"I still remember the afternoon of August 23, when the Battle of the Taiwan Straits began. I was playing basketball in our courtyard, and a golden sunset was shining on the horseback roof of our old home. The peanut crop was good that year, and all the farmers were out in the fields harvesting. Old folks said good harvests meant war. When the Japanese came in 1937, the fish catch was so good they couldn't sell them all," Hsu Wei-chuan, a teacher at Kinmen high school, recalls.

All though the 1970s and into the 1980s, when Taiwan's economy was expanding at its fastest, Kinmen was still under constant threat of artillery attack from the Chinese Communists. Even though they finally adopted a policy of firing only on oddnumbered days at night with "propaganda bombs" that exploded in midair, and even though the troops and civilians of Kinmen learned how to tell how far away the bombs were exploding from the sound, even "propaganda bombs" can be lethal, and so every other day families would eat dinner early and then huddle in their air raid shelters. When the artillery attack was over, the children would run out to see whose homes had been damaged. Sometimes the Communists wouldn't play according to Hoyle --the people of Kinmen called it "tossing in a little dessert" --and instances often occurred of houses being destroyed or people being injured. "There was a considerable threat to life and property," says Ni Kuo-yen, born in 1959, who hid in air raid shelters as far back as he can remember.

The bombardments did, however, breathe new life into the local knife industry. Statistics show that between 1949 and 1958 Kinmen suffered more than 40,000 artillery attacks, more than any other place in the world for a similar length of time. That and all the "propaganda bombs" that fell later gave knife makers the idea of putting all that scrap metal to use. They used the stainless steel from the shells as raw material in making knives, and Kinmen kitchen knives became famous in Taiwan and abroad. Even today, the shells from more than 100 propaganda bombs are still on display at the Chinyungli Knife Store on Chincheng St.

For many years, everything on Kinmen has been indissolubly bound with up with the threat of war. But today, the people of Kinmen are striving to break free of their war-controlled past.

August 23, a Date that Changed Kinmen's History: Some people describe the shape of Kinmen, located on the south coast of Fukien Province, as a pair of barbells dropped onto the sea: it's 20 kilometers wide at either end and just 3 kilometers across in the middle. "Three steps by three steps" is how the local people describe this little island, which covers just 150 square kilometers, in Fukienese.

Kinmen, which practically disappears on a world map, was always a sentry post defending southeast China, like the Pescadores, Taiwan and Matsu. After the R.O.C. forces withdrew from the mainland in 1949, several conflicts, both large and small, occurred at Kinmen, such as the the Battle of Kuningtou and the artillery battle of September 3, 1955. After the Battle of the Taiwan Straits broke out on August 23, 1958, the island was blockaded by the Communists for 44 days. In that critical situation, the United States and the Republic of China signed a treaty to defend the Taiwan Strait and even discussed abandoning Kinmen. Fighting to the death to drive back the enemy, the troops and the people defended the island and preserved the security of Taiwan. The battle was not only a moving and glorious achievement for the R.O.C. forces but also changed the lives of many people on the island.

Before 1948, "people on Taiwan were still unfamiliar with Kinmen, and people here didn't know much about Taiwan," says Chen Tsu-ming, a delegate from Chinsha village, now in his seventies. Since Amoy is less than half an hour's boat ride away, people used to ship in all the goods they lacked from the mainland, and quite a few owned businesses in Amoy and commuted back and forth each day. People emigrated in large numbers from Kinmen to Southeast Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries, and right up until the Battle of the Taiwan Straits, they used to travel regularly between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Almost every family had relatives living somewhere in what they called "the South Seas."

Joint Military and Civilian Rule: The people of Kinmen had their first large-scale contact with Taiwan during the Battle of the Taiwan Straits, when more than 6,000 of them, including junior high school and elementary school students, were evacuated there for a time. With the fates of Taiwan, Matsu, Kinmen and the Pescadores bound together as one, Taiwan became Kinmen's last hope of defense. Positioned on the front line, Kinmen had borne the brunt of national defense and been subject to military administration since 1949. 1956, the Kinmen Defense Command Headquarters established the Kinmen Political Affairs Commission to implement joint military and civilian rule over county affairs. The county chief was a member of the military, and everything was run according to the Combat Zone Administration Guidelines for the Kinmen-Matsu District, so the island followed a completely different path of development from that of Taiwan.

