Taiwan singer Wang Ying-tan (
He lost his left hand and was blinded at the age of 14 when a detonator he found on the streets of Kinmen, literally meaning "golden gate," exploded while he was playing with it.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Now his hometown, shelled for 44 days by the Communists in 1958 and heavily at other times through 1979, hopes to transform itself from an economic backwater after opening its doors to Chinese goods and tourists today.
For Wang and many other Kinmen residents, the government's plan to ease a decades-old ban on trade and transport links with China brings hope as well as fear.
"There are advantages and disadvantages," Wang said in an interview at a tea house in Tamsui outside Taipei where he and his blind duet partner perform a guitar and an accordion routine.
Kinmen and Matsu (
"We can trade farm products with the mainland," Wang said, strumming his guitar with a pick strapped to his maimed wrist.
"On the downside, the mainland is a bit chaotic. We should strengthen supervision of mainlanders coming over," said Wang, who has released two albums and sold almost one million copies to rake in about NT$1.3 million (US$394,000).
"Kinmen is a very simple, tiny island. I'm worried it'll become stained."
Taipei is counting on the opening of Kinmen and Matsu to enrich the islands and ease tensions with Beijing.
But as Taiwan vessels prepared to ferry passengers and goods to China's southeastern cities of Xiamen and Fuzhou, China poured cold water on the plan refusing to let Chinese residents visit the islands.
The liberalization would merely decriminalize what Taipei considers smuggling -- small-scale trade encouraged by Beijing between the offshore islands and Fujian province since 1993.
Brush with death
Wang, who earned his "King of Kinmen" nickname because his surname literally means "king," is a casualty of the decades-old Cold War rivalry between Taiwan and China.
He lives daily with vivid memories of the accident, but describes himself as an optimist.
"It's as if it just happened yesterday. I still remember every tiny detail," he said.
Six of his classmates were wounded in the blast. Hospital doctors attended to Wang last because they had given up on him, but he survived.
"I guess it's my fate," said Wang, who was given away for adoption by his impoverished peasant parents.
Childhood memories flood back of residents scrambling for air raid shelters and the bitter rivals fighting a propaganda war.
Anti-Chinese slogans reading: "Kill Mao Zedong (
Kinmen and Matsu residents were told their Chinese brethren "lived in deep water and scorching fire," or extreme misery.
As a child, Wang heard stories of "water devils (
"It's very contradictory," Wang said.
"When I was a child, the government talked about counter-attacking China and saving our compatriots," he said. "Now they're talking about unifying with them."
The previous KMT government pledged to unify with a democratic China, but the new administration which took power in May says union should not be the island's sole option.
Kinmen was at the front line of Taiwan's defense against China and isolated for decades until martial law was lifted and tourists allowed to visit in the early 1990s.
The communists shelled Kinmen -- the size of the British Virgin Islands -- in August 1958. In a period of 44 days, Mao's forces rained 475,000 shells on KMT troops of his nemesis, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (
The KMT, holding their ground with the help of the Americans, answered with a 75,000-shell barrage.
Blown to pieces
Shelling eventually eased into a ritualistic gesture with China firing at Kinmen on odd numbered days, but the island's beaches are still sown with landmines and its hills still bristle with radar and artillery emplacements.
Wang recalled a woman and her seven-year-old son were blown to pieces in his village when the boy stepped on a landmine.
"Not even a piece of flesh could be found," Wang said.
Kinmen, with an area of 150km2 and a population of 50,000, plans to invite bids this month for clearing landmines to make way for a commercial port.
But demining operations are fraught with difficulties because the minefields are now overgrown with mature trees and heavy bush, and the military is not certain about their exact location.
Tensions have been simmering since March when Beijing was alarmed by the election victory of President Chen Shui-bian (
For all the benefits of closer links with China, Wang -- like most Taiwan residents -- spurns unification with the island's giant neighbor and prefers the political status quo.
"We can trade, live in harmony and have peace," Wang said. "But unification is not important."
"The systems of government of the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are different," he said, referring to the official names of capitalist Taiwan and communist China.
"The way we think is also different."
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