Travel to Taiwan Matsu

Kinmen gaoliang and Matsu laojiu have always been the two most representative brews of these two islands that stand as Taiwan’s first line of defense against mainland China. But very few people realize that gaoliang liquor (made from sorghum) is also distilled in Matsu, and it’s every bit as good as the stuff they make in Kinmen. It even has a nice bouquet you won’t find in Kinmen gaoliang.

According to Liu Jun-nan, head of the Matsu Distillery, liquors from Matsu used to be sold to the Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board (TTWB), just like liquors from Kinmen, but the quantities were so small that the TTWB marketed it together with other liquors. More often than not it was used as the base for preparing various medicinal concoctions, such as deer-antler liquor. A few years ago, however, the Matsu Distillery started building up its own brand names and marketing its products directly, because the distillery felt it was a waste to have such fine products used merely as a mixer for medicine.

It is only natural that people should compare the gaoliang made in Matsu and Kinmen. Liu said that although gaoliang from Matsu and Kinmen are made using the same type of distilling process, the yeast is not the same. The Matsu Distillery is also quick to point out that its product is aged longer, and that it has a smoother taste, so that you can down a small cup in one shot.
Matsu gaoliang is twice distilled and twice fermented before being placed in the famous “Tunnel 88″ to age. All chengao (aged gaoliang) is kept in the tunnel for at least five years before it goes on the market.

Says Liu, “They sell Kinmen gaoliang in big quantities, so they can’t wait for it to age that long, but in Matsu we strongly believe that good liquor is worth waiting for.” Liu adds that while age isn’t as important with gaoliang as it is with grape wine, it remains a fact that the older it is, the better it tastes. Tunnel 88 was originally an air raid shelter. It was bored into the base of a granite hill, so it stays at a relatively even temperature, warm in winter and cool in summer.

That makes the tunnel ideal for long-term aging. As time goes by, odd and impure tastes in the liquor are eliminated.

In the past, imbibers liked for their liquors to pack a punch, which is why the potent daqujiu was very popular. More recently, however, people have begun to put more emphasis on taste and body. Fewer people drink daqujiu these days, and the Matsu Distillery has deliberately reduced the alcohol content of chengao.

Liu explains: “Daqujiu has an alcohol content of at least 60%, and it’s also 57% with Kinmen gaoliang, but we hold the alcohol in our chengao to 47%. And the most popular product on the market these days is dan li gaoliang, which is only 42%.” He adds that the Matsu Distillery sells 2 million bottles a year. Because there is no distillery in Fuzhou, a lot of mainland Chinese go way out of their way to buy in Matsu in spite of the high prices. They often buy a lot more than they need, then turn around and resell the extra liquor back home.

Matsu laojiu is also very famous, but its production has been suspended in recent years because the distillery has been focusing primarily on gaoliang as its main product. Luckily, however, liquor dealers all have a lot of laojiu in stock.

Laojiu is one type of huangjiu. It is made by soaking glutinous rice in water, boiling, pouring it into a vat, and then adding red yeast to start fermentation. After 30 days the liquor is ready to be consumed. The dregs have a very rich fragrance and are an often-used condiment in Fuzhou cuisine.

Pretty much everyone used to brew their own laojiu in Matsu. Fishermen warm up with a swig before setting out to sea, and the local women also drink it while recuperating from childbirth, as it has medicinal properties that rice wine cannot match.

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Travel to Taiwan Matsu ..explore Matsu Cake

“Matsu cakes” are one of the more popular sweets in eastern Fujian Province. They were originally known as qima cakes until former president Chiang Ching-kuo, who was serving as Minister of Defense at the time, visited Matsu in 1964. He took an immediate liking to the delectable little treats and exclaimed, “Matsu is the only place you can find these things. You should change the name to ‘Matsu cakes.’” And people have been calling them precisely that ever since!

Matsu cakes are made from flour and eggs, and are actually quite similar to yam cakes, a traditional sweet on the main island of Taiwan. First the flour and eggs are mixed together, then the dough is cut into small bits and deep fried. After they are removed from the oil and cooled, they are coated with malt syrup and pressed together into a big flat disc shape, which is then cut into strips. They go together very well with tea or coffee.

There was once a time when Matsu cakes were only made by two traditional confectioners, Tienmei Hsuen and Paoli Hsuen. Now that tourists are allowed to visit Matsu, however, demand has risen sharply, and other confectioners have gotten into the business.