At the same time, the military initiated all kinds of construction and infrastructure projects. The contributions of Hu Lien, who served as Kinmen defense commander twice, in 1949 and in 1958, were especially significant. He set up elementary schools in the island's five towns and Kinmen senior high school, its highest academic institution. Next he led the troops in laying the island's two main outer roads and its central highway. He also built a tobacco plant and a liquor distillery and encouraged farmers to plant sorghum, which they could sell to the distillery at high prices. Bottling and packaging for the liquor industry stimulated business at the ceramic plant and printing plant. Half the county's entire income now comes from the distillery.

Another achievement that the military and civilians accomplished was afforestation. Koxinga had built a large number of ships on the island in the 17th century, and the best trees, such as camphor, had almost all been chipped down. Kinmen had become a place where "you couldn't open your eyes once the wind started to blow." "When I flew into Kinmen on a military plane in the sixties, all I saw was sand," the writer Chiu Hsiu-chih says.

A Garden on the Sea: As a long-term plan to block the wind, settle the sand, improve the soil and build up water resources, they brought in trees and seedlings from Taiwan, planting lots of hardy mumahuang, which manages to survive on dry and barren soil. Not only the soldiers but students and ordinary citizens all worked in the afforestation program. Many Kinmen veterans remember water being so scarce they watered the trees with used bath water.

Today, Kinmen seen from the sky looks like a stretch of green in the blue sea. The risk from high wind has been reduced, and the micro-climate itself has changed: annual rainfall has increased from 1000mm to 1200mm. The military dug lakes and ponds and built weirs and reservoirs to store water. In the past, people used to say that daughters didn't want to be married off to husbands in Pushan (Kinmen), because it was so much trouble to fetch a bucket of water there. But according to a survey by the county government, Kinmen's underground water has tripled, from a withdrawal rate of 50 gallons a minute to 150. In addition, afforestation and water conservancy have contributed greatly toward soil improvement, and Kinmen has become self-sufficient in many fruits and vegetables.

The Pescadores, offshore islands themselves, have tried to emulate Kinmen's afforestation program, but besides the difference in natural conditions, "the trees on Kinmen are the result of troops carrying out their military duties," says Fu Yangtu, a worker in the civilian affairs department of the Kinmen county government. Kinmen farmers were even prohibited from raising sheep and goats for fear they would chew the saplings. Measures like that would probably be difficult to enforce on the Pescadores, which aren't in a combat area. Kinmen can thank its geographical location less than 3,000 meters from Amoy and the confrontation across the Taiwan Strait for the fact that, under the lead of the military, it has been built into a garden on the sea as well as a fortified bastion. But at the same time that the island was developed into the model of a county on the front lines, the people of Kinmen had to live under the shadow of life in a combat zone.

Kids Without Kites: Based on the needs of survival, almost every family on Kinmen has an air raid shelter, and buildings of more than one storey in height were required to have gunnery holes for artillery. Regardless of sex, everyone over the age of 18 had to join the civil self-defense forces and undergo nearly a month of group training each year. Each family kept guns, helmets and uniforms on hand, maintaining a state of "combat readiness" at all times.

There were even more inconveniences in daily life. Based on the needs of military security, the streets were empty each night after ten o'clock curfew and people needed a special pass to go out. There were no street lamps, and if students stayed up studying, they had to cover their lamp with a special cloth to prevent rays of light from leaking out.

Since it was feared homes might become the targets of artillery attack, combat area regulations stipulated that newly built houses couldn't exceed three storeys in height and no buildings could be put up within 500 meters of the shore. Kinmen is surrounded on all four sides by the sea, but it didn't have a single beach open to the public--too many land mines. If any of the local children snuck off to swim in "safe areas," like abandoned piers, "a soldier would quickly blow his whistle," says Ni Kuo-yen, a reporter with the Kinmen office of the Central News Agency, who speaks from experience. He never had a chance to fly a kite or raise pigeons as a boy, and his family even had to apply to own a basketball or a gasoline can, because they could all be used as tools to communicate with the Communists.

