Part III explores a pivotal transitional period for Matsu. As the army left and the islands gradually opened up to the world, both individuals and the island society faced a new situation. Chapter 7 follows the women of Matsu and the struggles they faced—between marriage and self, family and work, Matsu and Taiwan— through the late military period into the present day.

In Chapter 3, I discussed the changes that women experienced from the fishing period into the era of military rule. When fishing was the main source of household income, men were valued more highly than women, who had very few opportunities to receive formal education. Although elementary schools, and later some middle schools, were built across the islands under the WZA, most women who finished primary school promptly began to conduct G. I. Joe business to earn money for their parents’ families. After marriage, their earnings went towards supporting their husbands’ families. Although women’s ability to engage in petty commerce and to contribute economically raised their status both at home and in the larger society (as shown in Chapter 4), their lives continued to revolve closely around the family. As a Matsu saying goes: “When the mother is there, the family is complete; when the mother isn’t there, the family falls apart” (F. noeyng ne duoli, suo tshuo iengnongnong. noeyng ne namo, tshuo tsiu sang lo). A woman was the protector of her family, supporting its very existence, and sacrificing herself for it.

During the late military period, however, some women began to take their lives in different directions. Although women of this period were not afforded the advantages that men had access to, such as receiving government-guaranteed education in Taiwan, many of them left for Taiwan in search of jobs to support their families financially. Others went to Taiwan to study, if their families allowed it. Their experiences in Taiwan had a huge impact on their later lives. This chapter examines the new struggles that women confronted. I take three women, born between 1950 and 1980, who lived through the era of military rule and beyond, to discuss the rise of a new female self and the changing meanings of contemporary family and marriage. Rather than representing Matsu women in general, their unique experiences provide crucial insight into the changes in women’s conceptions of themselves and the challenges that contemporary Matsu society faces today.

Rising from Floriculture

Cao Xiaofen was born in 1956 and is the eldest of seven children. In order to help share the burden of supporting the family, soon after graduating from elementary school she began to work at a bookstore in Shanlong as an assistant. She says that she always loved to study, and even used the money she earned from her first job to go back to middle school for a semester, returning to work only when she ran out of money. At the impressionable age of eighteen, a matchmaker arranged for her to marry into the Chen family in Shanlong. At that time, her husband’s family had opened a restaurant catering to the military, doing both G. I. Joe business and raising chickens at the same time. Xiaofen was expected to help with all of it, and that kept her extremely busy.

As G. I. Joe business became more and more competitive, the family had to find other ways of making ends meet. In 1976, Xiaofen’s mother-in-law arranged for her to leave Matsu for Taiwan, and so she arrived, pregnant, in the Bade district of Taiwan to work in the Lianfu Clothing Factory. At that time, means of communication and travel between Matsu and Taiwan were quite limited, and she had few chances to see her husband. He would occasionally come to visit her, and each time he prepared to leave again, she felt heartbroken and hoped that the ships between the Keelung harbor and Matsu would not set sail. Tragically, not long after her child was born, her husband fell ill with uremia. Since Matsu is fairly remote, and a lack of medical knowledge delayed his care even further, her husband had to spend many years on dialysis in Taiwan. When her husband got sick, Xiaofen left her work at the clothing factory and moved to Taipei to take care of him. Burdened by medical expenses, and with very little education and no professional training, she could only engage in manual labor to make money. In the winter she sold cakes in a market, and iced drinks in the summer at the hospital gates in order to supplement the family income. She says that one day after work she was pulling her cart home and heard someone behind her calling, “Mister, Mister!” and she realized with surprise that her skin had darkened from being out in the sun year round, and her appearance was indistinguishable from that of a man (J. Liu Reference Liu2004c).

When her husband passed away in 1991, she finally had a moment to catch her breath, and she decided to take classes in floriculture. She said:

After many years of toil, however, she was diagnosed with cancer in 2000. During her treatment, the illness and the suppression of her emotions over many years of caring for the family led to depression. She stopped working in the market for nearly half a year, and this period of rest gave her a chance to reconsider her own life. She realized that the tense relationship with her mother-in-law had caused her to become servile and obedient. Because she was forced to take care of her husband, mother-in-law, and child who were all frequently ill, she found herself suffering from low self-esteem and had gradually begun to cut ties with people. After her own illness, her siblings and elementary school classmates wanted her to come back to her childhood village, Ox Horn, to recover, so she moved in with one of her younger sisters. An old classmate, Cao Yixiong, was promoting “Village Conservation” (see Chapter 8) at that time. He often came to visit, providing emotional support by taking her on walks to show her how the village had been transformed and renewed. He encouraged her to develop her artistic talents and to move back to Matsu for good to open a flower shop and a café in a historic building in the village. With the support of friends, Xiaofen gradually returned to health, and she decided to go back to Taiwan to learn to become a barista before returning to Matsu to open a café. She did not imagine that her flower shop would eventually do brisk business, and that her classes in flower arranging would prove to be very popular. Today, she is often invited to other islands to give lessons at women’s associations and community centers. She said: “Floriculture helped me find my ‘self,’ and it also made me realize that Matsu is the place I’ll always come back to.” With her new chance at life, she is not only a florist, but now also plays the role of the central figure of “eldest sister” in her family. She arranges family events at specific times over the year, which helps to solidify and maintain their familial relationships:

When her florist’s business does well and she makes some extra money, she sends it to her son in Taiwan.

Xiaofen’s case is particularly dramatic. After arriving in Taiwan, she suffered greatly from her illness, yet over the course of her sickness and recovery, she also managed to gradually free herself, slowly recognizing how severely she had been constrained by the traditional mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. A succession of family misfortunes caused her to withdraw even further, until eventually she was diagnosed with cancer and was confined to her own tiny world. Then, allowed the opportunity to study floriculture and to develop her talents, she was able to achieve a new selfhood. With the emotional support and practical aid of her family and former classmates in Matsu, she was able to recover from her illness, and now she has also established herself as the center of two different families. She not only serves as a bridge between her brothers and sisters, but also helps support the younger generation of her own family in Taiwan.

Torn Between 0 and 9

Li Xiufang has a very busy job as an accountant. At 8 am each morning, she starts her day rushing back and forth between two different government agencies. She gets off at 6 pm and must hurry to the hostel that her mother-in-law runs to help keep the accounts. After dinner, she frequently goes back to the office, finishing up at 10 pm. She has been working in Matsu for twenty-one years, and these long days happen at least once a week and more often three times a week. She is transferred to a new government agency every four years and has already held positions in twelve different agencies.

Although she is kept very busy, when Xiufang speaks of her work, she always has a smile and a look of pride on her face. With her circumspect manner and her natural aptitude for numbers, she is often able to help her colleagues deal with the most complicated write-offs. When she is able to handle some thorny numbers, she says she always feels “a great sense of accomplishment!” Still, her demanding work reduces the amount of time she can spend with her family, and she reveals a sense of regret about her children. I asked her why she had chosen to work as an accountant, and she told me:

After graduation, Xiufang got a job as an accountant in a government office. She married a man from Matsu, returned there for work, and had two children. Her husband also works in a government organization, and they are typical of many families in Matsu in which both husband and wife work for the government and enjoy a very stable lifestyle. Her husband makes allowances for her busy job, which often prevents her from coming home on time. He is the one who makes dinner and looks after the children. Xiufang is responsible for all of the cleaning, and in this way, the two cooperate in the running of the household.

When Xiufang speaks of her family, she often emphasizes that she is able to give her children ample time and space in which they can focus on their studies. This relates to Xiufang’s own difficult experiences going to school in Taiwan as a teenager. Moving from a remote island to a metropolis, Xiufang was packed into a small apartment with her five siblings as well as five cousins to study and sleep together. She says that at the time, she did not have her own desk or her own bed. When she got home from school, she would have to make dumplings until late at night, and because of this, she tried her best to stay at school to study until 9 pm before returning home. Now, she is proud that she can offer her children their own personal space in which to grow up and develop.

Because of her hectic schedule, however, Xiufang has no time to cook for her children, and that is a source of deep regret for her. In Matsu, one very important traditional role that mothers play is to cook for the family. The meal that a mother prepares represents a maternal role that many Matsu people recall with deep emotion. Li Jinmei, who served for twenty-five years on the county legislature in Matsu County, says that during the time she was engaged in politics, she would come home each day at 5 pm to cook for her family, and only after they had eaten together would she return to her meetings. Today, we find a vibrant scene of married working women returning to their mothers’ houses to eat dinner. Xiufang’s family also often goes over to her mother’s house to eat dinner. From this we can also see that for women in Matsu today, although their sense of self is indissociable from their work, they still identify strongly with the traditional role of the mother as the center of the household. The emotional intimacy fostered by a mother cooking dinner for the family and bringing everyone together is still irreplaceable for Xiufang in terms of how she views herself as a woman. For this reason, although she considers her career and her professional capabilities to be significant accomplishments, she still feels guilty about not being able to come home to cook for her children every night. As a contemporary woman, she is torn between striving for professional success and fulfilling the traditional role of the mother.

In Search of a Common Vision

Chen Lihong was born in 1971, one of five siblings, the youngest of whom is a boy. She recounted:

I asked her what she and her sister did to help. She told me they did all kinds of jobs, but that she was especially good at “carrying water” (taishui), and that she would collect nearly all of the water that the family used. Back when Matsu did not have running water, the water used by a household would be collected from wells and carried back to the home. She said:

We can readily sense Lihong’s satisfaction about the help she was able to give her family. In fact, like Xiufang, Lihong could have gone to Taiwan to study after high school, but she decided to stay so that the money could go towards the education of her younger brother. Years later, on his wedding invitation, he specially thanked her and her older sister, “and when I saw that, all of it [the sacrifice] was worth it,” she told me with tears in her eyes.

Although both Lihong and Xiaofen sacrificed themselves to help their families and in particular their younger siblings, the former is different from the latter in that she grew up during the late period of the WZA. Lihong’s family engaged in many different kinds of G. I. Joe businesses, including selling breakfast foods and snacks, and running a karaoke bar. As a girl, she would keep watch over the karaoke bar as she studied, and so had contact with the military from a young age. She told me that early on the soldiers would fight over her affections, and not a few of them tried to ingratiate themselves with her. “Were you ever interested?” I asked her. “I can’t say I never was,” she responded. However, one of her aunts had married a soldier, and after she went with him when he was posted to Taiwan, their marriage suffered. Because of this, Lihong felt that it was safer to marry a man from Matsu, with whom she would have a greater chance of having a secure life and a harmonious marriage. Doing chores and helping out the family as a girl, she had already started to develop her own ideas about the future.

After she grew up, she chose a local Matsu man with a steady income from among her many admirers. Her husband worked for the government, and she was also employed by the government at the time on contract, so together the two of them had a healthy income. After they married, they soon bought a house and a car, and a year later had a baby. Just as their life together seemed to only be getting better, her husband took up gambling, and then began to have an affair. Lihong said:

Lihong could not accept her husband’s attitudes, and once he had been unfaithful she allowed herself to become emotionally detached from their marriage. She worked even harder to make money, so that she could prove to the court that she had the economic means to take care of her son, hoping to be granted custody of him. She became licensed as a nurse’s aid in order to get a better job with a steady salary. Still, since her husband could provide a better home environment, she agreed to allow her son to continue to live with him. She arranged a set time to come visit him and to take him out to do something fun. After her divorce, Lihong did not move back to her parents’ house, as was traditionally expected of women, but instead rented a room, wanting her own private space in which to live. Each time we met, she would always be carefully dressed and made up. She felt that after her divorce, she needed to keep up her appearance, to make herself feel better than she had before. She told me: “Many women realize only after they get divorced that they have a lot of capabilities. The struggle for survival brings out latent potential.”

Like many traditional women in Matsu, Lihong has sacrificed for her family since she was a young child. In the process, however, she has also slowly been developing herself: she planned out the kind of marriage and family that she wanted, and made it happen. Despite all of her careful planning, her marriage unfortunately ended in divorce, but she described the outcome this way:

Lihong’s reflections reveal that she did understand that her husband’s leaving might also have been caused by his pursuit of “another kind of self [beyond the family]”: it was precisely because husband and wife lost their common vision that their marriage failed and their home life collapsed. In any case, Lihong is no longer willing to submit to a man’s demands, as women had done in the past. Her decisions demonstrate how different contemporary Matsu matrimony is from the traditional model. In the past, as long as men brought money home to support the family, they were free to gamble in their spare time; even affairs were tolerated by their wives. But Lihong and most of the other women in Matsu no longer want to be traditional wives. In other words, contemporary Matsu households can no longer successfully operate on the assumption of the self-sacrifice of one of the partners (most often women). Quite the opposite, creating a common vision that both partners, along with the entire family, can work toward together has become the foundation of contemporary marriages and families in Matsu.

Conclusion: Struggling Women, Families, and the Future of the Islands

The cases of Cao Xiaofen, Li Xiufang, and Chen Lihong clearly show that the women of Matsu did not have much chance to receive higher education during the military period. Most women ended their education after elementary or middle school, and immediately began engaging in small-scale commercial business to help support their families or to provide their siblings with more opportunities than they had been given themselves. After marriage, they were expected to take care of their husbands and their families, and also to raise children. Although, as Chapter 3 indicated, they did obtain a kind of free space and greater power than they had in the earlier fishing period, most of them still struggled to be loyal sisters and filial daughters-in-law (e.g. Lee Reference Lee2004). Cao Xiaofen and Chen Lihong are clear examples: they both enjoyed school but were unable to continue their education because of family responsibilities. Despite her pregnancy, Cao Xiaofen had to obey her mother-in-law’s dictates and move to Taiwan to work in a clothing factory, living separate from her husband. The family took precedence over the individual.

Nevertheless, the examples of Xiaofen, Xiufang, and Lihong also show how a new female self-consciousness, one that was distinct from the sociocultural self, developed between the military period and the contemporary era. For instance, Xiaofen is the eldest of the three and the most constrained by traditional culture, encountering shattering separation, deaths and illness throughout her life; however, these sufferings have prompted her to reflect on the ultimate causes. With the support and care of her siblings and friends in Matsu, she was able to regain a new life. She became a new subject, not only managing her successful flower business but also putting great effort into sustaining emotional ties between her siblings. She works hard to reach a balance between her business self and the sociocultural one (playing the kinship roles of mother and eldest sister).

Xiufang also had the opportunity to go to Taiwan when she was young. She was fortunate in that she received higher education there and so was able to get a stable job in the Matsu government when she returned. Becoming a successful accountant is clearly a point of great pride for her. She is also proud of the fact that she is able to provide a comfortable home environment for her children. Nonetheless, she is upset that she cannot play the role of a “proper” mother—who cooks and cares for the family, holding it all together. Whether in life or in work, she is torn between two extremes—between 0 and 9, the traditional and the contemporary.

Lihong is very different, and from her situation we can see an intermediate stage between the traditional and the contemporary. Compared to Mahmood’s (2005) depiction of the ethical formation of Egyptian women, Lihong’s example presents an even better case of the burgeoning of a modern subjectivity. Lihong made the kinds of sacrifices that women in the traditional culture have long made, and she even took the decision not to study further so as to afford her younger siblings the opportunity to finish school. In the process, however, she began to develop her subjective consciousness, and formed plans for her own future and imagined what her life could be like. As a result, when her marriage began to flounder, she rejected a role of further self-sacrifice and refused to continue as the traditional wife. As she encountered myriad difficulties in the divorce process, her subjective consciousness became all the more engaged, and she pursued economic independence so as to gain custody of her son. Of course, after the dismantling of military rule Matsu society developed in myriad ways, and the new job options in Matsu have given Lihong more varied opportunities to develop her subjectivity. She can now make investments in her future, and actively seek out new employment so as to better herself and her situation.

Lihong’s case underlines the fact that marriage and family in Matsu today differ significantly from the past. That is to say, in contemporary Matsu, women’s self-awareness has come to the fore, and the continuation of a marriage and family depends on whether husband and wife are willing to negotiate and create a common vision for the family. In fact, this is true not only of marriages. In the Chapter 8, we will see that Matsu as a whole—from villages to islands—faces a similar challenge: how to find a common sense of the future in the midst of these multitudinous new selves.

When martial law was lifted in 1992, Matsu entered a new era brimming with freedom, openness, and hope. A civilian county government and county council were elected in 1994, and in that same year the first airport for civilians, albeit a small one, was completed, allowing people to visit Matsu freely. In 1997, a new ferry, “Tai-Ma lun” (Taiwan-Matsu ferry), replacing the old military personnel transport ships, began to sail between Matsu and Taiwan. The Taiwan government also initiated a route, called “three small links” (xiao santong), connecting Taiwan to Fuzhou, China via Matsu in 2001.¹ With the widespread availability of the internet since 2000, Matsu became open to the entire world.