Kao Ming-chung, who just took over Paoli Hsuen from his father last year, relates that even though he had served as an assistant to his father ever since childhood, it was only after he took over the reins himself that he realized the full complexity of the task.

“A really good Matsu cake has to be crispy yet soft, and soft yet firm. And every maker has to have his own secrets that set his cakes apart from everyone else’s. We make these things by hand, so the quantity is quite limited. But some confectioners now bake the dough instead of deep frying it, and they press it by machine. This results in a very low fat content and a loss of the excellent texture of the hand-made type.

There is hardly any difference between these products and the yam cakes they make in Taiwan. These people have taken the ‘Matsu’ out of the Matsu cake,” complains Kao. That is why some of the older shops in Matsu insist on making their Matsu cakes by hand.

Although the fame of Matsu cakes has spread far and wide, Kao notes that hibiscus cakes, which are similar to the shaqima made in Taiwan, are actually the best-loved confection in Matsu.

Shaqima and hibiscus cakes are made using the same methods, but the difference is that hibiscus cakes are made from glutinous rice, which is mashed, cut into strips, deep fried, and stirred. The process is more complicated than that used to make Matsu cakes, and they are produced in smaller quantity.

“When I was a kid we didn’t enjoy anything like today’s affluence,” says 35-year-old Kao. “You were thankful if you had food on the table. Confections made from fancy glutinous rice were a real luxury, so we didn’t make the stuff in any great quantity.

Now that the standard of living has gone up, Paoli Hsuen can sell as many as a thousand boxes of its hand-made cakes per month even in the winter, and when the summer comes and ferry service isn’t interrupted quite so often, we can sell twice that amount. But the thing about hand-made cakes is that you have to work your tail off.” And that is why he has developed arthritis in his hands.

Unlike Matsu cakes and hibiscus cakes, both of which are southern-style sweets, there is another famous confection in Matsu-jiguang cakes-that are made very much in the northern style.

According to local legend, these were invented by the Ming-dynasty general Qi Jiguang, who had his troops string them together and hang them around their necks to eat while they were on the march. The main ingredient is flour. To produce a thick, puffy dough with a firm bite, you can’t let the walls of the oven get too hot or the cakes will peel away from the wall and get ruined.

In all of Matsu, Paoli Hsuen is the only confectioner that makes jiguang cakes, and virtually everyone in Nankan Township is familiar with Kao’s father, Kao Chin-pao. It is said in Matsu that eating jiguang cakes will keep you from getting seasick, so everyone always buys some before boarding a ferry bound for Taiwan.

Kao Ming-chung laughs when asked about this custom and says that people exaggerate. Says Kao, “It’s just that jiguang cakes, unlike seafood products, have a nice, clean taste that doesn’t make you feel like vomiting when you eat them aboard ship.” At restaurants in Fuzhou they like to split the cakes down the middle and put various fillings inside. They call these treats “Matsu hamburgers.”

Matsu has long played host to a large military population, and for this reason its Matsu cakes, hibiscus cakes, and jiguang cakes present a melange of southern and northern confectionery styles. But the confectioners in Matsu are all small operations, and ship service to Taiwan is very unreliable, so you’ll have to make a trip to Matsu if you’re thinking of getting a taste of these goodies!

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let’s travel to Taiwan..Matsu

The pristine waters off Matsu provide abundant fishing grounds, and fishing vessels regularly return to port loaded with big catches of shrimp, sardines, Jew fish, grouper, pomfret, “Buddha’s hand” clams, and all sorts of seaweed.

Coastal aquaculture products include oysters and seaweed. Since as far back as anyone can remember, fishing has been the lifeblood of Matsu. Of the many fish products from Matsu, perhaps the best known of all are fish noodles and fish balls.

Fish noodles are a special type of noodle particular to China’s southeast coastal region. They are made from four parts cornstarch and six parts eel, drum, and other high-grade fish. The mass is then rolled, pressed, cut, and dried in the sun. They go excellently in a hot pot, and are also very delicious served as a regular bowl of noodles.

Because of the high fish content in the fish noodles made in Matsu, when you eat them it practically feels like you’re eating a noodle-shaped fish ball. When made into fried noodles they are very chewy and carry a tasty fish flavor.