And Kinmen had no places of entertainment. Under the principle of building up a thrifty and hardworking populace and conserving energy, in dividuals were restricted from owning air conditioners, automobiles, motorcycles. . . . People from Kinmen had to obtain an entry and exit visa to visit Taiwan, as though they were traveling to a foreign country, and no one could visit Kinmen except for special visitors approved by the military and the county government. Except for government workers, who could catch the occasional military plane, the sole means of transportation to the outside world for most people was a military supply craft. Even though passage was free, many people, rocking up and down in a narrow hull for more than 20 hours, were seasick all the way to Taiwan. Li Tzeng-cheng, founder of the Kinmen Public Affairs Research Center, says that students who frequently went back and forth between Taiwan and Kinmen recall the situation as if it were yesterday: "Students would flock to Taiwan every summer to take the college entrance exams and often reported to the test grounds sick to their stomachs with their heads still spinning."

Small in area and poor in resources, Kinmen has naturally been prone to a population outflow. Combat area restrictions, its isolation from outsiders and the fact that it has had no other industries except the liquor distillery, the ceramics factory and the printing plant managed by the Kinmen Political Affairs Commission mean that most people have earned their living by farming or running a small business. Very few of the students who have gone to Taiwan to complete their higher education and returned home have been able to put their learning to work, except by being a teacher or a government worker. In addition, when Taiwan's economy took off during the 1970s, ordinary people as well as students rushed to Taiwan to live and work in a much freer environment.

Weeds in the Living Room: According to statistics, Kinmen's population has shrunk from more than 60,000 in 1958 to less than 50,000 today, and as many as 15,000 or 16,000 have moved to Taiwan. Huang Yen-chi, 34, says that only less than 20 of the more than 300 students who graduated from high school and came to Taiwan to take the college entrance exam in the same year as he did finally returned to Kinmen.

Hsu Chih-lin, a staff member of the domestic affairs department in the Government Information Office, says that his father specially added three storefronts to their home on Chunghsing Rd. in Chincheng, one for each of his sons, only to have them all end up living in Taiwan. "That's practically a typical case for Kinmen," Hsu says. Many people, thinking "the children will move there eventually," do their utmost to buy a house and property in Taiwan. Correspondingly, vacancies on Kinmen are rampant, very few people buy property there, and many older houses in the countryside are "breeding grounds for mosquitos, the living rooms overgrown with weeds," Hsu says.

Villages in the north, scorched by the flames of war, look like ghost towns. The three villages of Kuningtou, which bore the brunt of several attacks, originally had 700 or 800 homes (including quite a few Western-style houses, thanks to its proximity to Amoy and donations from overseas Chinese) but now, because of the ravages of war and its location in the Communists' line of fire, only a few dozen remain. Li Tzeng-cheng, whose family still lives there, says that every time he goes back and walks among the weeds and desolation, it feels "like making a ghost movie."

The bleakness created by war can be seen everywhere around the island. "Fortunately, constantly rotating the troops there brings a little life to the place," says Wu Cherng-dean, a Ph.D. from Kinmen who is now research manager in the Materials Research Laboratories of the Industrial Technology Research Institute.

The troops also brought several new towns into existence.

Soldiers Spark a Shopping Strip: Chinhu Village, located in the southeast of the island, out of the range of the Communists' artillery shells and protected by Mt. Taiwu, was just a place of windblown rock and sand without any road to the outside, before 1958. Later, people from Chinsha and Chinning to the north started moving in, and thanks to the purchasing power of the troops stationed at Mt. Taiwu, Chungcheng Rd. and Fuhsing Rd.now bristle with two or three hundred stores--the local people call the shopping strip "Shanwai" or "over the mountain"--and Chinhu has become the latest area of prosperity on the island.

Half of the population of Kinmen now runs small enterprises, and "ninety percent of the stores' business comes from soldiers," the woman owner of an audio tape store on Chunghsing Rd. says.