However, these forward-looking prospects did not obviate the many challenges Matsu still faced. The fishing economy was in the doldrums and many people had emigrated from the islands. Having lost its strategic significance in cross-Strait relations, Matsu was no longer as important to the state as it had once been. In 1997, the Taiwan central government launched a program of troop reduction, severely threatening Matsu’s economy which was heavily reliant on military supply. The situation worsened after Taiwan and China finally reached an agreement on mutual communication and implemented the “three great links” (da santong) in 2008. As a result of that policy, flights, voyages, and postal services could bypass Matsu (and another demilitarized island, Jinmen), and flow directly between China and Taiwan. In short, at the very moment that it gained its freedom, Matsu lost its significant role in cross-Strait relations. A strong sense of instability and uncertainty pervaded the islanders’ minds.

In the face of these enormous changes, many Matsu people, in particular those who went to work in Taiwan or made their way there via the guaranteed admission program during the WZA era and later returned to take important government positions, began to offer their own visions of the future by proposing new blueprints for Matsu. Over the next three chapters, I explore the processes by which these new visions, or new social imaginaries, have struggled to take form up to the present day. Unlike the top-down analyses of Anderson (Reference Anderson1991 [1983]), Appadurai (Reference Appadurai1996), and Taylor (Reference Taylor2004), I will begin with the imagining subjects themselves in order to investigate how a social imaginary takes shape. As Chapters 5 and 6 describe, the dismantlement of the WZA and the advent of online technologies had already liberated individuals to a great extent. Once individual imaginations have been engaged and developed, the question a society faces is how a collective consensus can be reached. Thus, in order to understand this era, it is crucial to examine the individual imagination and the process by which it is potentially transformed into a larger social imaginary. This is important for understanding not only Matsu but contemporary society in general.

Chapters 8 to 10 look at the capabilities of specific individuals and the tribulations they faced during the WZA era, synthesizing their life experiences to show how their daring and risk-taking spirits were fomented, and how individual imaginations are formed. I then discuss the different mediating forms through which they transform their individual imaginations into social imaginaries. In other words, I take these mediating forms as “technologies of imagination,” exploring how they create new social relationships and cultural capacities. These forms could be material, such as community projects and the building of a temple, as will be discussed in this chapter, or conceptual, such as new pilgrimages and a proposed fantastical gaming industry on Matsu, as explored in Chapters 9 and 10. My analysis in these chapters draws on Foucault’s thoughts on “ethical subject” (Reference Foucault1985, Reference Foucault1998) and Moore’s writings on “ethical imagination” (Reference Moore2011); however, the imagining subjects I define are not just individuals, but also cohorts of different generations, genders, and social categories. Having undergone similar life experiences and hardships, they are more likely to share common imaginaries. In these chapters, I give special consideration to these cohorts and scrutinize the new ways they evolve to reach out to others.

Community Building Projects in Taiwan and Matsu

In many ways, Matsu is similar to Taiwan, in that it has been under authoritarian rule and is wedged uneasily between two big political forces (China and Taiwan for Matsu, and China and the USA in the case of Taiwan). Both faced many similar and pressing problems such as how to reintegrate and redefine themselves after the authoritarian regime had gone. On reflection, it is not surprising that the Taiwan government started a “Community Building Project” (shequ yingzao jihua) in 1994, attempting to create a new sense of community which was previously suppressed by the authoritarian government. The project was launched by the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA). The main project coordinator at the time was the vice-chairman of the CCA, a cultural anthropologist, Chen Chi-Nan. He observed that after Taiwan had freed itself from the rule of the Nationalist Party in 1987 and experienced economic growth, what was needed most was the rebuilding of communities (Reference Chen1996a: 109). He claimed that Taiwanese society had always embraced a strong sense of “familism” (Reference Chen1992: 7), “traditional localism,” and “feudal ethnic consciousness” (Reference Chen and bowuguan1996b: 26). Religion in Taiwan only functioned in the “private” and “mental” domains and was never directly involved in the public sphere (Reference Chen1990: 78). Therefore, it was necessary to build a new sense of community through community development projects. Only by doing so could Taiwan truly turn toward modernization and democratization (Chen Reference Chen and bowuguan1996b: 26; Chen and Chen Reference Chen and Chen1998: 31).

What actual steps needed to be taken to achieve this? Since the purpose was to create a new community consciousness, values, and identity, Chen suggested that culture was the most fitting starting point. By organizing various cultural activities and encouraging community members to participate, a sense of group identity could be fostered (Reference Chen1996a: 111). The activities promoted by the CCA were mostly related to art and culture, such as rebuilding the village landscape, organizing arts activities and architectural restoration, and researching local history and literature (Chen and Chen Reference Chen and Chen1998: 22).²

It is important to note that Chen Chi-Nan’s intriguing ideas and proposed project were not a rehabilitation of old values or culture, but rather a new national imaginary in the global terrain (Lu Reference Lu2002: 10) and a response to the global economy and the multiculturalism of Taiwan (Hsia Reference Hsia1999). They thus received strong support from the president at the time, Lee Teng-hui (Reference Lee1995), who was steeped in Taiwanese consciousness and incorporated Chen’s ideas into many of his speeches. These ideas were disseminated through different government institutions, and various subsidies and promotional activities quickly reached towns and villages everywhere in Taiwan. The surge of interest in community landscape building drew an avid response from professionals in architectural and civil planning fields (Hsia Reference Hsia1995, Reference Hsia1999). The idea of community development soon became closely linked to village preservation and had a huge impact on Taiwan.³

These ideas were brought from Taiwan to Matsu mainly by Cao Yixiong when he became a county councilor. Cao had not tested well enough to enter college after high school, so in the early 1970s he went to Taiwan at the age of eighteen to look for work. Drifting from a shoe factory to an electronics factory to a ceramics factory, he moved around quite a bit and was unable to settle into any vocation. He said that if given half a chance, he would just sit and read. It was a way for him to escape his feelings of discouragement and inferiority from not having gone to college. At that time, he encountered famous books of world literature rarely seen in Matsu, which were first translated and introduced to Taiwan under martial law by the Zhiwen Press’s “New Wave Series.”⁴ He was impressed by Hermann Hesse’s works: Beneath the Wheel (Unterm Rad), which severely criticizes education that focuses only on students’ academic performance, seemed particularly appropriate to his own situation. Reading Siddhartha and Der Steppenwolf also offered him a way out of his own struggles with his soul. As he put it, “These novels set my own imagination free…I felt that my life had meaning and a sense of dignity.” He also read a number of popular Western novels such as Gone with the Wind, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and The Thorn Birds. Remembering those years in Taiwan, he recalled, “That was my life: it was in the process of brewing.” He found great stimulation in these humanistic books, and the ideas he encountered penetrated deep into his consciousness.

In 1982, Cao Yixiong’s former classmate, Cao Eryuan, who worked for an agricultural improvement station, helped get him a job in the engineer corps of the Matsu Bureau of Public Works, and he returned to his hometown to work as a bulldozer operator at the agricultural improvement station. Later, Cao Eryuan joined the Matsu democracy movement, and Cao Yixiong also became active in politics, participating in the “823 Jinmen-Matsu March” and the “507 Anti-Martial Law” protest led by Liu Jiaguo (see Chapter 5), and was eventually elected a county councilor. When Liu Jiaguo then decided to leave politics and to throw his efforts into the media realm, it came as a major blow to Cao Yixiong, who began to ponder what his own path should be. At that time, the WZA had just been dismantled, and he had to consider how Matsu could position itself anew. He chanced upon a series of books titled Changzhu Taiwan (Taiwan for the Long Term) at a bookstore in Taipei, written by Hsia Chu-Joe and some civil planning scholars (Wu Reference Wu1995). Cao was deeply inspired by the ideas about the value of local traditions presented in the series, and subsequently invited Professor Hsia to Matsu to give talks on “Local Development and Community Building.” Hsia introduced the ideas of the civil planning scholars and those of Chen Chi-Nan to people in Matsu. Later Cao had the opportunity to visit Tsuma go yuku in Nagano, Japan, a place known for its successful preservation of historical streets and buildings. After the visit, he began to promote the community building project Changzhu Matsu (Matsu for the Long Term) in his hometown, Ox Horn.

This chapter uses examples of community projects carried out in Ox Horn to explore the question of whether religious practices are necessarily an obstacle to modern thoughts as claimed or implied by policy makers and intellectuals. In the Matsu Islands, we will see that earlier efforts at community building—which included literary and historical research, art and cultural events, and activities connected to village preservation—yielded little success in terms of creating a sense of community identity and consciousness. It was not until the community building activists became aware of the importance of religion and began to negotiate with villagers and to participate in building the temple that a sense of community began to emerge. In this case, religion and in particular the process of its materialization through temple building serve as a basis for the formation of a new community. They also function as important mediums for absorbing modern concepts of cultural preservation, environmental aesthetics, and imagining tourism development.

Village of Nostalgia

As I stated in the introduction, Ox Horn had once been the biggest fishing village on the island of Nangan. Because of the decline of the fishing economy, the population was greatly diminished during the military period. From 1970 to 1990, the population decreased from 1,300 to 750. Abandoned and dilapidated buildings were everywhere. With village preservation as its core objective, “Changzhu Matsu” began by reorganizing and restoring the eastern Fujian-style stone houses in Ox Horn. Responding to the county councilor’s appeal, a group of Matsu educated elites participated in the project; they came not only from Ox Horn, but included teachers, cultural workers, and artists from different villages, and even many young architects who were doing their military service in Matsu. The group held a variety of cultural and artistic events, and invited renowned music, art, and dance groups to perform. In 1999, a “Civil Planning Workshop” (chengxiang gongzuofang) supported by the government was set up in Ox Horn to design a number of village preservation plans. The figure below shows the prospective appearance of Ox Horn, according to the plans of these community development activists (Fig. 8.1).

Fig. 8.1

The spatial design of Ox Horn community development

(Source: Report on the Community Development of Ox Horn, Lianjiang County. Map based on Wang Huadi)

The figure demonstrates the initial concepts of the community development activists. They invented new names for places to convey a strong nostalgic flavor or to make reference to local history, such as the Fishing Hut Café, Ox Horn Teahouse, and Local Classroom. Although the actual implementation process did not always follow the original plan set out in this figure, it did not stray too far from it. After the successful execution of the project, Ox Horn attracted much attention in the media, thanks in part to its county councilor’s networking ability. The results of the development project also garnered numerous national awards.

Nevertheless, the media reports and national awards were recognitions gained outside the village. For the development of a community, it is essential that community activities elicit the participation and interest of local residents. And the fact was that local villagers, especially the elderly residents (who were still highly influential in village affairs), played a very passive role in most of the activities.⁵ Perhaps it was their fishermen background that made them feel awkward about being involved in these elite-led cultural projects; in any case, they were uninterested in taking part. In fact, they frankly told me that restoring the old houses was simply “doing dead things” (F. tso silai), something that was for them utterly pointless and meaningless. Therefore, the old houses were still demolished one after another and rebuilt in cement. The vast horizon of Ox Horn became gradually blocked by tall, modern buildings.

The community development leaders, however, still moved ahead. Under the influence of new community concepts such as “sustainable management” and “cultural industrialization,” they raised funds to open businesses in these restored historical buildings. It may come as no surprise that these stores ended up vying fiercely with one another for business owing to stiff market competition (see also Y. Huang Reference Huang, Huang and Chen2006a). The community development implementation process created new groups working in parallel to the village’s administrative system, as also happened in other places in Taiwan (Chuang Reference Chuang2005), resulting in friction and conflicts. In the end, many activists withdrew from the project and some formed other associations.

At about the same time that this community development was being carried out, a temple committee was formed by the local people on their own initiative, with the goal of building a temple in Ox Horn. The role of religion in Matsu therefore deserves consideration.

Religion in Matsu

The deities in Matsu have strong eastern Fujian characteristics that are distinct from the southern Fujian belief system in Taiwan (H. Wang Reference Wang2000). Ox Horn presents a useful example of this difference. The deities of Ox Horn worship can be divided into four main categories. The first consists of deities of a higher status who were brought over from mainland China, such as Wuling Gong or Wuxian Gong, whose origins can be traced to the Five Emperors from Fuzhou (Szonyi Reference Szonyi1997: 114). Second are the deities who possess special powers, such as the Lady of Linshui (Linshui Furen or Chen Jinggu) who is venerated for her powers relating to childbirth (Baptandier Reference Baptandier2008). In Ox Horn, villagers set up a shrine for her after some local women experienced difficult labor. The third category comprises gods who came to be deified because their corpses or statues floated to the shores of the village and over time the villagers associated certain miraculous events with them. After having found the bodies or statues, the villagers buried them or built simple huts to shelter them from the rain, and as some wishes were answered, particularly for big harvests of fish, they started to be revered and worshipped. General Chen (Chen Jiangjun) and Madam Chen (Chen Furen) are two such examples. The last category is that of the territorial deities who ensure the wellbeing of the place, such as the Lord of the White Horse (Baima Zunwang) and the Earth God.

As mentioned, many of these deities mentioned above have strong eastern Fujian origins, such as Wuling Gong, the Lady of Linshui, and the Lord of the White Horse, but religion in Ox Horn is also inseparable from a particular physical characteristic of the islands: the sea, which continually brings things to their shores. The religion of Ox Horn, or of the Matsu Islands in general, is therefore a unique combination of eastern Fujian culture and elements of the oceanfront geography inherent to Matsu.

The deities are indispensable to the villagers’ lives, as they journey through life’s stages, experiencing birth, old age, illness and death. The Lady of Linshui is a goddess in charge of pregnancy and taking care of children. Before weddings, an elaborate day-long rite (F. tso tshuh’ iu) is carried out to show gratitude to her. When villagers encounter illness or misfortune, they seek help from Wuling Gong, Wuxian Gong, or General Chen. They are also the deities who protect fishermen at sea. The Lord of the White Horse, as a territorial deity, is in charge of death: when anyone dies, his or her family has to “report the death” (F. po uong) to him.

The Ox Horn villagers initially did not build a temple for their deities, but only set up incense burners for them and kept the burners at villagers’ houses, either because of their poverty or because they saw the Matsu Islands as just a temporary home. Nevertheless, if the house in which a deity’s incense burner was kept became dilapidated, the villagers would raise funds to renovate or rebuild it. Sometimes, if a family built a bigger house, the incense burner would be moved there so that the deity could have a better dwelling place. If a deity had exerted special powers to help a family, such as curing their son of a serious illness, the family would set up an incense burner in their house dedicated to the deity to invite the god to stay with them permanently. Becoming “the adopted son of a deity” (F. ngie kiang) is a very common custom in the Matsu Islands. Thus, villagers’ lives are intimately connected with their deities.

The relationship between the villagers and their deities was not limited to the domestic domain, however. Since Matsu residents came over in waves from mainland China, their homeland kinship ties influenced their choices of residential location. The first arrivals congregated in areas populated by families from the same region in China. Over time, each area was then further subdivided according to the particular deities worshipped by its families; the settlement gradually became fragmented into several distinct neighborhoods.

Bordered by a bridge, Ox Horn is divided into “Ox Horn Bay” towards the north and the “Line of Six Houses” towards the southwest of the village (Fig. 8.2). Ox Horn Bay is mainly populated by families with the surname Cao, though families with other surnames are also interspersed throughout this region. In the past, the majority of the population made their living by fishing or running small businesses. The Line of Six Houses, on the other hand, was inhabited by a mixture of different surnames who moved into the neighborhood from various places in China. As revealed by the name of the neighborhood, the earliest settlers lived in a row of six houses and had the surnames of Li, You, Cao, and Zheng—thus, it was a rather heterogeneous composition. Surrounding the Line of Six Houses is a large stretch of farmland. The early residents made their living by farming and fishing.

Fig. 8.2

The neighborhoods in Ox Horn

The residents of Ox Horn Bay and Line of Six Houses further differentiated themselves by venerating different deities. The former worshiped Wuling Gong, who was brought from China by a Cao family, General Chen, the Lady of Linshui, and the local deities the Lord of the White Horse and the Earth God. As I described earlier, most of these deities originally resided in the residents’ houses but were then moved to a temple in Ox Horn Bay after it was built in the 1970s. The latter, the Line of Six Houses, also have their own deities, such as Wuxian Gong, brought by a Yu family, and Gaowu Ye (a minor deity). Although the inhabitants of the Line of Six Houses also worship Wuling Gong and the Lord of the White Horse, these deities had their own incense burners and statues and did not mix with their counterparts in Ox Horn Bay. Every year during the Lantern Festival (F. pe mang), the two neighborhoods held their own nighttime rituals, but on different dates. Each neighborhood had its own percussion band, and if the bands crossed paths, they usually ended up in heated competition with each other.

