Tunnels in Jinmen

So as mentioned, yesterday I ended up getting a ride from PRC to ROC by boat via the Xiamen to Jinmen route. Jinmen, at it's closest point, is only 3km from the mainland, and it has been under martial law until recent years. In fact, back in the 70s, forces from either side of the strait would build up on Jinmen and Xiamen, and they would fire artillery shells at each other every other day. At first, they were deadly shells, but after awhile, the shells were filled with propaganda (either Communist or Democratic), and designed to release propaganda instead of inflicting maximum damage. On the boat ride, you can see there are still remnants of that era on the signs:

It reads: 三民主義統一中國 (The Three Principles of the People Unify China).

On Jinmen, I stayed in the largest city of Jincheng:



Even though Jinmen is much closer to mainland China than the main island of Taiwan, it has that familiarity of Taiwan - the small shops, the motorbikes, the Taiwanese accent. It just still feels different from China. There's still just such a gap.

I spent the night in Jinmen. Hostel prices are a bit higher here, as it cost me about 1000 NT (~$30 USD) for a night, though the room was much nicer than most places in China:



The next day, I got up and wandered aimlessly around Jincheng for the morning. I wanted to find some potstickers (鍋貼) for lunch, since apparently this is where my father learned to make pot stickers with eggs when he was in the army. I found a shop with potstickers:



But there were no eggs. They tasted alright, but I found other interesting things hanging on the wall:



I'm not quite sure what that is. Jinmen is also famous for its knives, which is made from high quality scrap metal made from artillery shells:


Finally, I went to visit one set of underground tunnels (坑道) in Jinmen. Jinmen is known for these paths, as the army had prepared plenty of places for soldiers and civillians to hide in in case of a communist invasion. This is the tunnel entrance:



This is the route map:



One of the tunnels:

In the afternoon, I grabbed a taxi to go to the dock to head back over to Xiamen to take a look. In the taxi, I talked with the driver, who spoke about how Jinmen is opening up even more just in thes past few months. It used to be you needed a special residence permit called a JinMa Zheng to be able to use the boats to Xiamen - now everyone can ride it. However, that hasn't translated into increased business for the taxis, as most of the visitors arrive with tour groups, and have pre-arranged transportation.

And so I thanked my driver for the ride, then passed through customs to hop onto the boat. At the customs checkpoint, the lady recognized me from yesterday. "Didn't you just pass by here?" she asked. "I sure did," I responded, "and will be back again soon enough!"