (at least in the places Iāve been) people here are very surprised to see foreigners.
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If you know the ācorrectā way, then why would you try to perpetuate an āincorrectā pronunciation? This is not doing a service to āEnglish speakersā (whatever that means).
- I do not know of anyone who pronounces Kinmen with a hard /k/ (local or otherwise). My great aunt might be an exception, since she knows nothing about romanization.
- The double standard of using either accurate or inaccurate pronunciation for local vs. āforeignā friends is a bit baffling. Do you use āPekingā or āęŗ«å„čÆā or āMadras,ā etc. based on an expectation of linguistic ignorance?
- The only encounter I had with a foreigner who didnāt care about place name pronunciation was my first month on the island. My ātour guideā tried to pronounce č±č® (to this day I have no idea what it sounded like) for a train ride from Taibei. When the price came to 20 to 30 NTD I questioned her (as I could read the prices on the schedule). (Yeah, I did my homework and could identify the place name). She insisted she was right and she did get tickets, and (of course) it was to a completely different placeā¦ Lesson learned. If youāre traveling LEARN THE CORRECT PRONUNCIATION!!
Perhaps my first suggestion was a bit brash. This post maybe moreso. The main point remainsā¦ Please donāt teach, as you have yourself, admitted āincorrectā pronunciation. Itās not only grating, but also misleading.
I agree that someone who speaks Chinese should say āGin-manā not āKin-manā but when it comes to internationally known places like Beijing, there are official pronunciations in other languages, like in Germany they say āPay-kingā and most people would not know āBay-jingā. In French they donāt even bother with the āgā at the end, PĆ©kin.
I wouldnāt know how to pronunciation āQuemoyā by the way, wasnāt even sure it meant Kinmen.
Found this documentary, shot in 1958 after the 823 battle:
(Go from 1:33 if you want to skip the introduction in Mandarin.)
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Cāmon, letās go to Cāmoy! 
I just thought that it was the official English pronunciation. Lots have places have English pronunciations that donāt match the native pronunciation (Shanghai, Paris, Hong Kong, Taipei, etc.) The city where I was born in America is pronounced differently by the locals than it is by others.
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Fair enough. Some people might pronounce it like that. It would be interesting to know the origin of this weird transcription. It could be that Taiwanese names were first romanized, using ākā to represent the [É”] sound at the beginning of Kaohsiung and Kinmen, with this use of ākā carrying over to later Mandarin transcriptions.
Interestingly, the main township of Jincheng uses a more intuitive āj.ā
Back on topic. I love Kinmen and the fact that Kinmenese have such a unique identity and refer to Taiwan (main island) as the mainland. Top tip: if buying Kaoliang (dang, another ākā word), donāt buy newly bottled booze (ę°é ) if itās for a connoisseur. They prefer the aged bottles that can be found in some shops (sometimes for a lot more than expected). 15 years is minimum for a nice Kaoliang. Think of it like Kinmenese whiskey. There are also special labels that can only be bought/sold there. I remember being presented with a special āteacherās edition.ā Might have been from an elementary school principal there. We had a party, on a weekday, and I was shocked at how much every principal (male and female) could drink. Maybe a stereotype, but every person in educational administration that Iāve met from Kinmen seemed to have a bottomless stomach for Kaoliang.
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