Looking more closely, Ox Horn Bay is further divided into different territorial units: for example, the Ox Horn Slope along the mountains, Southerners’ Place (populated by residents from southern Fujian), Big Bay (which includes the old market street), and Western Hill. Each unit has its own deities and festivals. Every year during the period between Chinese New Year and the Lantern Festival, the whole village has to celebrate the same festival as many as eleven times! This high frequency of nighttime rituals became increasingly difficult for most people in Ox Horn, especially as many Matsu people had shifted from being dependent on a fishing economy that dictated the pace of life according to the tides and the fish, to having a lifestyle determined by the new county government that was set up after the military government was abolished in 1992. The new nine-to-five work routine created a need to integrate the various rituals. The construction of a new temple presented a possible solution to this problem.

Giving Way to Religion

Aided by the county government, the Ox Horn Community Development Association (shequ fazhan xiehui) was established in 2001, and a second phase of community development started. Since most of the non-local members of the first phase had left the group, the association was largely composed of village inhabitants. They elected Yang Suisheng as the chair; the county councilor, Cao Yixiong, was also invited to join the association.

Yang is a typical Matsu educated elite who was sent to Taiwan by the government guaranteed admission program to study medicine thanks to his outstanding scores in high school, and who then came home to serve his community in 1981. As a doctor, he received modern medical training and was inculcated with a love of scientific ideas and values; he was the first person in Ox Horn to build a Western-style house, which he designed himself. At the same time, his attachment to his hometown is also strongly emotional. Motivated by the idea of preserving and reforming his hometown, he decided to lead the association. Most of the members in the association were similar to him: most were middle-aged and had gone to Taiwan or Europe to attend university and returned home to work, but there were also some members who were of the older generation.

Given the intellectual background of its members, the association began, unsurprisingly, by holding art and cultural events resembling those in the first phase. But Yang also designed many other activities for older people. For example, he invited migrant elders back home to tell stories of the past, and, understanding that they were mostly fishermen, he executed an environmentally conscious project to prevent sea waste from flowing into the bay.  Although a greater variety of events were organized than in the past, the association soon faced the same problems that had plagued community development activists of the previous phase: their plan did not capture the interest of locals, and participation was low.

Though frustrated, Yang noticed that older members (along with other villagers in general) showed a strong enthusiasm for temple building. Whenever the subject was brought up, they discussed the issue fervently. He gradually realized that the association’s ideas of community could be accepted and implemented effectively only if they changed their view of religion as mere superstition, participated in temple building, and engaged with the residents about their conceptions of Ox Horn. He thus reinterpreted local religion as “folklore” (minsu) without much religious implication, a view that was embraced by the intellectual activists on the committee, who began to actively engage with building the temple. After that, the Community Development Association worked closely with the temple committee and often held joint meetings. In order to formalize their coming together, a member of the association proposed integrating the temple committee into the association. Although this proposal did not receive support from the older population, it helped the middle-aged members to realize that they had to change their ways of thinking in order to succeed in implementing their ideas of community development. Yang said:

This statement shows that the community activists came to understand, after reflection, the importance of religion in local society and were willing to change themselves, and even to “merge the association with the temple committee.” A shared imaginary of the village was finally taking shape.

Materializing Community through Temple Building

Aside from the religious reasons and the need to adapt to modern life rhythms, the enthusiasm for building a temple also stems from the highly competitive electoral politics in Matsu after its democratization. Elections depend on votes, and thus on the support of local communities. While other villages had successfully integrated different neighborhoods through joint construction of their temples, Ox Horn faced more thorny issues and remained fragmented, much as it was during the fishing period. Since Ox Horn had once been a major village, its residents were very anxious to build their own temple. It is for this reason that the villagers initially only elected proprietors of construction businesses as the directors of the temple committee. However, as Ox Horn is located between two mountains, with many houses built along the slopes, it was very difficult to find an ideal site for the new temple; even though discussions had been going on for almost a decade, the five previous directors had not been able to decide upon a suitable location. Faced with increasingly heated elections, and with the temple still unbuilt, the committee decided to organize a ritual to bring the whole community together. As I indicated above, different neighborhoods originally celebrated the most important ritual—the Lantern Festival—on different days. After negotiation, one day was chosen for all the households to get together on the same night. This unification was initially successful, and Ox Horn-born Cao Erzhong, who spearheaded the effort, was voted into the national legislature. Unfortunately, the success was largely superficial: he later lost his bid for re-election (as we know, one quick ritual may temporarily assuage an urgent predicament, but it cannot resolve the underlying issue), and only then did the plan for construction of a temple return to the fore. However, the process of temple construction was tortuous.

The Temple Location and Sanctuary

After failing to win re-election in 2001, Legislator Cao Erzhong decided to restart his political career by devoting himself to temple building. The first problem he encountered was finding an ideal location for the new temple, which was a challenging task because of the mountainous geography of Ox Horn. In the beginning, a suggestion was made to build the temple around Ox Horn Bay by filling up part of the sea with earth from the mountain, but the committee members held differing opinions on the matter and an agreement could not be reached. Later, someone suggested the old location of the County Hospital, but there were problems with the property rights and the idea had to be abandoned. Then the thought of using the site of a liquor warehouse was brought up, but the villagers were opposed to this location because it had been used earlier as an execution site and a military brothel by the army. The committee members looked everywhere for a suitable location, and after numerous thwarted efforts, the focus returned to Ox Horn Bay. After much discussion and re-examination of the location, the villagers managed to come to a final decision. This brought joy and excitement to the village, and Legislator Cao was widely recognized for his dedication to the matter. In the next election in 2004, he was able to garner 69.8 percent of the votes from Ox Horn, an increase from 61.5 percent in 2001. His opponent’s votes decreased to 26.9 percent from 38.5 percent. In Ox Horn alone, Legislator Cao won by nearly 300 votes over his opponent and was easily elected.

Besides politics, the new temple also effected a successful integration of the various deities from the two neighborhoods of Ox Horn: Ox Horn Bay and the Line of Six Houses. As described above, the two neighborhoods are peopled by residents of diverse surnames and deities, and the building of a new temple presented an opportunity for people from the two long-separated neighborhoods to sit down and discuss how to combine their respective deities and festivals. When they came to an agreement on the hierarchy of the deities and arranged them accordingly into the seven sanctuaries in the temple (Fig. 8.3), the people of these separate neighborhoods were also unified. As one important temple committee member put it: “Once the temple is built, it will unify not only the deities, but the people as well.” Since that time, the villagers have worshipped each other’s deities, and also combined the eleven separate times of worship into two.⁶ Other rituals, hitherto practiced separately by the people of Ox Horn Bay and the Line of Six Houses, have since been united.

Fig. 8.3

The seven sanctuaries in the Ox Horn temple

(Photo by Liu Meiyu)

The Architectural Form

The process of deciding on the architectural form of the temple demonstrates the politics of negotiation between elder villagers and middle-aged community activists. The older members of the temple building committee favored a palace-style temple of the kind recently completed in a neighboring village. They were impressed by its ornate and opulent appearance, displaying the substantial wealth of the village (left panel of Fig 8.4). The middle-aged community activists, however, preferred the common island-wide architecture style, called “fire-barrier gables” (fenghuo shanqiang) (right panel of Fig. 8.4).⁷ They believed it would better represent the eastern Fujian heritage of Matsu culture, and they made great efforts to convince the village elders of this idea.

Fig. 8.4

Temple in palace-style (left) and Eastern Fujian-style with “Fire-barrier Gable” (right)

(Photo by the author)

Perhaps the idea of valuing distinct local characteristics as advocated in the first phase of the community project had influenced the older committee members over time, since it did not take long for them to accept the suggestion. A draft of the new temple was quickly drawn up by the same architect who had participated in the first phase of community development. Using the structure of the old temple as a basis, he expanded and modified it, and also added new elements. This version was later made more attractive by painting it colorfully, and it was unveiled at the banquet of the Lantern Festival celebration (Fig. 8.5). The temple committee successfully raised almost NT$10 million on that single night!

Fig. 8.5

Coloring the draft of the temple

(Photo by Yang Suisheng)

The next debate was over the material for the temple walls. The members of the older generation leaned towards green stone, which is not only resilient to climatic changes, but also serves as a symbol of wealth and high social status. In the early days, when the people of Matsu acquired wealth through their businesses, they would go to China to buy high-quality green stone to build new houses, and for this reason village elders naturally preferred green stone for the walls of the temple. But the middle-aged activists had been nurtured by concepts of community building, which approaches architecture from environmental and aesthetic perspectives. They favored granite because its color complemented the traditional stone houses of Matsu and the surrounding greenery of the mountains. They thought the temple would look too subdued and dull if the walls were green. The two sides held strongly to their own opinions and consensus proved elusive for quite some time. In one of the rounds of negotiation, a middle-aged member used sharp rhetoric to express his stance, which seriously offended the elders and caused them to withdraw from the meeting. Although middle-aged members softened their attitude, efforts to establish communication between the two sides proved to be in vain. In the end the issue had to be resolved through an open but very tense vote by show of hands, in which granite won over green stone by a single vote.

Next in question was the color of the fire-barrier gable. This time it was the middle-aged activists themselves who held diverse opinions. Legislator Cao preferred red, which is traditionally seen as a festive and auspicious color, but a local artist who had studied in Spain proposed black. By doing so, he hoped to present a unique color aesthetic through the stark contrast between the red outer walls and the black gable. But painting the gable black was seen as too subversive and was not easily accepted by other members. In the end, the members suggested the idea of dropping divination blocks to ask the deity for guidance on the final decision. Knowing that he would not be able to win the older members over, the artist did not show up for the divination, and the proposal for red was accepted.

As for the interior of the temple, the middle-aged members had always thought the village lacked a large public space that could be used for gatherings by the entire village, so their design of the temple offered a substantial common area suitable for community activities and events. For instance, their plans included a courtyard for small-scale public events. This concept had not previously been applied to any temple in Matsu. The temple as a whole was designed as a two-story building in which the ground floor could be used to hold an important banquet for all the villagers after the Lantern Festival. Further, the middle-aged members of the temple board extended the staircase leading towards the entrance of the temple for future use when a stage will be constructed to present Fuzhou operas and other entertainment programs.

The Trails, the Little Bay, and the Old Temple

The trails next to the temple used to be part of the lives of the people in Ox Horn, but the area was closed off and became a “forbidden zone” during the military period. After the abolition of the military administration, the community development association applied for government funds to clean up and restore the trails. The new trails do not necessarily preserve the old look, but instead expand towards the coast, and are designed to connect with the new temple, as part of the greater aim of linking the important tourist sites in the village (Fig. 8.6).

Fig. 8.6

The old and new Ox Horn temples

(Photo by the author)

The little bay behind the temple holds a similar meaning for the villagers. Although filling it with earth would have created a larger area for the temple, the little bay is also a cherished and protected memory from the childhoods of most of the villagers who recount vividly how they played in the water or were chased by the coast guard soldiers. Therefore, rather than filling in the bay to create more land, the temple committee decided to preserve the villagers’ precious memories.

The most spectacular aspect of the temple area, however, is the manner in which the new and old temples exist side by side, aligned back to front. All the other villages demolished the old temples when building new ones. The construction team of Ox Horn temple initially also sought to do the same, and the elder villagers did not show any strong opposition to the idea. But the middle-aged activists, keen on preservation, were reluctant to do this, as they considered the old temple to be a part of their history. When the committee visited the root temple in China, they asked for the deities’ opinion by dropping divination blocks. The deities indicated that the old temple should not be demolished, as it was there that the Ox Horn deities had attained their power (dedao). As mentioned above, the new temple was designed according to the old temple’s form, with the addition of new elements. Now the new and old temples are juxtaposed: the old one is small but exquisite and the new one modern but culturally sensitive. They look similar in form but differ in detail, complementing each other and bringing out a unique aspect of Ox Horn.

Temple, Community, and the Matsu Islands

The description of the temple reveals how the temple building not only provides a space for the two distinct neighborhoods to develop a unified sense of community, but also a way for the local people to adapt to the pace, especially the nine-to-five workday routine, of modern society. It successfully merged the deities from different neighborhoods into one temple and reduced the frequency of rituals to help the people cope with the rhythm of work in modern society. Residents from different generations negotiated with each other throughout the construction process: the activists infused the new temple with their own ideas about architectural aesthetics, local characteristics, and concepts of organic living. Older members offered their knowledge of traditional beliefs, and local residents provided the necessary funding and labor. Together, they built the temple for both the past and the future.

This process has been enthusiastically recorded online. A person with the username “Intern” (Shixisheng) posted one picture each day on Matsu Online, throughout the two-year long period of construction. “Intern” finally made a GIF animation, dedicating it to:

Many new community activities were organized after the temple was completed. After its inauguration on January 1, 2008, the temple launched an unprecedented pilgrimage to China in July, in which more than 300 villagers participated (to be discussed in Chapter 9). When a disastrous fire destroyed the business area in Shanlong as I noted in Chapter 5, Ox Horn temple held a fire-repelling ritual for all inhabitants to ward off the fire spirit.

The momentum of the new Ox Horn was also demonstrated in the elections for county commissioner in 2009 and legislator of Matsu in 2004. The director and other leaders of the temple construction project obtained an unprecedented number of votes; two of them were duly elected to these two positions. Nowadays, the temple in Ox Horn plays an even more significant role in integrating traditional culture and modern society in Matsu. Since 2011, for example, the temple committee has cooperated with the Matsu Cultural Affairs Bureau to hold an annual coming-of-age activity. It combines the traditional Matsu ritual of xienai, in which teenagers turning sixteen offer thanks to the goddess Lady Linshui, with the values of a modern high school education.⁸ This ritual gives high school students in Matsu a chance to celebrate their coming of age while sustaining their traditional customs.

The close connection between temple leaders and elections, however, has cast a shadow of factionalism. Criticisms have appeared on Matsu Online, with claims like “the temple has turned into an election tool” (Shenhua Reference Shenhua2010). Others have said that the temple committee elections are “preliminary battles for legislator seats” and that “the village leader’s faction is being oppressed by the temple board.” Voices of dissatisfaction can also be heard in private settings. Indeed, the discord between the village leader and the community building committee that had developed in the previous phase of the community project persisted throughout the process of temple construction. It would obviously be a gross exaggeration to claim that the building of the new temple could resolve all of the longstanding disagreements about elections and disputes between political factions and disgruntled individuals. Nonetheless, we should not overlook the importance of the temple building in breaking many of the deadlocks that had formed during the community building project, nor should we underestimate the hard work contributed by the majority of the inhabitants. This ethnography, in a very important way, provides us with a lens through which to examine how a divided community can reach a consensus in contemporary Chinese society. Yang Suisheng, former chair of the community development association, later the head of the temple building committee, and subsequently elected Matsu county commissioner, gave a vivid description of this process:

Grassroots Democracy

It is worth examining the idea of “grassroots democracy” a bit more, particularly the process through which the middle-aged activists communicated and negotiated with their elders. As I mentioned earlier, during the negotiations the so-called “democratic” method of voting was often only used as a last resort, when a consensus could not be reached after substantial communication. Usually, the middle-aged members would talk to the older members in private, and if the two sides strongly insisted upon their own views, they would decide the matter through the use of divination blocks. What is worth noting is that this method does not always yield yes or no answers; the responses often fall into a grey area, necessitating further communication among the members.

The divination blocks consist of two crescent-shaped blocks with a flat side and a convex side. Dropping the two blocks can yield three different combinations: a positive answer (meaning the deity gives its consent: one block facing up, the other facing down, ＋－/－＋), a negative answer (meaning the deity disagrees: the flat side of both blocks facing downwards, －－) and an ambiguous answer (also called a “smile,” meaning the god smiles but refuses to answer: both blocks facing upwards, + +). In other words, by the laws of probability, there is a 25 percent chance that the deity will refuse to answer and will throw the question back to the worshippers. This allows them to modify their question before coming back to the deity for another answer, thus providing a chance for the various participants involved to renegotiate and reach a form of consensus. The worshippers can also set up certain rules depending on how significant the questions might be. If the issue is one of little controversy, then it needs only one positive answer from the god. If it is one of great importance or could lead to severe consequences, three (or more) positive answers in a row may be required to validate the result. By this method, the local people are given more opportunities to communicate. The whole process exemplifies another kind of democratic civility (Weller Reference Weller1999), in which final decisions on contentious or significant matters are reached not just through group discussion, but with the support of the deities.

Conclusion: Community, Mediation, Materialization

This chapter probes how old conflicted and fragmented social units in a settlement came to be integrated after the reign of the military ended and formed a new community. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, popular religion has been seen as an obstacle to the modernization of China, and thus suppressed by the state and discounted by intellectuals (Duara Reference Duara1991; Goossaert and Palmer Reference Goossaert and Palmer2011; Nedostup Reference Nedostup2009; C. K. Yang Reference Yang1961; M. Yang Reference Yang and Yang2008). This chapter shows that their counterparts in contemporary Taiwan, and even the educated people in Matsu, have similarly taken a dismissive view.