Li Huo-chin, a woman from Tangchi Village in Peikan, has been making fish noodles for over 20 years. She says that she and her husband can make more than 200 packets a day, but they aren’t so popular any more, and it’s a good day when they sell even a hundred packets.

Mrs. Li also makes fish balls, which, like most fish balls in Matsu, have a high fish-to-flour ratio. The flour-stuffed fish balls they make on Taiwan can’t begin to compare with Mrs. Li’s light-grey delicacies, which have a nice, firm bite.

Back in the days when all fish balls were made by hand, they often joked in Matsu that if a couple who made fish balls got in a big spat, you should be sure and buy their fish balls the next day, for the husband and wife would both work off their anger the next day by pounding the fish paste extra fine, which would result in especially delicious fish balls.

Today all fish balls are made with the aid of machinery, but Mrs. Li stresses that fish balls have to have lots of fish meat in them to be good, and there’s no fooling people on that score.

As soon as I walked into the store, I saw Mrs. Li telling some customers how good her fish balls were and how they should give them a try. Although they kept declining, Mrs. Li still went back into the kitchen and brought out a big bowl of fish balls. And there were a lot more fish balls than broth!

As we sat around eating the fish balls, Mrs. Li, speaking in Fuzhou dialect, lamented that her four sons and two daughters had all gone their various ways, leaving no one to keep the business in the family.

“Young people today don’t want to do tough work like this, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up myself either.” She asked me to be sure to write in my article that she would be glad to teach for free any young people willing to learn the trade.

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let’s continue travel to Taiwan’s Matsu

If the sight of the old villages gives one something to think about, crossing from island to island gives one a physical workout.

Matsu’s ferry boats are tossed around on the choppy seas, and any visit to the uninhabited islets, for fishing or bird-watching, entails a bracing encounter with the wind and the waves.
Every year the Matsu Rock Fishing Association runs a contest, to which top anglers from around Taiwan are invited. We chanced upon Li Chin-hsin, chairman of the Penghu County Coastal Angling Association, who explained that Matsu’s location near the mouth of the Minjiang River, where fresh water from the river mingles with salty ocean water, gives it an abundance of the types of fish favored by coastal anglers. Additionally, the fact that the sea is so deep just off the coast, makes for an anglers’ paradise. Even if you don’t catch many fish, a day spent standing with a rod at the edge of the waves is a great way to chill out.

If bird-watching is your thing, you need to remember to bring your binoculars and camera.
Matsu is just off the coast of Fujian, as is the island of Kinmen, but unlike Kinmen it has no wetlands, and therefore has a different set of bird species-both resident and migratory-from that island. In 2000 the county council designated eight uninhabited islets as protected areas for terns. Visitors are not allowed to set foot on these islets, but they can approach by boat, cut the engine, and observe the birds through binoculars. The gulls soar above while the people bob about on the waves-all part of the same natural continuum, all sharing in the wonder of creation.

If there’s time enough, you can carry on across the sea to the isles of Tungyin and Chukuang, and see the lighthouse which has witnessed the comings and goings of sea traffic for the past hundred years.

The Tungchu Lighthouse, which dates from 1872, has been listed as a grade two historic monument. Originally it was commissioned by a British company to aid the navigation of the merchant vessels that began to converge on the Minjiang estuary following the Opium Wars. It is a round column 19.5 meters high, made of white granite, with lush grass at its base and several European-style buildings alongside.

The lighthouse stands there like a young girl in white, poised on a green shore against a backdrop of deep blue ocean. It’s a lovely sight to gaze upon, and it provided the perfect finale for our tour of Matsu.

The trip brought us into contact with nature, with key military areas, with religious places, and with history. On a visit to Matsu, living history, in a succession of different scenes, seems to pass before one’s eyes.

Nowadays the Taiwanese are avidly recovering what they can of the vanishing culture of their homeland, and are rebuilding, one brick at a time, the structures of their past. So why not take a trip to Matsu this summer, during the months from May to September when the weather is at its finest. Matsu is sure to leave you with a lovely, and lasting impression.

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Another of Matsu’s “sights” is its many soldiers. There are far less now than there used to be, but they still outnumber local inhabitants.

When a military supply ships dock at Makang, the wharf seems suddenly overrun with army personnel loading and unloading. For tourists come to visit the Matsu temple, it’s a rare chance to witness a “military action.” In fact, the army is present in every corner of Matsu, and military facilities are as ubiquitous as folk temples.

