In the 823 Artillery Bombardment (
What this has given Kinmen, in addition to many semi-collapsed buildings, is a huge cache of high-quality steel. In the hands of knife-maker Wu Tseng-dong (
PHOTOS: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
The Chin Ho Li Steel Knife Factory (
Wu Tsong-shan, a quietly spoken bespectacled man, has spent over 30 years making knives and is the third generation of his family in the business. Wu recalled a childhood in which he would work the bellows of the forge when he got back from school, and serve as an assistant to his father and brothers around the smithy.
"In those days, production was very limited," he said. "But the knives we made were highly regarded, and would often be bought by soldiers stationed on the island and taken back to Taiwan. That's how our reputation grew."
In the early days, Wu's family made agricultural implements. Bombing of the island provided quality steel that literally dropped from the sky, and the Wu family shifted to making knives.
"Mostly we made butcher's knives. In the beginning, we would only take money after a person had used the knife and found it satisfactory. If it was unsatisfactory, we would replace it with another."
This input by Kinmen's butchers has been put to good use and now Wu's knives are definitely at the top end of the market. Sadly, perhaps, they are no longer used by local butchers, but have instead found their way into the kitchens of chefs working for major hotels in Taiwan and overseas. "Some have even provided specific designs for us," Wu said, "and we are gaining experience of their habits and needs."
While Wu does not claim any analytical knowledge of the materials he uses, his long familiarity with his materials has made him an expert in the subtle art of forging steel. "We must judge the heat of the steel very accurately. The color [of the red hot] steel tells us what we need to know ... this is part of the secret knowledge of our business," he said, with a mixture of pride and self-deprecation. "It all has to be judged very accurately."
Certainly, part of the appeal of Kinmen knives is in their association with history, but they would certainly not be so popular if they were not also of outstanding quality. The secret is in the fact that these knives are still forged and shaped by hand. "There is no comparison with mass-produced knives that are simply cut and ground from a metal board," he said. "It is the forging process that gives these knives their hardness and their ability to hold an edge."
The government has played a part in raising the profile of Kinmen knives. Since 1998 it has provided guidance about designing Western style knives and in 2000 assisted with a total revamp of labeling and packaging.
These days, "Maestro Wu" knives come in elegant display boxes and Wu says that they are increasingly developing extra-high-end knives for collectors.
"After all, one kitchen only needs a few knives, and our knives last a long time, so we have to expand the market in new directions."
What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike. That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population. POPULATION What is Taiwan’s actual population?
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A key feature of Taiwan’s environmental impact assessments (EIA) is that they seldom stop projects, especially once the project has passed its second stage EIA review (the original Suhua Highway proposal, killed after passing the second stage review, seems to be the lone exception). Mingjian Township (名間鄉) in Nantou County has been the site of rising public anger over the proposed construction of a waste incinerator in an important agricultural area. The township is a key producer of tea (over 40 percent of the island’s production), ginger and turmeric. The incinerator project is currently in its second stage EIA. The incinerator
It sounded innocuous enough. On the morning of March 12, a group of Taichung political powerbrokers held a press conference in support of Deputy Legislative Speaker Johnny Chiang’s (江啟臣) bid to win the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) primary in the Taichung mayoral race. Big deal, right? It was a big deal, one with national impact and likely sent shivers down the spine of KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文). Who attended, who did not, the timing and the messaging were all very carefully calibrated for maximum impact — a masterclass in political messaging. In October last year, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
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