The role of religion was initially overlooked in cultural policymaking and in its local execution. The first phase of community building in Ox Horn focused on literary, historical, and cultural activities, like most community building efforts in Taiwan at the time. But such activities failed to elicit the participation of local villagers. It was not until the second phase of community building, when Yang Suisheng, the chair of the community development association, and the middle-aged activists understood the expectations of the local residents and the important role played by religion in their daily lives, that community building experienced a breakthrough. After their ideas changed, committee members began to participate actively in building the temple, which in their own words was an attempt to “build from the inside” (neizao) rather than “build from the outside” (waizao)—meaning to take part in the construction of a building that occupies a significant place in the heart of the villagers, instead of organizing activities that are only valued by the middle-aged generation. On one hand, they incorporated local religion into their ideas of historical preservation, environmental aesthetics, and tourism development. On the other hand, their concepts of community were translated into ideas with religious significance and subsequently became widely accepted by the Matsu people.

This chapter demonstrates how religion and, in particular, its process of materialization through temple building, could provide an important medium for creating a new community. Taking inspiration from important works in material culture (Miller Reference Miller1987, Reference Miller2005), we have seen how cultural concepts (of community) and social relations (of Ox Horn) have been reconstructed by the residents and by their deep engagement with the temple. The process of temple building, and how it materialized the negotiation of conflicting ideas, provides us an excellent example of contemporary community formation.

In fact, not only the temple, but also myths of deities and the practice of dropping divination blocks can create a civil space of negotiation and help to translate the ideals of community building into concepts that are accessible to the villagers. Different individuals or generations with varying values were able to find a way to resolve their disagreements, and the two neighborhoods that had long excluded each other were able to integrate into a unified community. The temple building process demonstrates how religion and religious artifacts can serve as the basis for the emergence of a new community and as a means of absorbing modern ideas. Without them, new and external concepts often only have a short-term influence and very rarely can take root in a local society.

I am not arguing, however, that the case of Ox Horn’s temple construction is merely a revitalization of traditional culture or values. Instead, I aim to show how religion, community, and space in the contemporary Matsu Islands have more complicated articulations than in the past. Religion, by subsuming diverse elements, has become more collage- or montage-like in contemporary society. It has transcended its previous form and challenges us to reconsider what it is today.

After the inauguration of the new temple on New Year’s Day of 2008, Ox Horn organized a five-day pilgrimage to China, from July 5–9. Because the completion of the new temple had realized a long-awaited dream of many Ox Horn villagers, this pilgrimage won strong support from local residents and village emigrants living in Taiwan. Including pilgrims from other islands, more than 300 people took part. In the procession, one could see the temple committee members holding statues of Wuling Gong and the Lady of Linshui, young people carrying sedan chairs and puppets, women playing drums and gongs, and pilgrims following behind.

That this pilgrimage was aimed at more than religious renewal is evident in its name: “Matsu-Ningde First Sail: Changle Pilgrimage.” That is, they did not directly head for their ancestral temple in Changle, but instead undertook an elaborately planned journey across the Taiwan Strait, starting from Taiwan and arriving in northeast Fujian Province (Map 1). The five-day itinerary was as follows:

• 5 July—Keelung, Taiwan → Matsu → Ningde, China

• 6 July—Ningde → Pingnan (Baishuiyang Scenic Spot)

• 7 July—Pingnan → Gutian (Linshui Temple) → Fuzhou

• 8 July—Fuzhou → Changle (Longshan Temple) → Fuzhou

• 9 July—Fuzhou → Mawei → Matsu

The organizers rented the Hofu Ferry and departed from Keelung Port in Taiwan, where they invited officials from the Ministry of Transportation and the mayor of Keelung to a press conference. After stopping in Matsu to pick up local residents, the ferry proceeded northwest into Sandu’ao Port and reached Ningde City in Fujian, China, where the city government welcomed the pilgrims in celebratory style. The next day, the pilgrims boarded a bus and headed northwest to the Baishuiyang Scenic Spot, before traveling south to the Linshui Temple in Gutian County, the root temple of the Lady of Linshui. They then continued further southward to Fuzhou, where they finally arrived at the ancestral Wuling Temple in Changle.

We may wonder why a pilgrimage held by people from Matsu would choose Keelung as its starting point? Why was Ningde, a city not well known in Taiwan, chosen as the point of entry into China? Why did a pilgrimage to the ancestral temple have to take a detour towards the northeast and arrive at Changle only after visiting the Linshui Temple in Gutian?

This chapter begins with this pilgrimage and moves on to discuss the successive, newly invented religious practices initiated by the islanders in the first decade of the twenty-first century, including Matsu-China “direct-sail” pilgrimages, the myth that “Goddess Mazu was buried in the Matsu Islands,” ascension rituals for the goddess, and the construction of her tomb and a giant statue. The “Goddess Unbound” (Weller Reference Weller2019), material practices, and invented rituals will also be discussed. I will first explicate how these inventions were responses to the drastic changes in Taiwan and China during the period 2000–10 when, in particular, a series of “direct links” were promulgated to connect Taiwan and China. These transformations seriously challenged the status of the Matsu Islands, and left islanders with a great sense of confusion and uncertainty about their future. The Matsu people thus devised various rituals, myths, and material practices to break through the cross-strait political impasses. Second, I will show that these innovative religious practices are not only responses to the changing cross-strait political and economic situations, but also the processes of the islanders’ subjectivity and subjectification. It is through these mechanisms that they attempt to recentralize themselves, create new social relations, and imagine novel possibilities for the islands.

Imagining the “Cross-Strait Economic Zone” in the Neoliberal Era

After the Warzone Administration was disbanded in 1992, the progressive retreat of the army had severe effects on the local economy. When the “three great links” across the Taiwan Strait, by which flights, sea voyages, and the post could bypass Matsu and move directly between China and Taiwan, were mooted early in the twenty-first century and finally implemented in 2008, the islanders experienced a strong sense of doubt about their future and even felt abandoned by the Taiwan government. These worries were revealed in the Matsu people’s own accounts: they used to consider themselves “the Fortress of the Taiwan Strait” (taihai baolei) and “a springboard for anticommunism” (fangong tiaoban). Nowadays, in sharp contrast, terms like “orphans” (gu’er) or “second-rate citizens” (erdeng gongmin) frequently appear in Matsu Online, expressing people’s disaffection owing to what they see as neglect by the Taiwan government.

With this in mind, we can better understand why the Matsu-initiated pilgrimage to China was designed to start in Taiwan and pass through Matsu before reaching China: it is an expression of hope that Matsu can become a mediator between Taiwan and China. Looking again at Map 9.1, we can see that the pilgrimage route’s clear message is that Matsu is no longer an insignificant archipelago between Taiwan and China, but rather a “central point” connecting them. In other words, Matsu’s people imagine the pilgrimage as transforming their marginal position and bringing them back as the focus of cross-strait relations.

Map 9.1

The route of the Ox Horn pilgrimage

It was the then head of the County Tourism Bureau and secretary of the temple committee, Cao Eryuan, who offered up this vision. Cao studied agriculture at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan through the guaranteed admission program. Not long after arriving in Taichung, he appealed to other schoolmates from Matsu to follow him there to study, establishing the Taichung Matsu Association and inviting Matsu students from other nearby schools to participate. This was an early indication of Cao’s gregarious nature and his desire for collaboration, as well as his ability to make connections far and wide. He has spoken about how he absorbed democratic ideas while studying in Taiwan, and how he participated in opposition activities to fight for independence upon returning to Matsu (E. Cao Reference Cao and Liu1988). What had the deepest impact on him, however, was his experience working with military officials in an agricultural improvement station after returning home.

At that time, the station was still controlled by the military, and was in the midst of carrying out a “war against isolation and hardship” (fan gukun zuozhan jihua). This program was intended to improve Matsu’s agricultural production, as well as to encourage young people to engage in “pioneering work” and “collaborate [with the army] to build factories” (hezuo zaochang). Most of the funding for the project was provided by the army. The remainder came in the form of loans from the military to young people. In order not to lose money, however, the military officials demanded interest rates even higher than those charged by banks. When Cao Eryuan told the officials that young people would only be able to participate in the program when interest rates were lowered, the military’s response was to fret about potential financial losses. In a fiery argument, one officer even accused him of being a “turncoat.” Cao said:

Bring in more people, make more connections to Matsu: after his experience with the army, Cao became increasingly fixated on this idea, which was consistent with his natural inclination to bring people together. Like many people of his generation, he returned to Matsu to serve in government after studying in Taiwan. He began at the agricultural improvement station, moved on to the County Government, and gradually climbed his way up. When he eventually became the head of the Tourism Bureau, he had a chance to put his convictions into action. At the time, there were radical changes in the relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait; with the implementation of the “three great links,” Matsu’s marginalization came to a head. As Matsu was seeking a new position for itself, his goal developed into creating new links for the islands. In an interview in 2008, he proudly said:

In other words, the direct-sailing pilgrimage is an important medium, through which he hoped to be able to bring to fruition his long-term thoughts about how the islands could prosper in the period after military rule. More importantly, pilgrimage was also a means of connecting his own life experiences with the collective desire of recentralization, since the direct-sailing pilgrimage was seen as a way to draw out the hope and imagination that could reverse Matsu’s marginalization and restore it as a focal point between China and Taiwan.

From this perspective, we can understand why the pilgrimage started from Keelung in Taiwan, and also why a pre-trip, formal press conference was held, to which government officials were invited. But why was the relatively obscure city of Ningde chosen as the point of entry into northeast Fujian? Cao Eryuan explained this as a way to explore a new route in addition to the existing “three small links” between Jinmen-Xiamen and Matsu-Fuzhou. Moreover, he pointed out that Ningde could connect to north Fujian, further north to Zhejiang Province, and even to Shanghai after the 2009 opening of the Wen-Fu (Wenzhou-Fuzhou) high speed railway. Convinced that Ningde had the potential to become an economic relay point between Taiwan and Shanghai, they thought that such a route could make Keelung-Matsu-Ningde-Shanghai into a new path for economic development, as well as a unique cultural route combining tourism (to east and north Fujian) and religion (through the Lady of Linshui) (see also Keelung-Matsu-Ningde 2008).

This idea encapsulates the Matsu people’s imagination of the “Western Taiwan Strait Economic Zone” (haixia xi’an jingjiqu, hereafter “Cross-Strait Economic Zone”), a policy the Fujian government proposed at the beginning of this century. The Cross-Strait Economic Zone was first proposed in 2004 as both a political strategy and a regional economic development plan (Haixi: cong 2009). Its ambit stretches beyond the province itself, most importantly east to Taiwan, and its main goal is to increase development in Fujian, which, due to the longstanding tensions in cross-strait relations, had been neglected relative to the Yangtse and Pearl River deltas. This is to be accomplished by augmenting cross-strait exchanges, developing modern transportation and networks, and advancing manufacturing and tourism along the strait (Haixi tengfei 2009).

For example, one of its projects was the construction of the Wen-Fu Railroad, launched in 2005 and completed in 2009. This route reduced the travel time between Fuzhou and Shanghai from fourteen hours to a mere five, and Ningde is the first northbound stop from Fuzhou. In the past, the development of Ningde had been rather limited and relatively slow compared to other southern cities in Fujian owing to its proximity to Sandu’ao, an important military port. With its high-speed rail connection, the Matsu people now see Ningde as a place with high potential for development. Envisioning the future, Cao Eryuan said:

This statement shows that this pilgrimage was rooted in an important imaginary and hope for the future: in short, Cao longed for Matsu to join in the development of the Cross-Strait Economic Zone, and by making the islands a link between the mainland and Taiwan, Matsu would become a key pivot in the region.

From a wider perspective, the Cross-Strait Economic Zone is an example of neoliberal design “with Chinese characteristics” (Harvey Reference Harvey2005; Ong Reference Ong2006: 98–9). Since the 1980s, many such economic zones have appeared along China’s southeastern coast, and the Chinese government is in the process of constructing highways and high-speed railways to link these zones with interior cities. However, one consequence of this policy is that the cities in these zones are perpetually in ferocious competition, each scrambling to outdo its neighbors in business and cultural affairs. An important question for their ruling elites has become how to produce cities or regions with distinctive qualities and attractions (Harvey Reference Harvey1990: 295; Reference Harvey2005: 132).

It is from this neoliberal perspective that we can better comprehend the enthusiasm of the people in Ningde to make this pilgrimage a success—for them, connecting to Taiwan through Matsu was a major breakthrough. The Ningde government’s website trumpeted how the pilgrimage could accelerate development of tourism and religious culture in northern Fujian (Mou Reference Mou2008). The city’s top administrator came to the welcoming ceremony held in Ningde’s city hall on July 5 and declared,

Afterward, he talked about developing Ningde into an important city in the Cross-Strait Economic Zone:

Thus, this pilgrimage was significant for Ningde in many important ways: not only did it allow the city to transcend its previous status as a military port with little contact with the outside world, it also immediately gave it a higher profile and greater prominence in the Cross-Strait Economic Zone. By carrying off the pilgrimage successfully, Ningde recreated itself as a place with economic and cultural potential. Thus, the pilgrimage is without a doubt the result of a joint vision of a new politico-economic zone in the neoliberal age.

Virtual Recentralization through the Welcoming Ceremony

We can go one step further by exploring exactly how this pilgrimage brought about the imaginary recentralization of Matsu. To facilitate the arrival of the pilgrims, Ningde city officials were extraordinarily cooperative with regard to customs and transportation. The city government cleared the port to welcome the ferry, and in order to process the Matsu pilgrims quickly they erected a temporary customs office in a former cement factory next to the port. The pilgrims were treated with the utmost courtesy during the pilgrimage events over the following five days. For instance, the group was escorted everywhere by important officials, such as Ningde’s deputy mayor and the deputy chairman of the city’s People’s Congress, and police were stationed at every intersection along the route to assist with traffic control. The nine tour buses carrying the pilgrims seldom encountered a red light and roamed the streets with ease.

A carefully designed welcoming ceremony further reinforced the image of Matsu linking China and Taiwan across the Strait. Just after disembarking, the pilgrims were escorted to an auditorium where a long red carpet had been laid at the entrance to welcome them. On either side, arrays of people danced, played gongs and drums, and set off firecrackers in cordial welcome. Walking into the auditorium, they were confronted by a gigantic picture depicting a boat sailing westward toward the Lady of Linshui (Fig. 9.1). On either side hung a large golden medallion decorated with shining lights, with Taiwan, Matsu, and Ningde prominently marked, making explicit the significance of the direct pilgrimage in binding together the three places. The design and decorations of the event palpably conveyed the Matsu people’s role as intermediary, for it was they who had managed to connect Ningde and Taiwan for the first time.

Fig. 9.1

The auditorium for the welcoming ceremony in Ningde

(Photo by the author)

Apart from the pilgrims, the auditorium was full of officials from all levels, and media from the Ningde area and even Fuzhou. Leaders from both sides—the top administrator of Ningde and the county commissioner of Matsu—delivered long speeches brimming with visions of future political and economic interaction. They formalized their alliance by exchanging gifts, including votive tablets (bian’er) and local products (techan). In fact, such political alliances were stressed throughout the pilgrimage; wherever the pilgrims went, local government officials held banquets in their honor, and accounts and photographs of the numerous ceremonies during the trip were published in newspapers and on websites in Matsu, Taiwan, and China. The imaginations here differed from those expressed in traditional pilgrimages through religious symbols, legends of saints, or sacred topography (Turner Reference Turner1967; Reference Turner1968; Turner and Turner Reference Turner and Turner1978); here, what made possible Matsu’s imaginary of a mediatory role, or more specifically, its virtual recentralization, was the careful organization of rituals, the administrative and transportation privileges extended to the pilgrims, and the accounts of the journey rapidly disseminated by the media.

Extending Sociocultural Space

We may wonder why this political and economic project should have been realized by means of a religious activity such as a pilgrimage. Sangren (Reference Sangren2000: 100) has shown that the relationship between a branch temple and its ancestral temple is a special, cultural-spatial one. It operates by a mechanism that is not readily reducible to political orders, as has been further shown by Yang’s research (Reference Yang2004: 228) on the ritual space of the Goddess Mazu stretching across China and Taiwan. In this pilgrimage, we see that the cultural-spatial relation between Ox Horn and its homeland, Changle, was expanded to connect Taiwan and northern Fujian. It imaginatively articulated the Matsu residents’ changing political and economic circumstances (see Kapferer, Eriksen, and Telle Reference Kapferer, Eriksen and Telle2009: 3) and helped them to envision new prospects for their future.