Seeing the soldiers in action, you can’t but feel awed by the hardships endured and feats achieved to build up and defend this island base. A few steps further along the wharf you come to the temple, where a statue of Matsu awaits you with a smile, seated amid wafting incense smoke.

Matsu’s religious culture, which reflects that of eastern Fujian, features a pantheon of local gods-often real people who achieved something special during their lives and were subsequently deified. The village of Chiaotzu on Peikan Isle, badly affected by population loss, has five temples housing 10-20 idols apiece-meaning that the village now has more gods than people.

There’s a common perception that the goddess Matsu-after whom the island group was named-must be the focus of all religious activity here, but in fact there are only nine Matsu temples among the 60 or so temples on the islands. The god with the largest number of temples dedicated to him is called the White Horse King: a real general who once defended eastern Fujian. There are temples dedicated to various other gods who also started out as generals, and also to such deities as the god of pestilence.

In fact, temples are everywhere to be seen in Matsu, both in open countryside and jammed between village houses. The architecture of the temples is of the eastern Fujian style, with granite walls and featuring colorful, intricate decorations, in sharp contrast to the plain buildings around them. Squatting in the entrance of a temple on a hillside, looking out across the sea-which shines golden in the light of the setting sun and is dotted with little fishing craft-one feels a strong sense of the endless ebb and flow of history.

Soon the lights of the fishing boats begin to twinkle and you head down towards the harbor, where shops and restaurants packed with fresh seafood await the hungry visitor.

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let’s continue…travel to Matsu !

What gives Matsu its unique flavor is its blend of attractive scenery, a significant military presence, local religion, and fishing communities. Some of the more notable sights are: the Peihai Tunnel, the Iron Fort, the Queen of Heaven Temple and Niuchiao Village (all on Nankan Island); Chinpi Village and Chukuang fishing village (on Peikan); and the “Line of Sky” (a narrow gap between huge rocks), Virgin’s Cliff and the Tungchu Lighthouse (on Tungyin).

The Peihai Tunnel is a typical example of a military installation converted into a tourist attraction. It was built in the late 1960s by the army, using simple hand tools to cut a 700-meter-long quay into the granite wall of a coastal inlet. At the upper end there are large chambers hacked into the rock, which once served as offices and sleeping quarters.

Inside, the passage is pleasantly cool and peaceful. The only sound is the steady drip of water somewhere far off. It’s almost impossible to imagine that this place was once full of people in a state of armed readiness.

Our driver, Mr. Tung, who was provided courtesy of the Matsu Daily News, kept a close eye on the time as we toured the passageway. The water level inside depends on the tide, and if you’re not careful you can get trapped in one of the deeper parts of the tunnel by rising waters.
Not far away from the underground passage is another well-known military feature, the Iron Fort, which sits atop a rocky outcrop. This is where the island’s amphibious units used to be garrisoned. Sentry posts stand either side of the main blockhouse, along with kennels for guard dogs. The structure features sniper slots, gun emplacements, a kitchen and sleeping quarters.

During the 1950s, when military tensions were at their height, PRC frogmen often sneaked up and killed the sentries. Usually they poisoned the dogs first, then slit the throats of the guards. Dozens of men were lost in this way, but the attackers were never able to occupy the fort. Thus it came to be called the Iron Fort.

Nothing of the life-and-death atmosphere of those times lingers. Nowadays, with waves sloshing against the rocks below and seagulls wheeling through the air, it’s more like a scenic lookout. Only when you wander inside, penetrating to the interior of the blockhouse, does the darkness begin to unnerve you. A chill gust blows through, and you may find yourself muttering: “Rest in peace, you spirits of departed heroes!”

A few more steps and you emerge blinking into the white light of day: one scenic location encompassing two distinct worlds.

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Come on…let’s travel to Taiwan Sanjhih Gallery of Famous Sons

The Sanjhih Gallery of Famous Sons - part of Sanjhih Visitors Center - celebrates the lives of four scions of Sanjhih families.

The most famous is, of course, former President Lee Teng-hui. Lee - the first president of Taiwan to have been born on the island - held office from 1988 to 2000, and remains politically active well after his 80th birthday. He was born less than 100 meters from the museum, and educated at universities in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States.

Lu Hsiu-yi was another politican - a dissident and then a member of Taiwan’s parliament until his death in 1998. He studied in France, where he met his wife, a Taiwanese concert pianist who lated headed the central government cultural agency.

