What's in a Name

While "Taiwan, Penghu, Kin- men and Matsu" are considered integral parts of a whole, it is unfortunate that most inhabitants of Taiwan have a knowledge of its outpost Kinmen that is hazy at best.

Chen Chung-kuang, former CEO of the Yakult Company, discovered while doing genealogical research that his forebears originated in "Wuzhou," and looked forward to being able to retrace his familial roots and sacrifice to his ancestors there. However, he was unable to locate Wuzhou in any of the maps or texts he consulted. Only after researching through several old texts and consulting several scholars did he realize that "Wuzhou" in fact was Kinmen.

According to historical records, Kinmen was formerly known as Wujiang or Canghai. The first known settlements there may be traced back 1,500 years to the Eastern Jin period (fourth century CE), when the attacks of five northern and western nationalities into China forced numerous Han Chinese clans to take refuge on this little island of 150 square kilometers located not even six kilometers from Xiamen on the Fujian coast. During the Tang dynasty, the official Chen Yuan led 12 clan households, mainly the Chen clan, to settle on Wuzhou, thus beginning a period of flourishing for the island. In Song times, the island came under the rule of the central government.

In 1387, the twentieth year of the Ming dynasty, General Zhou Dexing was sent to plan the coastal defenses of Fujian and established a 1,000-household fortification in today's Kinmen City. Because of its high elevation and orientation towards the southeast, Zhou praised it with the following words: "Impregnable as a metal wall in a moat of boiling water, it commands control of the ocean gate." From that time on "Kinmen" (lit. metal gate) replaced "Wuzhou" as the island's name. By the late Ming, the country was weakened, and seafaring pirates arose. Kinmen became an even more strategic military site as the guardian of the ocean route from the Southern Min territories in Fujian.

In terms of transliterations of its name, "Kinmen" is based on the 19th-century Chinese postal system. From the 1980s, following the rapprochement of mainland China with the United States, the Hanyu Pinyin system used by mainland China became more common, and so when foreign scholars and journalists speak of Kinmen, they for the most part use "Jinmen." However, the most widely known transliteration of the island's name is neither "Kinmen" nor "Jinmen" but rather "Quemoy," which derives from the Southern Min pronunciation of the name.

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the Portuguese, following the Southern Min pronunciation, called Kinmen "Quemoy" and Xiamen "Amoy." These transliterations spread, and were later used by the Dutch, French, British, and their colonies. In the library collections of Harvard University are two old seafaring maps of the Dutch East India Company that trace routes to "Amoy" and "Quemoy." The Columbia Encyclopedia likewise uses the transliteration "Quemoy."

In more recent times, the term "Quemoy" surfaced in the global attention paid to civil war between Taiwan and China. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and other internationally known newspapers and periodicals referred to the bombardment of August 23, 1958 as the "Quemoy Crisis." Later, Time Magazine also used the name "Quemoy" in reporting on the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995, as well as the Taiwanese direct presidential elections and the Three Communiques of 1996.

The changes of name, from "Wuzhou" to "Jinmen," from "Quemoy" to "Kinmen," testify to the turbulent changes that this island, situated on the front line and just off of China, has undergone. Each name has contributed its own entry to the story of Kinmen.