After 1979, when the Communists switched to a tactic of sham good will, the number of artillery attacks on the island decreased and some of the pressure of living in a combat area was lightened. But a clear change in the lives of the people of Kinmen didn't come until 1987, when the R.O.C. government lifted the Emergency Decree implementing martial law and tension between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait relaxed. That same year, the Ministry of Defense agreed to allow Far Eastern Air Transport Corp. to open regular flights between Kinmen and Taiwan. Far East originally worried that the people of Kinmen had become used to riding military planes and vessels for free and business would be bad, but the number of flights was steadily increased from three times a week to six or seven. Now there are six round-trip flights a day, and even so tickets are often hard to come by. Due to the frequency of flights, work has begun on a civilian airport.

The First Street with Street Lamps: The Kinmen Political Affairs Commission followed the tide, extending curfew to 12 o'clock and permitting private ownership of cars, radios and other "luxury items." Beginning this July government workers no longer have to undergo military training every Thursday, and except for men of conscription age, between 19 and 35 years of age, everyone else can enter and exit the island just by showing their ID cards.

This year, the first lighted street in the history of Kinmen debuted in the Shanwai district. The roads all used to be paved with concrete--better for armored vehicles and easier to repair--but now the roads in many residential areas are paved with asphalt, which is easier going on private vehicles. Even more importantly, direct-dial telephone service to Taiwan began at the end of June.

The opening of transportation and communications links has dramatically shrunk the distance between the two islands. Taiwan's living habits and material goods and even its methods of decorating stores surged into Kinmen in a short year or two.

Record store owner Yang Ying-hsiang says that as long as he faxes first thing in the morning and the shipment makes the morning flight, the merchandise can be on his shelves the same afternoon. Florist shops offer fresh-cut flowers shipped in from Taipei the same morning. So many karaoke places, MTV centers (clubs with individual rooms for viewing videos) and imitation Taiwanese restaurants and tea houses have appeared in Shanwai that the district has been likened to chic east Taipei and called Kinmen's "little East Side."

Taiwan as Teacher: In another development, residents are demanding personal freedoms more and comparable to those in Taiwan, seeking to break away from the shackles of living in a combat area.

Some people, for instance, have advocated tearing down the antiaircraft interference poles built in many open fields to facilitate farming. Residents are digging up the past, demanding compensation for land or houses that were appropriated by the military for national defense needs and for houses torn down or fishing boats loaned during the Battle of the Taiwan Straits. The military will return everything to anyone who can provide proof of ownership or appropriation, but disputes have arisen because in many cases the proof is missing or was destroyed in the turmoil of war.

A desire for greater participation in the political process has also been burgeoning. Elections for representatives to the National Assembly were held in 1984, a a "consultation delegation," similar to a county council, with the right to advise the county government, was set up the same year. But since the county chief is still appointed by the military and the delegation has no review over the budget, public dissension persists. This May, when the Period of Communist Rebellion was declared ended for the Taiwan area but the Kinmen-Matsu Defense Commander announced the reimposition of martial law, an unprecedented event occurred: people from Kinmen marched in protest on the Legislative Yuan.

Democracy has become the road of the future in Kinmen. This July, the government announced that the Kinmen Political Affairs Commission would abolished by the end of September, that county chief and county council would be elected directly by the people, and that Kinmen would return to democratic constitutional government.

The Headaches in Taking Off Helmets: At the same time that they change out of their military garb of more than 30 years' standing and return to their civvies, the people of Kinmen have many new problems to face. The easy ones: In the future they'll have to pay income taxes and young men will have to serve two years in the military, just like other citizens--two obligations that they were exempt from in the past (although the men had to undergo civil defense trainin g).

"In the short run, Kinmen may have to suffer the consequences before it reaps the benefits," says Chang Chung-min, director of the Department of Construction in the Kinmen county government. As an example, he says that the Kinmen distillery used to buy all the sorghum grown by local farmers at the fixed price of NT$28 a kilo before it bought any from outside, even though the going rate, at NT$6 or NT$7 a kilo, is generally four times less. After September, when the military administration regulations are abolished, there will no longer be any reason not to ship in sorghum and other crops. With low output, scarce labor and high costs, "local farming will probably have to be abandoned!" he says with concern.