To understand this contemporary pilgrimage, we must further examine the different types of Taiwanese pilgrimage from which the Matsu people have borrowed. The first, pilgrimages to ancestral temples, occur regularly and the entire community usually participates in them. Most famous of these is the annual pilgrimage organized by the Zhenlan Temple in Dajia (Chang Reference Chang2003; Sangren Reference Sangren1987). In a second type of pilgrimage, which scholars have studied less, owing to their irregularity, people or interest groups organize visits to popular temples that are combined with tourism. These are usually more impromptu and have no fixed route or destination.

The pilgrimage held by Ox Horn combined these two types. It had the first type’s community-based and root-searching quality—the destination was their homeland, Changle, and the more than 300 participants were mainly Ox Horn residents and their relatives in Taiwan. They included couples, parents, and children, and sometimes relatives from three generations. One family seized on the pilgrimage as a chance for a “reunion” (jiaju) of twenty-six of its members. Many older people went along to seek the well-being of their families; having experienced warfare and poverty, many of them led austere lives and consented to travel far from home only for this reason. Younger participants saw the pilgrimage as a chance to show filial piety to their elders. I also observed many emigrants bring their families back from Taiwan to meet their relatives in Matsu.

And yet the pilgrimage also had its improvisational and flexible aspects. For the Chinese, the boundary between pilgrimage and tourism is sometimes difficult to draw clearly (Oakes and Sutton Reference Oakes and Sutton2010). Many pilgrims, when asked why they participated, frequently answer: “We come for fun” (women lai wan), and in fact much of their time was spent visiting cities and scenic spots. For example, reaching Baishuiyang, a new tourist spot promoted by the Ningde government, involved traveling a long route that circled to the northeast of Fujian. Also, as the itinerary shows, three out of the five days were spent in the vicinity of Fuzhou, and once there the pilgrims immediately went their separate ways; those in politics and business did their share of networking, while those interested in buying houses went to see prospective properties. Still others went on shopping excursions, or for a massage. The actual worship at Changle Temple took up only one morning.

Given that the pilgrimage tried to juxtapose and satisfy so many disparate aims, it was inevitable that paradoxes and contradictions would arise. For instance, the organizers deliberately arranged to visit Gutian first, both to promote the Lady of Linshui in Matsu and to attract her followers in Taiwan to pass through Matsu when making pilgrimage to her root temple in Gutian. To do so, they opted not to journey directly to Changle, where the main deity of Ox Horn came from, but rather made the Lady of Linshui the focus of the pilgrimage. Although the Lady of Linshui is commonly worshipped in Matsu, she is considered a deity of lower status. In the new Ox Horn temple, she is ranked fifth among the eight deities. The route’s itinerary therefore implied an inversion of the deities’ hierarchy, and this sparked protests from elders who insisted the pilgrimage should first visit Changle, the ancestral temple, before proceeding to Linshui Temple or elsewhere. Although Cao Eryuan was able to persuade them that “what comes later is more important” (houzhe weida), this modern pilgrimage clearly gave greater prominence to political, economic, and entertainment aspects than to its traditional religious meanings.

This pilgrimage is only one of many new rituals which were designed to connect Matsu with China and Taiwan. Many other novel religious material practices—such as promoting the myth that “Goddess Mazu [was buried] in Matsu” and constructing the Goddess’s sacred sites—were invented to attract people to visit Matsu.

Sacred Constructions, Material Echoes

The name “Matsu” was originally taken from the “Mazu” temple. This temple is also called the Tianhou Temple, and it has always occupied a special place on the islands.¹ Indeed, all of the powerful figures of Matsu want to leave their marks on this temple. As I stated in Chapter 1, when the pirate Zhang Yizhou defeated Lin Yihe in 1942, he reconstructed Tianhou Temple and set up a stele to commemorate his victory. During the WZA period, the military took pains to manage and maintain the temple. The projects to rebuild the temple were all funded by the military: the cement reconstruction in 1963 and the renovations in 1983 were both completed by soldiers. Upon completion, the military commander came in person to host each inauguration.² The temple management had to follow his instructions, and the annual ceremony to celebrate Mazu’s birthday was arranged by him and hosted by the county commissioner. Military cadres of all ranks and officials from the central government in Taiwan also frequently visited and toured the temple.³

When the military rebuilt the Tianhou Temple using cement in 1963, the commander erected a stele:

The stele records that after Lin Moniang jumped into the sea to save her father and brother, her corpse floated to the edge of Mazu bay; her remains were buried where the Tianhou Temple is located now. From the inscription as a whole, one can be sure that the commander clearly understood that “the heart is at the root of everything” during cross-strait wartime, and “filial piety is the most important of all virtues.” He erected the stele to praise Goddess Mazu for trying to save her father’s and brother’s lives and sacrificing herself; the implication, of course, was that the army and residents were similarly attempting to protect Taiwan. Although there is no actual evidence to confirm that the corpse of Goddess Mazu floated to the Matsu Islands, emphasizing her sacrifice could provide a boost to the morale of soldiers and residents in the battlefield and a means of acclaiming their own sacrifices for the country.

Locals have varying opinions about whether the goddess’s corpse floated to Matsu. For example, the local gazetteer, The Annals of Lianjiang County (Lianjiang xianzhi), recorded this legend (Lianjiang xian Reference weiyuanhui1980: 63); however, another gazetteer, Records of the Matsu Islands (Matsu liedao zhi) (J. Lin Reference Lin1991: 236), questioned whether it was possible for the corpse of Lin Moniang to float all the way to the Matsu Islands, given that the distance between Putian and Matsu is over 100 nautical miles, which is approximately the distance between Matsu and Taiwan. I also asked many elderly Matsu residents their opinions about the myth. Most were unable to describe any details predating the arrival of the ROC army. They recount that Tianhou Temple was taken over by the navy command post which moved out after a fire. When I asked what the tomb was like at the time, a few elderly people who could vaguely remember said that it was “under an altar covered with a red tablecloth,” so they could not see it. In short, none of them was able to recall what the tomb was like during the military reign, or indeed whether there even was a tomb. Some said that the military had once tried to build a cement floor to make the ground more level but that the cement above the tomb cracked the very next day. There are also rumors that when the temple was being reconstructed in 2000, the earth auger used to drill the cement cracked when trying to drill the area around the tomb; as a result, the tomb was not moved. Whether these legends are true or not, they have successfully created an atmosphere of mystery surrounding the tomb. The stele and these tales have become an important basis for the temple to promote the myth of “Goddess Mazu in the Matsu Islands.”

From another perspective, the development of the floating corpse myth is congruent with the geographical and cultural context of the islands. In the past, it was common to find corpses floating to Matsu, owing to its island geography. According to Chinese custom, the remains had to be carried to land and buried; after some time, a little shrine or temple may have been erected because of spiritual apparitions. This kind of phenomenon was not uncommon in Matsu or other islands (H. Wang Reference Wang2000; Szonyi Reference Szonyi2008: 184). In fact, on the Matsu Islands, which encompass an area of less than 30 square kilometers, there are thirteen shrines or temples which can be traced to floating corpses (Lin and Chen Reference Lin and Chen2008: 110). Thus, the myth of Goddess Mazu’s corpse floating to Matsu and being buried there does not conflict with the geographical situation and cultural practice of the islands.

Tianhou Temple holds special significance for the Matsu people. It is located in the village of Matsu in Nangan, right on Matsu Bay and comprises several preexisting villages in the surrounding area, which were grouped together and established as an administrative village by the army. During the early war period, supply ships landed at Matsu Bay and transported people and goods back and forth between Matsu and Taiwan. People traveling to other islands, such as Beigan or Juguang, had to wait at Matsu Bay for the high tide before they could return to sea. Before the deepwater pier at Fu’ao was completed in 1984, Matsu Bay was the most important link between the archipelago and the outside world.

Tianhou Temple is located right in front of this very important bay. When residents left for or returned from Taiwan, the temple was right there to greet them. Gradually, the temple came to occupy a special place in the residents’ life experiences. In fact, I often hear people say, “It is the place where we wait for the boat. The seas can be dangerous, so everyone burns incense at the temple to ensure safety.” Today, in addition to their own village deities, many Nangan residents also go to the Tianhou Temple to worship Goddess Mazu during Chinese New Year. They say that their relatives living on other islands will even call to remind them to worship her. This collective experience of travel to Taiwan solidifies the importance of Tianhou Temple and Goddess Mazu in the hearts of most Matsu residents. This belief also served as the common basis for the later development of Goddess Mazu festivals.

Since 2000, a series of new religious and material practices surrounding the Goddess has appeared. When the Tianhou Temple was rebuilt in 2001, the temple committee added a burial vault in front of the sanctuary, emphasizing that it was the resting place of Goddess Mazu. As yin and yang must be separated, no temple in Taiwan would place a vault in front of a shrine, unless it is a ghost shrine (W. Lin Reference Lin2018). But the Tianhou Temple daringly did it anyway to appeal to the adherents of Goddess Mazu. Immediately afterwards, the “Mazu in Matsu” slogan was proposed in 2004 (C. Chen Reference Chen2011b), and then beginning in 2006, a “Mazu Ascension Ritual” was performed annually. In 2009, the temple built a giant statue of Goddess Mazu, modeled on a similar statue in Meizhou (Fig. 9.2). It reminds people that Meizhou is the birthplace of the Goddess, while Matsu is the place of her ascension, and encourages pilgrims to visit both places. It is through this “material echoing” that the residents of Matsu aspired towards a symbiosis with people across the strait so that both could prosper together.

Fig. 9.2

The giant statue of Goddess Mazu on a boat

(Photo by Yang Suisheng)

Exploratory Journeys of Increasing Scale

The Ox Horn pilgrimage can also be understood in the context of a series of pilgrimages that took place in the first decade of this century: that is, three other direct-sailing pilgrimages, and a pilgrimage-like exploration. Together, I show how the Matsu people deployed these rituals to confront the drastic changes in the cross-strait relationship during the period 2000–10.

Matsu people apply the term “direct-sailing” in a way that is slightly different from the general usage. “Direct-sailing” generally refers to traveling directly between two political entities that share no diplomatic relations, which usually requires going through a third country. However, Matsu residents apply the term to any significant travel by ship, even within the same country. Thus, a journey from Matsu to a city in Taiwan, both within the “Republic of China,” is still referred to as a “direct-sailing” trip. This local interpretation shows again how much they value their role in directly connecting different places.

The first direct-sailing pilgrimage was from Matsu to Meizhou, China, via Mawei port. On New Year’s Day 2001, the “three small links” were officially launched, allowing direct voyages from Jinmen to Xiamen, and from Matsu to Mawei.⁴ Owing to disagreements with the Chinese government, the small three links were only implemented unilaterally by Taiwan. Skirting sensitive political issues, the Matsu government organized this first pilgrimage in January to mark the beginning of the three small links. The pilgrims arrived in Mawei by boat and took a bus to Meizhou, the birthplace of Goddess Mazu. The political significance of this pilgrimage was that of breaking the ice of cross-strait tensions.

By 2007, Taiwan and China had already maintained different kinds of contacts for several years, and a substantial number of Taiwanese tourists had visited the mainland. That year, the second direct-sailing pilgrimage was launched to promote Matsu’s religious tourism. This trip, again from Matsu to Meizhou, and advertised as a journey from Goddess Mazu’s burial site to her birthplace, was intriguingly named the “Sacred Sea Route” (haishang shengdao), in emulation of the ancient Silk Road. It was hoped that it would become a model route that Taiwanese pilgrims take through Matsu and on to Meizhou (Matsu xiangqin 2007). The “Goddess Mazu in Matsu” idea and a series of religious practices drew the attention of people on both sides of the strait, particularly in the homophonous “Lianjiang county” in China. Since 2007, Matsu’s Tianhou Temple has been invited to participate in the “Mazu Cultural Tourism Festival of Lianjiang” and vice versa. This religious exchange has gone well beyond the previous interactions in scale.

The third journey, called “Direct-sailing to Taichung,” was organized in September 2008, with a ferry going directly to Taichung Harbor in Taiwan, and pilgrims then going on to visit the Mazu Temple in Dajia. The group continued north and visited areas where Matsu emigrants had settled and other places with temples connected to those in Matsu. The purpose of this pilgrimage was to foster exchanges between the temples in Matsu and those in Taiwan (Mazu jinshen 2008).

A more unusual kind of pilgrimage occurred in 2009, when the temple and the county government sponsored Li Xiaoshi, a retired lieutenant colonel from Matsu, to lead an expedition to climb Mount Everest. After retiring from the military, Li devoted his leisure time to mountain climbing and painting. Upset by the fact that most Taiwanese consider his homeland to be just an offshore military outpost, he decided to undertake the most difficult challenge he could think of: climbing the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, with the goal of generating publicity and so introducing Matsu to outsiders. He realized that to safely climb Everest, he needed the protection of divine power. Thus, he gradually formed the idea of carrying a statue of Goddess Mazu to Mount Everest.

As he was casting about for funds for his expedition, the county government heard about his plan. Seeing an opportunity to promote tourism in Matsu, the government decided to give Li NT$2,000,000 in sponsorship. Mazu Temple also contributed NT$300,000 and made a 16 cm high figurine of Goddess Mazu for him to carry to the peak (Fig. 9.3). Since Mount Everest in Chinese is called “Mountain of the Sacred Mother” (Shengmu feng), and because this female connotation easily allows for an association with Goddess Mazu (whose official title is “Heavenly Sacred Mother”), this journey bore all the markings of a pilgrimage. Indeed, the explorer was ceremonially sent off and heroically welcomed back with rituals, firecrackers, and drums.

Fig 9.3

Li Xiaoshi carrying a figurine of Goddess Mazu

(Photo by Chen Jianing)

On his way up the mountain, Li regularly sent pictures back to Matsu showing how he and Goddess Mazu were progressing towards the highest peak in the world (Fig. 9.4). The Tourism Bureau immediately forwarded these photos on to The Matsu Daily and posted them on their website as they received them. The photos were given labels such as “Goddess Mazu on the peak of Mt. Everest,” “Goddess Mazu also climbs to the summit of Mt. Everest” and “Carrying Mazu to the peak of Mt. Everest,” emphasizing the significance of Li’s epic adventure (C. Cao Reference Cao2009a; Reference Cao2009b). Thanks to Xiaoshi’s strenuous expedition, the two “sacred mothers” finally met. It was a moment that Matsu locals had been awaiting with bated breath; a moment when they imagined that they would at last be connected with the wider world! Li’s adventure was of great significance because he brought the hopes of Matsu to humanity at large. The residents of Matsu not only longed to be linked to Taiwan and the mainland, but also desired to be seen by the world. Goddess Mazu being carried up the mountain on the back of a Matsu local brought them one step closer to that goal.

Fig. 9.4

Goddess Mazu heading for the peak of Mount Everest

(Photo by Li Xiaoshi)

Recentralization Imagined

Distinctive features of these Matsu pilgrimages can be seen more clearly from the routes pictured in Map 9.2, which, though somewhat complicated, shows how the Matsu-organized pilgrimages differ from Taiwanese pilgrimages in general. First, their timing betrays a lack of the regularity that is typical of Taiwan pilgrimages: they were improvised spontaneously to meet various needs. Second, the Matsu pilgrimages were deliberately designed to fulfill different purposes—depending on the particular needs of the local society, they could be organized to promote political communication, increase tourism, or expand networks. Finally, Map 9.2 most prominently shows that these routes were designed to create new connections, either with China, Taiwan, or the world. They represent the islanders’ dreams of recentralization.

Map 9.2

Four direct-sailing pilgrimages and an exploratory journey to Mount Everest (not drawn to scale)

Note, too, that all of these pilgrimages occurred during a period when cross-strait relations were rapidly changing: tensions between Taiwan and China were improving, but a consensus had not yet been reached as to how their relations should develop. Those on Matsu, sensing the imminent danger of being forgotten in the new circumstances, were relentless in their attempts to attract the attention of both sides through pilgrimages. That is why these rituals appear to be contingent, instantaneous, and improvised, and inflected with fictive and novel tones (see Harvey Reference Harvey1990). To wit, they were performance-oriented, and intended to create more dramatic effects. Unlike traditional pilgrimages, they were eclectic in their combinations of different elements. Each was thus a peculiar religious reconfiguration in response to changing political and economic contexts. Together, they show the Matsu people’s strong desire to engage with, and even to break, the constraints that came with being caught between the shifting tides of cross-strait relations.

A Mere Illusion?

Observing how the Matsu Islanders continue to change pilgrimage routes so as to forge more connections, several questions might be posed: Have Matsu residents succeeded in creating these economic, political, and religious links? What concrete results have the pilgrimages brought about? How much trade has flowed between Keelung, Matsu, and Ningde, and how many tourists? These questions do not seem to be important ones for the pilgrims or the temple committees themsleves. The organizer of the Taiwan-Matsu-Ningde direct-sailing pilgrimage, Cao Eryuan, described their significance like this:

In other words, Matsu residents recreate pilgrimages to generate possibilities for future development. Contemporary Matsu pilgrimages are thus like blueprints for the future, or to use Miyazaki’s phrase, they are “methods of hope” (Reference Miyazaki2004). They point to a future world that the Matsu people aspire to participate in.