Tu Tsung-ming (1893-1986) was another kind of pioneer: The first Taiwanese to qualify as a doctor during the Japanese colonial era, which lasted from 1895 to 1945, he helped develop medical education in Taiwan after World War II.

Chian Wen-ye (1910-1983), a composer of international renown, in fact spent most of his life in mainland China. However, many of his compositions - such “Song of Alishan” - drew on his Taiwanese background.

Another part of the Visitors Center explains in some depth the history of the Sanjhih area, from the arrival of the Ketagalan people (who inhabited North Taiwan before Han Chinese settlers began to move in in the 1700s), to the develop of the various villages.

The role of religion and the history of some of the area’s most important temples is explained. And there are odd fascinating snippets, such as why one place is called Maosingdian, “dian” meaning store. More than 150 years ago, a man running a shop at that location prospered, but their success caused jealously. One day, a rival dumped a corpse outside the store; this scared off not only the customers, but also the shopkeeper and his family.

The grounds of the Visitors Center have been landscaped, and include an “ecological pool,” an “ecological ditch,” and “wild grassland.”

VISA: No need

Public Transit: No public buses go to this spot, but a chartered taxi could bring you here, and take you to other nearby places, such as the Li Tien-lu puppet museum.

Personal Transit The Visitors Center is located two kilometers inland of Sanjhih Town, beside Bei 11, a road that leads from the downtown into the hills.

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Matsu’s decision to walk rather than run is directly reflected in its focus on preserving the architecture of its traditional villages.

After many decades of tight government control, the old architecture has been remarkably preserved in Matsu, particularly in Nankan’s Niuchiao Village, Peikan’s Chinpi Village in Peikan, and Fuhsi in Chukuang. All are excellent examples of traditional eastern Fujianese village architecture. Elsewhere in the ROC the traditional Han Chinese culture was southern Fujianese. Meanwhile, eastern Fujian itself has experienced such rapid develpment that almost all of its traditional architecture has been destroyed. The traditional eastern Fujianese settlements on Matsu are just about the only ones left in pristine condition anywhere in the world.

“We only started to restore these buildings two or three years ago,” says county government employee Tsao Yi-hsiung. “The people had a lot of doubts, but the county established a ‘town and country workshop’ in order to bring about coherent regional planning that would preserve whole neighborhoods of these old buildings. It instilled in people the notion that preserving architecture was a way of helping the local economy. The results have been surprisingly good.” Matsu has a high rate of outward migration, and these people living elsewhere are naturally happy to have others care for their ancestral homes. People are now clamoring to sign restoration contracts with the county government.

What with the three links and the tourism industry, the economic outlook for Matsu appears bright, but might a pure focus on economic development and architectural preservation prove, however beautiful on the outside, to be empty on the inside? With these concerns, county legislators Tsao Yi-hsiung and Chen Kuei-chung have promoted a campaign to get artists to live in traditional buildings, so that residents can see how art might become rooted in their daily lives.

Chiu Chin-pao explains that the exodus of youth from Matsu is very serious. Moreover, the fact that children aren’t learning the Fuzhou dialect these days is putting the traditional local culture under even more pressure.

In response to these concerns, 40 members of the local community, including teachers and public servants, have formed a group called the Yuntai Music Hall, which compiles local operas and folk songs and then asks the schools to teach them to children.

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continue…Travel to Taiwan’s island - Matsu

Transportation has long been the biggest headache for the people of Matsu. It’s also the biggest obstacle toward developing tourism on the island.

Currently, the island is largely dependent on airplanes and boats. But because the lay of the land is so hilly, the runway at Peikan Airport is only 890 meters long, too short to install an instrument-based landing system. Pilots have to fly by sight, and the only planes from Taiwan that can land here are the 37-seat DASH-8-200s owned by Uni Air. In fog or heavy rain, the airport, which has been the site of two plane crashes, has to close.

As for traveling by sea, the Taiwan-Matsu route is plied by boats that hold 500 passengers. Yet these old boats can’t go out when the sea is rough. On the day of a scheduled journey, passengers have to call first and ask whether the boats are sailing that day. It’s very inconvenient.

“When even transporting people is so difficult, you can forget about shipping out local goods,” says Kao Ming-chung, whose Paoli Hsuen shop specializes in making such local delicacies as Matsu cakes. This is the main reason why Matsu’s local products are still virtually unknown elsewhere in Taiwan.