Much of the work of the Kinmen Political Affairs Commission will gradually be returned to the county government, and even the roads and trees, currently maintained by the military, will change owners. The county government's work will increase, but its financial resources are limited, so whether the quality of living can be maintained at its present level is another cause for concern.

A Fate Decided by Others: To people on Kinmen, the end of military administration means relations across the Taiwan Strait are easing, but if the number of troops stationed on the island decreases, that will affect their livelihoods. "Don't be fooled by how well Shanwai has developed. If the troops go, the whole thing'll collapse." Yang Ying-hsiang, a Shanwai store owner, talks straight to the point.

But the people of Kinmen have a blueprint for the future. Be they government officials, ordinary citizens or Kinmen residents living in Taiwan, their views are similar: open up the island so it can attract tourists with its exotic coloring and war relics, so it can develop its resources and so it can stand on its own two feet.

Last September, when Red Cross officials from Taiwan and the mainland signed an agreement to use Kinmen as a transit point in repatriating illegal immigrants to Taiwan from the mainland, some people suggested the island could serve as a "halfway house" between the two sides.

But in the view of most thoughtful people on the island, whether Kinmen can develop a tourism industry or serve as a springboard between the two sides "won't be decided in the hands of people here," in the words of high school teacher Hsu Weichuan. The future of Kinmen will be decided by changes in the greater environment--in relations across the Taiwan Strait.

Chen Shui-tzai, the current county chief, who is from Kinmen himself, believes that developments across the Taiwan Strait are still so full of variables that the island shouldn't be recklessly opened up. When military administration ends in September, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of the Interior will draw up a special law to govern its administration.

The people of Kinmen know the island is located on the cusp of change. But perched on the peak of the wave, in which direction will it rush off? Uncertainty and mixed tastes can serve to represent the feelings of most of them at present.

[Picture Caption]

(Above) The 53 wind lions remaining on the island today give you an idea of how windy it is.

(Left) This memorial arch--which Chiu Liang-kung, a Ching dynasty governor of Chekiang province, asked the court to set up in memory of his mother--has been designated a first-class historical monument by the Council for Cultural Planning and Development.

Built under Mt. Taiwu, Atlas Auditorium is a major site for troop entertainment events.

Direct-dial telephone service between Kinmen and Taiwan began this July, a boon to soldiers and civilians alike.

Pottery and ceramic pieces in local styles are popular souvenirs with visitors.

Kung candy is another special local product.

Soldiers are the main clientele in Shanwai, which has been dubbed "little East Taipei."

Sales of kaoliang liquor bring in NT$500 million a year in revenue to the island. To avoid competing with local merchants, the distillery, which is managed by the military, stopped selling products directly to consumers this year, so this sort of scene has become a thing of the past.

Peanuts, the main ingredient in kung candy, are another major crop.

Farmers spread sorghum on the highway and pick up the kernels after the husks have been crushed by passing vehicles.

Kuningtou, which has borne the brunt of several battles, is the most desolate region of the island. The house shown here, built with funds from an overseas Chinese and vaguely tropical in style, was seized by the Communists to serve as a command post in the Battle of the Taiwan Straits.

The Chu Kuang Building was constructed in 1953 by Kinmen Defense Commander Hu Lien to commemorate the officers and men who gave their lives in various battles for the island. It remains a must stop for visitors to the island today.

Kinmen and Surrounding Area[Picture]

（Above） The 53 wind lions remaining on the island today give you an idea of how windy it is.

Built under Mt. Taiwu, Atlas Auditorium is a major site for troop entertainment events.

Kinmen and Surrounding Area[Picture].

Direct-dial telephone service between Kinmen and Taiwan began this July, a boon to soldiers and civilians alike.

Pottery and ceramic pieces in local styles are popular souvenirs with visitors.

Kung candy is another special local product.

Soldiers are the main clientele in Shanwai, which has been dubbed "little East Taipei.".

Sales of kaoliang liquor bring in NT$500 million a year in revenue to the island. To avoid competing with local merchants, the distillery, which is managed by the military, stopped selling products directly to consumers this year, so this sort of scene has become a thing of the past.

Peanuts, the main ingredient in kung candy, are another major crop.

Farmers spread sorghum on the highway and pick up the kernels after the husks have been crushed by passing vehicles.