The first half of the day was spent in the air and on the sea enroute to Kinmen. Xiamen 廈門 International Airport looked just like any other airport in a big city, except that residential apartments were pretty close to the runways. China changes every time I go. This time, shops were newer, service personnel were more polite and rude people were generally older in age. But I need to clarify that beneath the grumpy facades and aggressive behavior, most of the people we met were kind at heart.
The ferry from Xiamen International Ferry Terminal to Kinmen Shuitou (水头) Ferry Terminal was relatively pleasant, except for passengers vomiting all around. At first I didn't know why service personnel were walking up and down the aisles distributing plastic bags. Then the sea turned a little choppy, people started moving towards the more stable rear of the ferry, and all around, lunches were emptied noisily into barf bags. Poor souls. My brother and I weren't affected, perhaps thanks to our seafaring ancestors.
Gray skies immediately turned to blue when we arrived at Kinmen. Temperatures also dropped to a very pleasant 26C, with low humidity. At the terminal, after managing to fill out the wrong immigration forms, we made it across thanks to the patient customs staff. Clearly people here are more relaxed and share the typical Taiwanese hospitality.
My long-lost (read: never-before-met) cousin, his lovely, gregarious wife and 92-year-old-yet-fit-as-a-fiddle father had been waiting for us for more than an hour.
I was relieved to find that they spoke fluent Mandarin as well as Taiwanese. My limited Taiwanese would have been severely tested otherwise. Despite not having met them before, conversation was smooth and while it can't be said that we really hit it off immediately, there was definitely some kind of affinity.
The best was yet to come. They had mentioned that they would arrange some sort of lodging for us. Imagine our delight when we pulled up to a 100-year-old refurnished Qing dynasty home, complete with courtyard and preserved traditional Chinese architecture!
A great front gate made of reinforced timber opened to reveal an ornate courtyard. Crossing the courtyard, one can see aged foundation stones flanked by low walls. How easy for assassins and ninjas to infiltrate, I thought, for the architecture immediately reminded me of Chinese period dramas and movies.
An equally ornate inner courtyard door opened into a narrow passageway and a third door, this time to the main hall which contains the family altar. Rooms lie to the left and right, at both ends of the passageway.
How can I describe this feeling of entering a setting which I had previously seen/read in movies and in books? It seemed unreal that had I been born in my grandfather's era, I might have grown up playing in that courtyard. As it is, I am already imagining myself drinking tea in the courtyard under a full moon.
Off to explore more of the village of Qiong Lin, and military tunnels and fortifications built when the Kuomintang fought the Communists. I hadn't known the full extent of what it was like to live in Kinmen in the years immediately following the Kuomintang's withdrawal from mainland China. My older relatives grew up as citizen soldiers, learning to fire rifles as teenagers, ducking into air-raid shelters at the first sign of artillery bombardment. The shelters are still here, some overgrowth with weeds, others preserved as tourist attractions. more impressive were the tunnels, dug by young soldiers for miles and miles underground. If you were a young conscript in Taiwan in those days and had the luck to be assigned to Kinmen, hard construction work awaited you, plus the risk of perishing under enemy fire became all too real.
Going underground, we saw strategically placed slots for firing into alleys just above the passageways. Long straight tunnels extend around half the village, occasionally branching out into exits or more tunnels. A underground command post was equipped with maps of the coast, records of ammunition supplies, photos of soldiers, men and women included. It's evident that war was a way of life back in the not-so-distant past. I wonder where those people are now. Motivational slogans also dot the wall.
One of the tunnel exits brought us to an imposing statue of a lion standing upright and wearing a red cape. Called a 'Wind Lion Elder' (風獅爺), it's a local deity responsible for calming strong winds. It is only found in locations with strong winds, apparently. Incense and joss sticks laid before it in homage.
I wonder if this was the inspiration for the Merlion?
Dinner was an eagerly-anticipated affair, with the famous Kinmen oyster omelet, yams with stewed pork, and local produce. I have to say, the oyster omelet was the best ever. Crispy with just the right degree of chewiness and the sweet, sweet local oysters..... I can probably never eat another kind again.
Kinmen rocks.
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