The local government is aware of the problem and considers improving transportation to be its most pressing task. County Executive Liu notes that there are plans to obtain new boats and that a new airport is under construction. Just months after the three links were first implemented, there are still some bottlenecks, but Liu assures us that over the next half year, transportation difficulties will be resolved.

An extension of Peikan Airport’s eastern runway to 1000 meters should be completed by July, at which time it will be able to handle 50-passenger DASH-8-300 planes, which are owned by various domestic airlines. What’s more, a 1000-meter runway should open at a new airport in Nankan in March of 2002.

With Matsu no longer on the frontlines of military confrontation, the number of troops should continue decreasing from the more than 10,000 that used to be stationed here to only a few thousand. To replace this economic pillar of support, people in Matsu are looking for tourism to bring long-term benefits. Although they’ve encountered plenty of obstacles this year, the people of Matsu have turned a liability into an asset by regarding this period as a time to plan more carefully.

Liao Yuen-lung, the head of the Matsu National Scenic Area Administration, formerly worked in the ROC Tourism Bureau. Observing the people in Matsu, he has come to some insights about their confidence.

“Matsu has some obvious tourist draws,” Liao says. “For ecotourism, there are the virgin stands of timber, and the Chinese crested terns, those ‘legendary birds’ that have caused such a stir. What’s more, the military facilities here are even denser than those seen on the border of north and south Korea, and the traditional eastern Fujianese fishing culture is quite different from the southern Fujianese culture seen in Taiwan, Penghu and Kinmen. Then there are the religious buildings and the well-preserved and intact traditional villages.” Yet the island’s biggest advantage for tourism lies in the fact that it has been off-limits for so long. Now its tourist industry can slowly and carefully advance, avoiding the pitfalls that tourism has encountered elsewhere.

Liao cites the examples of Green Island and Kinmen. When these places were first opened to tourists, they became popular destinations overnight, so that large numbers of hotels and restaurants were built all at once. Supply ended up exceeding demand, so that the market was thrown out of equilibrium. Now the tourist industry is suffering in those places.

“With the lessons learned from others’ mistakes, the county government has asked for thorough advance planning, and the ROC Tourism Bureau is working with the island’s authorities. Matsu’s careful and steady efforts to build up its tourism industry have earned it a lot of respect.”

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Let’s continue travel to Taiwan , Matsu

Lienchiang County Executive Liu Li-chun has just welcomed a visiting delegation from the mainland. Although he has reservations about ROC elected representatives smuggling themselves into mainland China, he admits that with the initiative shown by them the three small links “are starting to taste sweeter and sweeter.”

“Matsu doesn’t steal the spotlight like Kinmen,” Liu notes. “We understand that our population is small, our economic resources limited, and our transportation problems intractable, so we are willing to take a longer view and allow considerations about the three small links to return to the issue of building infrastructure for the offshore islands.” If suddenly the nation really wanted to make Matsu the transfer point for all people and goods across the Taiwan Strait, he fears that the island couldn’t bear it. But Matsu could become a logistical base. The more than 10,000 Taiwanese businessmen in Fuzhou and Mawei could send their children to attend schools built specially for them in Matsu, which would in turn uplift education and culture on the island.

With regard to cross-strait trade, Liu Li-chu says that Matsu ought to model itself on a little convenience store, rather than a huge department store. “The good thing about getting rid of the business tax and customs tariffs is that the two sides will be able to do small-scale trading here, allowing Matsu to become a free-trade zone in the Taiwan Strait. This would provide a tremendous boost to the island’s economy. In this way, the establishment of the full-fledged three links wouldn’t threaten the island’s economy.

While the three small links is no panacea for Matsu’s long-term development problems, the policy is benefiting the island right now: “One-third of all ROC money given to Taiwan’s outer islands goes to Matsu despite its lack of population and area. Although Matsu lags far behind Kinmen and Penghu in terms of infrastructure, if the ROC allows gambling there, as is being considered, then this, in conjunction with the three small links, will definitely help.

“The consensus in Matsu is that improving transportation and encouraging tourism of the best kind is the way for the island to go,” says Tsao Yi-hsiung, a Lienchiang County legislator. With Matsu getting a lot of attention right now, it might as well “grab the short term gain in order to obtain the most long-term benefits.”

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