The success of the pilgrimage to Ningde aroused the interest of Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province, the northernmost city in the Cross-Strait Economic Zone. City officials proactively contacted the Ox Horn temple committee and invited the people of Matsu for a visit. After visiting the Zhejiang administration in 2008, the committee soon planned a second trip that went through Fuzhou, moved north to Wenzhou, and finally arrived at Ningbo (July 6–11, 2010). This journey was not called a pilgrimage, but instead was referred to as an “incense exchange” (huixiang) between temples. However, in contrast with the traditional exchanges between temples in Taiwan, the people from Matsu conveyed no deity statues or incense burners, nor did they play gongs or drums.⁵ The team’s leaders carried only incense flags and used them just to indicate directions their team should move in, much as tour guides do. Though the group visited a Buddhist sacred site, Mt. Putuo, it did not meet the heads of the temple there. Generally speaking, the religious significance of this exchange was peculiarly downplayed. Its main purpose was revealed by the group’s official title—the Pioneer Group to Zhejiang from Matsu, Taiwan—which was meant to emphasize that this group from Matsu was the largest entourage from Taiwan to have visited Zhejiang. The temple committee had the participants wear uniforms to show their unity, and indeed 450 people appearing in bright orange uniforms was a magnificent sight.

However, the connections that the Matsu people longed to forge through their pilgrimages and religious exchanges suffered setbacks during this 2010 trip, owing to changed external circumstances. The Wen-Fu High Speed Rail, commissioned in 2009, greatly shortened the journey between Wenzhou and Fuzhou, allowing people from Taiwan to fly directly to Fuzhou (following the official opening of the “three great links”) and conveniently proceed to Wenzhou. Officials from the latter city therefore no longer had a strong incentive to encourage visits through the sea route from Matsu. Without reaching any consensus with these officials regarding the trip’s itinerary, the Ox Horn temple committee decided to travel by railway and had only a short layover at Wenzhou. Though the original purpose of the trip had been to facilitate connections between Matsu and Wenzhou, the leaders of the two sides did not interact at all.

Equally telling was the way they were received in Ningbo City, the trip’s final destination, to which direct flights from Taiwan are now available. A local newspaper referred to them as a “tourist group” (Peng Reference Peng2011) and only travel agents were sent to accompany the people from Matsu as they toured Ningbo. The highest-ranking official they met was the relatively junior deputy director of market development, a department of the city’s Tourism Bureau. This was in stark contrast to what the Matsu people had experienced in Ningde two years before. On the Ningbo trip I frequently heard them reminiscing about the high-profile reception they had enjoyed in Ningde and wondering why they were not being escorted by police cars. One woman told me, “I miss the gongs, drums, firecrackers, and boisterous atmosphere (re’nao) of the Ningde trip.”

Indeed, the Zhejiang exchange could not compare on any level with the journey to Ningde—in neither Wenzhou nor Ningbo was it considered an important political, economic, or even religious event. Undoubtedly, the status of Matsu in the cross-strait relationship had quickly diminished due to macro politico-economic developments, including new direct flights and sea travel between China and Taiwan, China’s regional policies, and its greatly improved transportation infrastructure. In the midst of these fast-changing neoliberal dynamics, this trip nearly dashed the islanders’ dream of recentralizing Matsu between China and Taiwan by means of pilgrimages and religious exchanges.

It is undeniable that, lacking political, economic, or religious significance, the pilgrimage was little more than a sightseeing tour. For the temple committee, however, the trip still had importance: “We have already gone beyond Fujian, and moved northward to Zhejiang.” In other words, the imagination entailed in pilgrimages and religious exchanges continues to generate opportunities and hopes. On the way home, I heard discussions about their next destination: Tianjin in northern China.

Conclusion: Explorations of Potentialities

While on the 2008 pilgrimage to China, I was surprised to learn that, like me, the Matsu people were unfamiliar with Ningde. But I was reminded of something once said by a ninety-year-old Matsu immigrant living in Taiwan, who had once been a fisherman: “Before Chiang Kai-shek’s troops came over, people from Ningde or even further north would come by boat to Matsu to buy fish. At that time, Matsu people could travel anywhere. Matsu was a free place then!” The war separated the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and isolated the Matsu Islands. Today, the people of Matsu are trying to use religion to reestablish links between the two sides. The new temple in Ox Horn has created a new sense of identity for the residents, and the process of building a temple and traveling across the Taiwan Strait has strengthened relations on both sides. After the completion of their new temple, the Ox Horn residents took their deities on a pilgrimage to the ancestral temple in mainland China, witnessing and commemorating the bitter history of separation over the previous fifty years (see Jing Reference Jing1996).

However, there is more to the Matsu pilgrimages than cross-strait reunion or religious renewal. In earlier times, Matsu merely served as a temporary stopover for fishermen, and most of the cultural activities were performed on the mainland. Since pilgrimages and other important rituals were never a part of Matsu’s historical tradition, the islanders can be relatively spontaneous and improvisational in planning them now. In other words, although the Matsu pilgrimages may be inspired by those in Taiwan (M. Yang Reference Yang2004; Hatfield Reference Hatfield2010; Stewart and Strathern Reference Stewart and Strathern2009), they are in fact quite different.

In this chapter, I have shown that these novel religious practices are imaginative works designed to attract attention from both sides of the Strait. I collectively refer to these imaginative qualities as “virtual recentralization.” “Recentralization” connotes the Matsu islanders’ longing to regain their important Cold War status as the focal point between China and Taiwan, even though this longing is “virtual” rather than real, as cross-strait tensions continue to be mitigated. These practices won the support of most of the Matsu locals, because they generate hope, potential, and point to future possibilities at the turn of the twenty-first century, when the Matsu Islands faced a strong sense of uncertainly.

Following along these lines, I posit that each of these rituals, myths, and material practices was not only a response to, but also a specific reconfiguration of, the dizzying political and economic changes in the relationship between China and Taiwan during this period. This is why the forms of all these religious practices appear to be improvised, contingent, and suffused with elements of fiction and fantasy. They differ from traditional religion in important ways: they are oriented toward performance and novelty, rather than transmitting permanent and solid religious values. Each attempt seeks a new kind of connection between the two lands, one that is more eclectic in purpose and less sovereign.

As these newly invented religious practices are the imaginary reconstitutions of cross-strait realities, they are inevitably susceptible to oscillations in the macro China-Taiwan relationship, as a result of which recentralization is sometimes on the verge of vanishing. However, I consider that the significance of these new rituals, myths, and material practices rests not on whether they succeed, but on the subjectivity they convey when people are faced with predicaments; they mediate social relations, rescale regional interactions, and forge possible developments for the islands in the future.

As I followed the Matsu people’s pilgrimages to Ningde, Fujian (2007) and Ningbo, Zhejiang (2010), observing the ups and downs, and the build-up of expectations and the concomitant disappointments of Matsu’s relations with China, I was constantly thinking that another project that sought to transcend the persistent cross-Strait adversities was perhaps not far off. As I expected, a plan to turn Matsu into an “Asian Mediterranean” arrived in 2012, and it quickly exploded and convulsed the islands. In this final chapter, I discuss this most controversial project, which will guide us deep into the Matsu society of today.

On December 25, 2008, the “three great links“ between China and Taiwan were launched. These links allowed more frequent and direct travel between the two sides, but they also spelled the end of Matsu’s role as a waypoint. The old “three small links” between Matsu and Fuzhou, which the government had been promoting since 2000, saw a steep decline in usage. Traffic between Matsu and Fuzhou numbered some 90,000 people in 2009. By 2011, it had been reduced to less than 40,000 people; in October 2011, there was only one voyage each day (down from two), and the ferry was usually nearly empty.

On the other side of the Strait, travel from Matsu to Taiwan has been a perennial problem. Although Matsu has two airports, in Nangan and in Beigan, they offer limited facilities, and owing to the unpredictable island climate, there are frequent flight cancellations. For instance, in 2011, the rate of flight cancellations for the two airports reached 19.4 percent (P. Zhang Reference Zhang2012). Some months are much worse than the average, such as May 2007, when a total of 135 flights were cancelled (H. Yu Reference Yu2007). Indeed, anyone traveling to or from Matsu even today will likely experience the frustration of cancelled flights and closed airports. Matsu locals often use a bit of doggerel to express their helplessness. The tourism bureau’s motto inviting people to Matsu was reinterpreted by the local people as: “Come ‘check out’ Matsu—once you come, you’ll never check out!” They also made up a joke offer, “Come to Matsu and get three free days in Guam!” (Lai Matsu song guandao sanri you) which was a pun for “Come to Matsu and you’re not ‘guam’ to leave for three days!” Behind these jokes lies a reality of the difficulty of travel to and from Matsu, and a corresponding feeling of helplessness among the locals.

As for maritime transport, the Taiwan-Matsu Ferry (hereafter Taima Ferry), the main ship connecting Matsu to the outside world, frequently breaks down. Operating since 1997, the ferry is now over thirty years old.¹ Difficult sea conditions in the Taiwan Strait each winter often led to cancelled trips.² On February 20, 2010, an accident occurred during a voyage. The Taima Ferry had just had its annual maintenance check and was transporting passengers for the Chinese New Year. Near the end of the holiday period, the ship was passing through the Taiwan Strait when it unexpectedly lost power, leaving eighty-five passengers adrift at sea for four hours.³ A new ferry, “Taiwan-Matsu Star“ (Taima zhi xing) was built in 2015, only to become known as “the breakdown ship.” After entering the water, the ship broke down at least once a month (J. Liu Reference Liu2015), and in 2016 and 2017, the breakdown rate exceeded ten incidents per year. Although that has improved recently, travelers still find themselves on tenterhooks.

Transportation problems and the anxiety they cause appear constantly in Matsu Daily and in discussions on Matsu Online.⁴ This chapter analyzes how a Matsu county commissioner attempted to face these transportation difficulties and to forge a wider regional network by bringing in a gaming plan proposed by an American venture capitalist—“Asian Mediterranean, Casino Resort” (Matsu dizhonghai, boyi dujiacun). This plan for a casino was hotly debated in Matsu before finally being put to a referendum. Even more importantly, a group of youngsters, the “post-WZA generation,” mobilized and participated in this event and began to exert their influence in Matsu politics afterwards. In this final chapter, I examine three important generations—the older fishermen from the fishing period, the middle-aged generation under the WZA, and the youngsters born in the post-WZA era, and explore their strikingly different imaginaries of Matsu’s future.

A Different Vision

Elected county commissioner in 2009, Yang Suisheng was a major advocate for bringing the gaming industry to Matsu, though the idea had already been brewing for a long time. In 2000, Cao Yuanzhang, the leader of the democracy movement who was then a member of the Legislative Yuan (discussed in Chapter 5), proposed building a casino resort, but the commissioner at the time opposed the idea. On March 8, 2003, Matsu Report conducted a phone survey, showing that 62 percent of participants were against the idea, while only 26 percent supported it (Matsu minzhong 2003). Given the county commissioner’s opposition, the proposal failed, but the issue continued to be actively debated on Matsu Online. After Commissioner Yang took office, the situation began to change.

Yang Suisheng was the first Matsu local to be sent to medical school in Taiwan under the guaranteed admission program. He began to participate in politics soon after returning to Matsu. In Chapter 8, I discussed Yang’s role in building a temple in Ox Horn and followed his journey to the head of the county commission. Through it all, his leading concern was the problem of transportation. He personally oversaw the purchase of the Taima Ferry from Japan during his leadership of the Bureau of Public Works. When I asked him why he focused so much on transportation, he confided in me:

In fact, because of ship or airline cancellations due to weather, both Yang and his son missed their respective university commencements in Taiwan (S. Li Reference Li2014: 7, 21). These wartime and personal experiences convinced him that only by improving the transportation to Matsu could the future of the islands be changed. When he was voted in as county commissioner, he began to implement a series of projects.

One of the projects involved replacing the Taima Ferry. After many complaints by Matsu officials to the Taiwan central authorities about the pervasive problems with the ferry, the Executive Yuan in Taipei finally approved the “New Taiwan-Matsu Ferry Purchase/Construction Plan” in 2009. The newly elected Commissioner Yang felt that if the new ferry were to be modeled on the old one, it would not prove competitive in the future. So in 2009, he put forth a proposal to purchase a trimaran instead (Fig. 10.1).

Fig. 10.1

The old Taiwan-Matsu Ferry (left) vs. the fashionable new Trimaran (right)

(Photos by the author and Yang Suisheng)

Fig. 10.1 shows a high-speed craft built by the Australian company Austal. It could make a one-way trip between Taiwan and Matsu in a mere three or four hours (compared to ten hours or more before); its hull was also resistant to high waves, making the journey much more pleasant (Qiuyue Liu Reference Liu2010). The planned passage would take the ship from Taiwan’s Keelung Harbor to Matsu, and then to Mawei in Fuzhou, before going back to Matsu and finally returning to Keelung. The commissioner felt that this route would be like a “high-speed rail for the sea” (haishang gaotie) since not only would the speed of travel increase convenience for the people of Matsu, but it would also encourage the movement of people between the three locations. The greater number of travelers would provide a boost to the local service industry and businesses (Yong santi 2010). In his desire to purchase a trimaran, the new commissioner was clearly thinking not only about solving the transportation problem, but also was hoping to use new maritime transportation technology to develop Matsu more generally.

The only flaw in the plan was that building the trimaran would require an outlay of 2.8 billion New Taiwanese dollars, more than twice the anticipated cost of a new ferry. The commissioner began a tireless campaign to lobby the central government (Qiuyue Liu Reference Liu2010). However, given that most Taiwanese were unfamiliar with trimarans and the high cost necessary to buy one, President Ma Ying-jeou finally declared in July 2010 that “the new Taima Ferry question should proceed in accordance with the original plan,” thereby rejecting the proposal to buy a new technologically advanced high-speed craft. As the commissioner described these events to me in 2014, his face revealed no frustration or disappointment. He said mildly:

After that decision about the ferry, Commissioner Yang resolved to turn to outside capital.

Inspiration from a Poet

On January 12, 2009, the Legislative Yuan passed an amended Offshore Islands Development Act, with amendment 10–2 stating that the different islands could decide by legal referendum whether or not to allow gambling. In September 2009, the Pescadores Islands were the first to hold a referendum, and it was rejected. In Jinmen, a vote to allow the gaming industry was proposed in August 2009, but the proposal was withdrawn in October 2011.⁵ Thanks to Commissioner Yang’s persistence, on August 8, 2011, a gaming industry proposal was introduced in Matsu and produced a string of passionate debates and heated arguments. But how did the commissioner come up with the idea of bringing the gaming industry to Matsu in the first place?

Surprisingly, the idea originated with the celebrated Taiwanese poet Zheng Chouyu. After meeting the poet on three separate occasions, the commissioner decided to push the idea of bringing a casino to Matsu. The first meeting took place when the commissioner was involved in the development of Ox Horn (described in Chapter 8). At the time, he was the chair of the Ox Horn Community Development Association. He recounted:

The second occasion was at a banquet in Taipei, and this time Zheng Chouyu described in great detail the casinos on Native American reservations in Connecticut, which had proven to be very lucrative. The stories he told changed the commissioner’s image of gambling. He wrote about it on Matsu Online:

He also discussed the effects on Matsu of the recently developed religious tourism initiatives.

In 2009, the commissioner arranged to meet with Zheng Chouyu specifically to get him to expand on his ideas about the gaming industry.

He concluded:

From then on, the commissioner not only actively advocated for the gaming industry in Matsu, he also welcomed casino capitalists to the area and helped them hold informational meetings across the islands.

The Arrival of the Casino Capitalists

Over the past few years, there has been a surge of interest in the gaming industry, along with the construction of many casinos, especially in Asia. Quite a number of new luxurious, large-scale casinos have been built in Macao and Singapore, and they have attracted huge volumes of international tourists. In 2007, the total income from Macao casinos surpassed that of Las Vegas, making Macao the world’s most popular destination for gamblers (Liang and Lu Reference Liang and Zhaoxing2010). The gaming industry’s success there has not only improved Macao’s economy by leaps and bounds, but also made it an example for the rest of the world. Many experts conjecture that Taiwan may very likely follow in Singapore’s footsteps and become the next country in Asia to allow casinos.

When Matsu spread the word that it might develop its gaming tourism industry, the American Las Vegas Sands Corporation, Australia’s Crown Melbourne, Malaysia’s Resorts World Genting, Macao’s City of Dreams, and other international gambling enterprises all sent representatives to Matsu to inquire about the possibilities that might open up there. The most enthusiastic among them was Weidner United Development Corporation. The head of Weidner United, William Weidner, had begun as the general manager of the Sands Corporation in 1995. His team, selected from his days in Las Vegas, had taken part in the development and management of the Venetian Casino Resort and the Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas, as well as the Sands Casino, the Venetian, and the Four Seasons Hotel in Macao. He also participated in developing the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. In 2008, he left the Sands Corporation after a dispute with the founder Sheldon Adelson. He now runs Weidner Resort Development, Inc., and has a joint venture partnership with Discovery Land Company. He has also formed a collaborative entity called Global Gaming Asset Management with the global financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which seeks out casino resort development opportunities across the globe.⁶

As a global venture capitalist, William Weidner follows gaming trends in Asia closely. In 2008, when the Pescadores Islands were enmeshed in disputes over the issue, he was there to gauge the possibility of setting up a gaming industry. When the referendum failed in 2009, he moved on to Jinmen, even staying there from June to September 2011. But the then commissioner Li Woshi was not interested in bringing casinos to Jinmen. Weidner said:

Weidner made his first trip to Matsu on March 4, 2011, when he met with the head of the county legislature. Having been thwarted in Jinmen, he turned his attention to Matsu. In October 2011, his staff began to come to Matsu to meet with local officials, and in January 2012, Weidner registered the “Taiwan Weidner United Development Corporation, Ltd.” with the Taiwan Business Bureau and rented space in an office building in the Xinyi District in Taipei. That same month, he gave a brief report to the Lianjiang County Government and prepared to launch his campaign in Matsu.

Matsu in the Eyes of Global Venture Capitalists

With a public proposal to bring the gaming industry to Matsu, many people in Taiwan began to pay attention to where a casino might be built. Even the billionaire businessman Terry Gou (the chairman of Foxconn) had something to say about the matter:

Weidner was of a different opinion:

A reporter asked some follow-up questions about Terry Gou’s thoughts:

Weidner was clearly not thinking about Matsu in terms of Taiwanese consumers. China (or at least southeastern China) was his main objective. He had carefully analyzed how mainland China’s high speed rail system connected the major cities along the southeastern coast and had concluded that as far as land transportation from the west was concerned, Beijing, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, and other major cities were all linked by high-speed rail. In a single day, Chinese travelers could take advantage of the convenient transportation system to get to Fuzhou, the closest city to Matsu, and from there take a ship to the island. Once Matsu’s new airport was finished, tourists would also be able to fly there directly. Similarly, from the east, travelers from Taiwan could fly in from airports along the high-speed railway that connect all of the major cities from Taipei to Kaohsiung. Accordingly, he calculated that once the casino resort was operational, it could handle 12,000 visitors a day, or a total of around 4.5 million people a year, 70 to 80 percent of whom would come from mainland China. For a global venture capitalist, southeastern China was likely only a starting point: in the future, he would aim to bring in all of East and Southeast Asia (Weidner Reference Weidner2013: 89). Moreover, Weidner could take care of the finances and technologies without having to ask for government subsidies. He said confidently:

Weidner boldly declared that he could do what the government could not; water and electricity for him were just the starting point. What other incentives did he offer?

Encroaching Neoliberalism

What Weidner wanted to build was not a simple casino, but rather a large-scale, integrated resort like Singapore’s Sands or Sentosa resorts. Weidner said: “To me, Matsu is like a charming little village in southern Italy” (C. Cao Reference Cao2012a). Thus, he named his planned resort village “Asian Mediterranean,” choosing Mt. Da’ao in Beigan and Huangguan Island in Nangan as his development sites. Beigan would house the Matsu Asian Mediterranean Resort Village with gaming facilities, while Nangan would be home mainly to five-star hotels and individual rental villas.

In order to attract tourists to these resort areas, Weidner would have to make major improvements to the basic infrastructure of Matsu, and this was a major part of the appeal the plan had for locals. These plans later developed into his so-called “four big pledges” (si da baozheng). First, he promised to build a Code 4 airport in Matsu (Codes 1–4 are designations used to indicate the length of a runway).⁷ He planned to upgrade the airport in Nangan from a Code 2 to a world class Code 4 airport, complete with a high-tech instrument landing system. With that in place, Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 aircraft would be able to land, and the people of Matsu would no longer suffer from delays due to heavy fog and bad weather. It would also connect Matsu to cities across mainland China, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. In addition, Weidner also planned improvements to the wharfs on Matsu. In his envisioned future, it would only take forty minutes to get from Langqi Island in Fujian’s Mawei district to Matsu, with each ship bringing up to 300–400 people.

To have a Code 3 or Code 4 airport has been a long-standing desire for the Matsu people. The county government carried out its own surveys and concluded that the airport in Beigan did have the potential to become a better-equipped Code 3 airport. However, it would require the removal of Mt. Duanpo, Mt. Feng, Mt. Da’ao, and Shi Island, among other areas, in order to allow for the safe approach of aircraft. A preliminary investigation of ocean depth also showed that if the runway were to be extended to a Code 4 standard, it would involve immense financial outlays. Meeting the Code 3 requirements was comparatively inexpensive and was therefore more feasible (P. Chen Reference Chen2011). Even so, a Code 3 runway would require an investment of more than NT$8 billion.

Second, Weidner promised to build a cross-sea bridge connecting Nangan and Beigan. Since he planned to build the casino resort on Beigan and hotels and villas on Nangan, a convenient link between the two islands would be needed. This bridge was what Matsu locals had been longing for. It had been repeatedly discussed in Matsu Daily, but the nearly NT$4 billion price tag was prohibitive.

Third, Matsu locals had long been dissatisfied with the state of their educational system, with only one high school across all the islands. Weidner agreed to set up a university in Matsu to help train people in various aspects of the tourism industry.

Fourth was the issue of the public good. Weidner pledged 7 percent of revenues to the local government as a special gambling tax. He estimated that if the local government gave half of that amount back to the local people, in the first year each person on Matsu could receive NT$18,000, and that number would go up to NT$ 80,000 by the fifth year.

Weidner’s “four big pledges” were undoubtedly an aggressive form of neoliberal infiltration, encompassing island-wide infrastructure (airport, bridge construction), higher education (university), economy (hiring workers), and public goods (dividends paid to Matsu locals). Were they to be realized, Matsu would doubtless become a “special economic zone” and the gaming businessmen would soon supplant the governance of the state.

Fantasy of an “Asian Mediterranean”

Weidner’s “Asian Mediterranean” plan involved much more than the provision of basic livelihood or economic development for the people; it proposed a grand reformation of the landscape of Matsu, engendering a vision of a place utterly different from the Matsu of the military period. He widely advertised his plans on all kinds of media.

Cold War Island vs. Luxurious Seaside Resort

The lure of a modern C4 airport was even more enticing. Not only would it solve the ongoing issue of transportation for Matsu locals, it would also bring in waves of tourists who would completely alter the bleak condition on the islands (Fig. 10.2). The global venture capitalists’ “Asian Mediterranean Project” promised to transform Matsu from a peripheral warzone island into a charming vacation island like the exotic resorts in the Mediterranean Sea. Matsu would be another Dubai, a fantastic vision erected in the middle of the ocean.

Fig. 10.2

Targeted land for building a casino resort in Beigan

(Photo by Yang Suisheng)

Let us look more closely at the theme of “Asian Mediterranean.” The Matsu casino resort was quite different from the one designed for the Philippines, which we will discuss in the following section. Since the traditional dwellings in Matsu bear some resemblance to the style of villages in the Mediterranean, Weidner imitated the flavor of Italy—areas around the Mediterranean sea and in Southern Tuscany in particular—as well as villas in Monaco, to create a sense of the exotic for the resort (Fig. 10.3) (Hong Reference Hong2013).

Fig. 10.3

An exotic Asian Mediterranean planned by Weidner’s firm

(Photo by the author)

In the animated 3D images that Weidner designed, Matsu’s bitterly cold winter that keeps people huddled indoors is completely absent. It is replaced by constant sunshine, villas, wharfs, speedboats, and a sparkling blue sea. The Matsu archipelago is filled with the bustling tourist atmosphere of the islands in the Mediterranean. This imaginary of Matsu was endlessly circulated through publicity materials, in online venues, and across new media.

Reality or Dream?

We must ask, however, whether the image of Matsu propagated by these global venture capitalists was real or fake. Would it be possible to achieve in reality? For Matsu locals, it was impossible to judge. This new imaginary existed somewhere between truth and fiction. At the same time, Weidner packaged this imaginary with a series of neoliberal ideas: that is, his putative global, capitalist, non-local network (see Comaroff and Comaroff Reference Comaroff and Comaroff1999, Reference Comaroff and Comaroff2000, Reference Comaroff and Comaroff2002). The mixture of his ceremony-like presentations with these neoliberal ideas only served to make the entire concept of an “Asian Mediterranean” even more indistinct and mysterious.

As described above, the plan that Weidner put forward was built with an understanding of the Matsu Islands’ condition. When promoting his casinos, Weidner and his working team sought out contact with locals. They set up an office in Nangan and held large informational meetings on the two major islands. The members of his team also went out to each village to hold smaller local meetings. The day before the vote, they used the familiar Taiwanese tactic of “carpet campaigning,” fanning out across areas likely to vote against the measure to try to sway voters. Below is a description by Xu Ruoyun, one of Weidner’s team members, from July 6, 2012, the night before the vote:

However, in terms of “the reality on the ground,” it truly was a “borderless fantasy.” Weidner liked to display his wide network of contacts in well-laid-out advertisements and on official occasions. But these contacts were all from the outside world, and for Matsu locals, they were just a series of unknown faces. Weidner’s publicity materials were full of international partners who were “big entrepreneurs” with no ties at all to the area. These contacts frequently appeared only for ceremonial occasions such as big informational meetings or press conferences (Fang Reference Fang2012). No one knew who these men in fancy Western suits and women in perfume and heels were, nor what part they were supposed to play in Weidner’s plan.

Moreover, Weidner held press conferences to keep a steady stream of publicity going, announcing that he had brought in more investments from international banks for the casino resort. Each monetary figure mentioned was higher than the last. The media was giddy with excitement:

The proclaimed amounts of total investment kept on increasing, from NT$60 billion to NT$180 billion and all the way up to NT$900 billion, but for the Matsu people, there was no hard confirmation of these sums. For them, it was difficult to tell truth from fiction. Weidner also never directly addressed people’s suspicions; for example, at an informational meeting in the town hall in Nangan:

Instead of responding directly, Weidner just smiled and dangled the number of 60 billion before the audience.

In order to further demonstrate his economic power and ability to raise funds, Weidner took advantage of the opening ceremony for the Solaire Manila Resort—in which he was one of the investors—to invite twenty-two reporters from Taiwan to the Philippines (Song Reference Song2013). He held a press conference there so he could elucidate his plans for Matsu to them, emphasizing how he would apply his experiences in Malaysia to the planned casino resort in Matsu (Fig. 10.4). Solaire Manila Resort is set on one hundred hectares of land overlooking the Manila Bay Entertainment City. Plans for the Entertainment City included four casino resorts, among which Solaire was the first to open, with the other three still under construction. Weidner was collaborating with Solaire’s parent company, Bloomberry Resorts Corporation, and had provided around 10 percent of the total investment.

Fig. 10.4

Weidner in the Philippines introducing plans for a casino in Matsu

(Photo by Song Jiansheng)

In this series of actions, Weidner, acting as a global capitalist investor, used borderless capital as a kind of underpinning for his plans (see Miyazaki Reference Miyazaki2006: 151). Aided by the extravagant ceremony-like meetings, he gave the marginalized people hope, even if it was for a fantasy-filled and as-yet undecided future.

Casino or Home?

The issue of whether or not to develop the gaming industry as a key part of Matsu’s future was a pivotal one that affected everyone on the islands, and so it attracted wide attention. When an occasion arose to ask older fishermen about their attitudes towards opening a casino on Matsu, many expressed support for the idea. Aside from the “NT$80,000” payout to locals that would help support their retirement, they also felt that there was nothing wrong with gambling:

As Chapter 4 discussed, gambling was a part of the fishermen’s lifestyle. Now that the fishing economy has declined, and the military is gone, the fishermen’s attitude is “there’s nothing left, so why not gamble and see whether we can get something (F. huang lung tou mo lou, puh y tu luoh tu),” according to a popular saying. The idea that something had to be done proactively in order for there to be any hope is not that different from the old belief of fishermen that every opportunity must be seized as soon as it arises, and it fed the feeling that any change for the better necessarily comes with a certain degree of risk.

There was another group that supported the gaming proposition, namely, educated people who had moved from Matsu to Taiwan. They not only conducted a forum on gambling in Taiwan, but also returned home to actively argue for the casino. Chapter 3 discussed how the guaranteed admission program led to the emergence of a new social category of civil servants and teachers in Matsu. Having fulfilled their obligation to return home and serve Matsu, they were then confronted with the difficulty of transportation to Taiwan and limited prospects for promotion, and many decided to return to better conditions in Taiwan. Their economic situation in general is better than the manual workers who had migrated to work in factories in an earlier era; many were able to buy homes in the greater Taipei area which were comparatively expensive. They even set up their own Matsu “Teachers and Civil Servants Association” (wenjiao xiehui) in 1997.

It quickly becomes apparent when speaking to these emigrants that many of them grew up in the WZA era and remember that period as one of constant hardship. They view the decline of the fishing industry and the limited job opportunities as part of life in Matsu, and see it as the reason they had to leave and make their mark elsewhere (L. Zhang Reference Zhang2012). They felt that if Matsu did not grow its own industry, it would continue to be reliant upon the central Taiwanese government, and the future would be bleak (J. Lin Reference Li2012). Others believed that large financial consortiums would have enough capital to develop the region (S. Cao Reference Cao2012), thereby bringing hope to Matsu. Their memories of “hardship” and “being unable to stand on our own two feet,” along with their support for “development,” are primarily responses to their own histories as immigrants. These experiences are quite different from those of the younger generation who grew up in Matsu, and so their standpoints on the casino question also diverge.

One example from the middle of the age spectrum succinctly expresses the transition in the imaginaries of Matsu. Cao Xiangguan was born in 1970, and so was only forty-two years old during the push by the gaming industry. He is typical of many middle-aged locals in that he was sent to study in Taiwan as part of the guaranteed admissions program and came back to Matsu to serve in the government. He studied maritime engineering, which was badly needed in Matsu. When he returned home, the military government was just in the process of being dismantled; at the time, many of Matsu’s harbors were very crudely equipped. He immediately began to work on wharf construction and improvement, spending a decade in the industry. Over the course of engaging in these projects, however, he came to realize that there was no long-term plan or overarching vision for Matsu’s development, but instead only constant destruction: the thoughtless installation of docks, dykes, and anti-wave concrete blocks was destroying Matsu’s shoreline and coral reefs. Obviously, Weidner’s plans for a casino resort would involve a tremendous amount of land reclamation, at great cost to the natural environment and ecology of the area. When I talked to him in 2018, he used an image of a family to describe the support for the casino shown by the many educated Matsu people living in Taiwan:

This story of “family” not only serves as a metaphor for the relationship between emigrants, locals, and venture capitalists promoting gaming; it also relates to the imaginary of Matsu that many of the younger generation hold.

Debate over the gaming industry had been going on in Matsu Online forums for quite some time, but the clearly demarcated camps for and against had little effect on the average people in Matsu. Taiwan’s anti-gambling legalization association also came to Matsu and formed the frontlines of the battle early on, setting up a fan page on Facebook called “Long live Matsu, don’t turn our home into a casino.” But the page never caught on with Matsu locals, who saw it as outside interference. In contrast, the side favoring development was dominant under the influence of the Matsu government and the support of migrants. The opposition did not really get off the ground until a group of young anti-gambling activists joined in, and the numbers for and against the proposal began to fluctuate.

The Counterattack from the Post-martial-law Generation

Cao Yaping, the organizer of this group of youngsters, was at the time a 23-year-old student at a research institute for social development in Taiwan. Born in 1989, she was different from other members of the opposition in that she had grown up in post-WZA Matsu and had no real experience with military rule. Cao said that when she studied the negative repercussions of development, the cases were all about indigenous peoples and disadvantaged groups. She had never considered that these issues might apply to her homeland until one day she returned home and was shocked to hear her father, the owner of a shop selling local products, expressing delight at the prospect of a casino being built in Matsu. “People of my generation first understand the outside world, and only then do we come to understand Matsu,” she said. She went back to Taiwan and began to appeal to other Matsu youngsters by organizing an anti-gaming online community and setting up a Facebook page called “Matsu youth against gambling: We don’t want a casino future.”

This group slowly gathered steam and not a few young people expressed their feelings on the page. More importantly, the users took advantage of the different “share” functions, posting information from the anti-gambling page to other websites and thereby extending their reach. The most famous post was an essay titled: “A thirteen-year-old girl sent me a message to tell me that I have to keep up my anti-gambling efforts.” It came from a message written to Cao Yaping by a girl who had gone to elementary school in Matsu, and it recounted the unspoiled beauty of the Matsu scenery as well as her dread of the islands becoming a gambling den. Cao first posted the essay on her personal blog, and then made public posts on Facebook and Matsu Online. It eventually went viral and received substantial coverage from all of the major media outlets in Taiwan. The Matsu casino suddenly became national news and attracted wide attention. In Matsu, educators began to see their students stand up, and they too started to support the movement. The energy and wholesomeness of the students moved many of the middle-aged generation, and brought more people to the cause. One of them wrote on Facebook: “Because [of them] we can see Matsu’s future!” Public opinion, which had originally leaned toward the anticipated passage of the proposal, gradually became less and less certain (Pan Reference Pan2012). In the end, even though the students lost the vote, the appearance of these young people opened up a different future for the islands. They constitute a growing force in contemporary Matsu politics.

The active political participation of the youngsters indicates that their image of Matsu, Taiwan, and even Fuzhou is very distinct from that held by the older generation of fishermen or the WZA generation. Importantly, this post-martial-law generation did not experience the hardships of military rule. The Matsu they know is developing tourism, and whether in terms of transportation, lifestyle, or accessibility of information, their Matsu is closely linked to Taiwan. For example, Cao Yaping mentions an experience from her childhood:

She even reverses the older generation’s idea of the relationship between Matsu and its neighbors, Taiwan and Fuzhou:

Thus, for the post-martial-law generation, Matsu is no longer an isolated place—it is neither a temporary stopover nor a military frontline. Thanks to the connectivity brought about by improved transportation and digital communications, Matsu has gradually become their “home,” where they can live and work with a measure of stability. In contrast, Taiwan and Fuzhou are now their “backyards,” which they visit for entertainment in their leisure time or whenever they want. This is a totally different image of their lived world. Their rejection of the casino project in Matsu reflects their longing for the sustainable development of their home that is no longer controlled by the army or damaged by outsiders.

Conclusion: Fissured Future

In the end, the proposal for the casino won 1,795 votes (57 percent) to the opposition’s 1,341 votes (43 percent). Supporters propagated the idea that the proposal would provide a marginalized Matsu in crisis “another source of hope” (duo yige xiwang), or allow it to “seize an opportunity” (zhangwo yige jihui) , or even let its people “bet on the future”(du yige weilai), actively reaching out to a population mired in transportation and economic difficulties.⁸ If we say that the Matsu people in the fishing period gambled with the ocean, and in the military period with the state, now in the twenty-first century they voted to gamble with their future. The fisherman’s mindset continues to be a way for the islanders to struggle with uncertainty in the twenty-first century.

Matsu still does not have a casino resort. Although the measure passed a public vote, the central government must formulate a set of new laws, such as the “Regulations for the Supervision of Tourism and Casinos.” Only when the local government sees the laws can it begin to attract subsidiary businesses and investment. The necessary bills, however, have been blocked in various ways in the national legislature. A February 2013 decision by mainland Chinese officials, indicating that they would ban travel to the Matsu casino, has made the plan seem even more unrealizable. Finally, in June 2015, Weidner announced that he would pull out of Matsu, as the Taiwan government had not shown any intention to cooperate for three years.

The fact that the idea of a casino resort could begin in an individual’s imagination and go on to capture the imagination of a whole society is an expression of the constant vicissitudes that the Matsu people have faced. From 1992, the end of military rule, and all the way to the “three great links” between China and Taiwan, the people of Matsu have faced unprecedented challenges. It is undeniable that the imaginary of an “Asian Mediterranean” offered by the casino capitalists spoke to deep desires that the people of Matsu already harbored; or one could say that it fit their dreams. Through the image of an “Asian Mediterranean,” Matsu locals were not only able to reimagine themselves as repositioned between the two sides in the Taiwan Strait, and to reframe the islands as able to reach the whole of Asia, they were also able to make an incipient entry onto the world stage. For most Matsu locals, this was indeed a “new opportunity”—irrespective of its complex mix of hope and despair, promises and disappointments, present and future.

This kind of new opportunity also reveals an important characteristic of the contemporary imaginary: the imaginary offered by the venture capitalist, William Weidner, did not come from traditional myths or stories (Taylor Reference Wang and Qiu2004: 23), nor was it based on local sociocultural forms. Given this circumstance, its resemblance to a fantasy is even more pronounced; it was mediated by global capital, non-local networks, and glittering “showbiz” performances. Reality and fantasy not only became difficult to distinguish, but also mixed with illusions to stimulate people’s thoughts and fervor. Clearly, imagination is a crucial characteristic of local societies today. This kind of fantasy may appear absurd at first glance, but it is a genuine way for people on the periphery to respond to marginality and to explore their own possible futures.

The case of Matsu offers an excellent example of the process of imagination, which started with an individual and went on to become social and shared more generally by the greater society. As pointed out, in 2003, two-thirds of the population of Matsu opposed building casinos, while by 2012, the proposed casino resort won more than half of the vote. The important mediators were the grandiose dream offered by a global capitalist, and an imaginative figure, Yang Suisheng, who was able to connect the local and the global. As discussed earlier, Yang had received a modern medical education but was born and raised in Matsu. He was perennially caught between science and tradition. Early on in his career, he served as the chair of the Ox Horn Community Association and hoped to reinvigorate his home while also protecting the environment. With little success to show for his hard work, he threw himself into building a temple and gained the support of locals, eventually becoming county commissioner. While serving as commissioner, he realized that pilgrimages and other religious attractions would not usher in the benefits that locals were hoping for, and he decided to forge an alliance with the casino capitalists in order to bring new opportunities to Matsu. These sorts of figures, mediating between local places and the greater society, along with the kinds of imaginaries they offer, always prompt new thoughts and actions in local society, even if in the end they may not be able to solve the underlying problems.

The conflict, debate, and tension surrounding the casino proposal reveal the divisions between different generations in Matsu—the fishermen during the fishing period, the civil servants and teachers arising from the WZA era, and the younger generation born after the war period—and their different imaginaries of the future. Today’s social imaginings are in no way unitary, nor can they be understood with a top-down model. How these different imagining subjects understand their lived world and their expectations for the future are important questions to consider when we study contemporary society.

For a very long time, Matsu sat on the edge of an empire, an outlying archipelago beyond the reach of state power. During a period of limited resources, people came and went, using the islands as a temporary shelter. In 1949, however, the happenstance of history transformed these isolated mountainous islands into a frontline: the occupation of the Nationalist army marked the start of more than forty years of strict military rule. The army carried out large-scale construction projects and provided new opportunities for education, but it also created many conflicts and traumas. As the US–Soviet Cold War came to an end, tensions across the Taiwan Strait loosened, and martial law was eventually lifted in 1992. After Matsu lost its military and tactical usefulness, its people were confronted with the existential question of who they were, and how to redefine themselves and their place in the world. Above all, how could the islands move forward so as to surmount their previous fate as either an ignored outpost on the periphery of the state, or a subjugated area under the strictures of military control? This book has discussed how the islands’ middle-aged generation, who were sent to Taiwan to study during the wartime period, have devised a series of new imaginaries, or blueprints, for Matsu’s future development. They grew up suffering the adversities of military rule, and after living and studying in Taiwan or in the world at large, they resynthesized their own experiences and knowledge and returned home with new ideas and inspiration. With diverse abilities, values, and beliefs, they built their individual imaginations of the islands and developed them through varied mediating mechanisms—including new media technologies, novel religious practices, and neoliberal economic concepts—in order to rescale and reposition Matsu in the world. We have seen how different imaginations were given an unprecedented chance to develop during this critical moment of uncertainty. The rich ethnography of these consecutive imaginaries of Matsu provide an unusual case for studying how the individual imagination can transform into a social imaginary.

As Anderson (Reference Anderson1991[1983]) and Appadurai (Reference Appadurai1996) have shown with great foresight, print-capitalism and mass media have historically enabled national and global imaginings. This book goes one step further to analyze how imagining subjects can deploy new mediating technologies to explore their imaginations and extend them into the wider community; in other words, how individual imaginations can turn into social imaginaries. As an isolated archipelago in its early days, and as a military frontline for a significant stretch of the twentieth century, the imaginations of the Matsu individuals were less visible or simply hidden. It was only when the barriers were lifted, and the islands were no longer cut off from the world, that their imaginations had more opportunities to flourish and began to disseminate quickly.

Having experienced the longstanding oppression of military rule, how could individuals become imagining subjects? How could subjectification occur? And in what ways could the individual imagination reach the collective? Military rule undeniably left scars of varying severity on everyone living in Matsu at the time, but the military’s withdrawal left the former frontline islands alone in the enormous ocean, facing a precarious future on their own. This book illustrates how the people of Matsu applied new imaginative technologies, invented rituals and myths, and even drew on the gaming industry in concerted attempts to relocate Matsu within different regional and global frameworks in order to find new possibilities for themselves. It importantly highlights that the serial island imaginaries that they evolved are also processes of subjectification. That is, social imaginary usually starts with individuals’ reflections and combines their particular visions of the future. It then extends and spreads via different kinds of mediums and gradually coalesces a common understanding that motivates people to take concrete action. The imagining subject in previous literature has received less attention (Crapazano Reference Crapanzano2004: 1); in this book it is given primacy so as to better understand the key role it plays in contemporary society. Not all individual imaginations can develop into social imaginaries, owing to various social, cultural, and political factors. However, imagining subjects do not easily fade away; they remain latent and may take on renewed power at unexpected moments. This is important for understanding, in particular, the trajectory of the demilitarized islands after the Cold War.

***

The stories recounted in Part III of this book are still ongoing. On July 15, 2011, to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the first landing on Liang Island, the Matsu station troops sponsored a ceremonial trip called “Glorious Return of Heroes to the Island.” During the event, the county commissioner Yang Suisheng happened to discover traces of a shell midden on the island. He invited archeologists to carry out an excavation, and they unearthed the skeletons of two people. Using carbon dating (AmsC14), they determined that the remains dated to sometime between 8,200 and 7,500 BCE, and named the bodies the “Liang Islanders” (liangdao ren). The Liang Islanders are not only the oldest Neolithic Age human skeletons ever to be found in the Min River basin area, they are also the oldest skeletons found in the Austronesian area of Taiwan. DNA analysis from 2013 further showed that the Liang Islanders’ matrilineal line was most closely connected to the Austronesian lineage in Taiwan and the Philippines (C. Chen Reference Chen2013).

The discovery of the Liang Islanders rekindled commissioner Yang’s aspirations to connect Matsu with China across the Strait, after his plans for a gaming industry stalled. He visited the shell mound in Pingtan, Fujian in order to seek out opportunities to cooperate in archeological missions (Q. Liu Reference Liu2013), and he held meetings at the Fujian Cultural Center and museum in an attempt to initiate communication and collaboration. He has also fervently participated in the One Belt, One Road initiative in China. For example, at the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” high-level forum Yang boldly connected the archeological discovery in Matsu and its relationship to the mainland by placing Matsu along the maritime Silk Road:

The close linkage between the DNA of the Liang Islanders and the Austronesians gave Yang another new imaginary with which to attempt to push Matsu out “into the world.” He wrote in Matsu Daily: “The Liang Islanders do not belong only to Matsu; they belong to the rest of the world even more.”¹ He co-organized an international conference with Academia Sinica in Taipei, called “From Matsu to the Southeast Coast of Asia,” in 2014 and invited well-known archeologists from around the world. After the conference, he invited academics and reporters, along with ambassadors from Kiribati, Tuvalu, and other Austronesian countries, to travel to Liang Island to advocate for its importance. In his county commissioner office bulletin, he said:

Obviously, Yang’s thoughts have become increasingly “rhizomorphic,” ramifying connections in all directions. Despite all his efforts, however, the Liang Islanders inspired little enthusiasm among Matsu people. Even on Matsu Online, netizens have barely followed the findings. They doubted whether the putative connection between Matsu and Austronesia could bring any economic benefits; but the largest barrier to an enthusiastic response from the islanders was that the proposal that Matsu is the origin of the Austronesian people had little resonance among the residents (Xiong Reference Xiong2012). Since people saw no resemblance between Austronesian history and what they understood about themselves, the potential for the development of an imagination was rather restricted.

However, given that the individual imagination frequently comes from subjective experience and an individuated interpretative process (Rapport Reference Rapport, Harris and Rapport2015: 8), it will not simply dissolve even when it does not develop into a social imaginary. For example, after Yang failed in his reelection bid as county commissioner and left public office, he quickly pulled himself together to start building his own “trimaran,” his quixotic solution to the difficulties of traversing the Taiwan Strait (Fig. C.1).

Fig. C.1

Yang Suisheng’s handcrafted “Trimaran”

(Photo by Yang Suisheng)

This boat is without a doubt his bid to reset himself and strike out towards a new future. Its hull was fabricated from fiber-reinforced plastic and the outriggers made from used chlorine containers (such containers are discarded by waterworks after use in the disinfecting process), a demonstration of his long-term commitment to environmental protection. Vests designed during his reelection campaign were sewn together to make the sail, the message on which reads: “Pearl of Eastern Fujian, the World’s Liang Island” (mindong zhizhu, shijie liangdao). Another motivation behind the sail, as he explained, was to commemorate his great-grandmother, whom he never met. As a sailmaker, it is said that her craftsmanship was exquisite; she had even made sails for the well-known “pirate” of early twentieth-century Matsu, Lin Yihe (Chapter 1). The completion of the boat demonstrates Yang’s knowledge and competence developed from many years of research on sea vessels and the ocean itself. He intends to sail the ship from Nangan to the Liang Islands, and has even designed plans to turn it into an airborne sea-craft, dreaming that his boat will one day be able to fly. When that happens, the people of Matsu will no longer have to endure arduous travel to Taiwan.

A similar case is that of Cao Yixiong, who first proposed the Community Building Project in Matsu (Chapter 8); his dream of turning Matsu into an “Eastern Fujian Culture Village” was put into practice, but it proved to be largely unworkable. He then reconciled himself to the temple building project, even though it was not part of his original plan or interest. Along the way, he also went from being a member of the legislature to the chairmanship of the Cultural Bureau (he was appointed by Yang Suisheng). Following Commissioner Yang’s failed bid for reelection, however, Cao reluctantly left office and asked himself what he should do with the rest of his life. Opportunely, the army on Matsu had recently disengaged from more than one hundred military fortresses and installations and had turned them over to the county government. Cao thought that he might apply for permission to “reutilize unused space” at Military Base No. 12 near Ox Horn, and thereby persist in his goal of preserving and revitalizing old dwellings. It was a very ambitious plan, however; now that he had no access to government resources, how would he manage to convert a military base? In the midst of his indecision, he remembered his itinerant days as a young man in Taiwan, and the novels with which he had whiled away his time. He recalled in particular one of the moving stories told in The Thorn Birds:

He told himself that in the latter stage of his life, he should find a tree and sing out his last beautiful song, just like the thorn birds in the book. In that way, he would be able to demonstrate his own worth. He named the abandoned military site “The Thorn Bird” (ciniao) and has since expended great effort to renovate it singlehandedly, declining every offer of help and finally even moving there himself to live (Fig. C.2).

Fig. C.2

Cao Yixong at the renovated military base

(Photo by Chen Junwei)

Today he runs a bed-and-breakfast at the site. Under his careful management, it has not only become a popular scenic spot in Matsu, but also the site of many art events. Now, he cuts a figure quite unlike a typical government functionary: darkly tanned, lean, and dressed, sometimes eccentrically, for his own pleasure. When he was first elected to the legislature, he always put on formal Western suits, but as he started to promote community building, he began to wear more culturally significant traditional Chinese dress, and now often wears a comfortable sarong. We may say that what he is doing now “…is an obstinate search for a style of existence, a way of being” (Moore Reference Moore2011: 2). He has steadfastly continued to pursue and reveal his unique self; his self-stylization extends to every tree and bush in his own seaside corner.

Finally, what happened to Cao Yaping, who came to prominence during the public debates over the gaming referendum? Although her side in the referendum failed, Cao Yaping seems more disturbed by the fact that at the time she did not have a good grasp of the military history of Matsu and so was unable to understand the views of the older generation. When she returned to school in Taiwan to finish her Master’s degree, she chose to research the fishing economy of Matsu during the wartime era in an attempt to come to terms with the island’s history. After graduating, she came back to Matsu to work. In her webzine, she writes about her experiences in Matsu—she records her daily life, or interviews with people. For example, in an article called “The history of my family business,” she records how her parents ran a shop catering to soldiers during military rule. She is looking for ways to understand Matsu and to reconnect with it.

Many other post-martial-law youngsters have similar confusion about themselves and their place in the world. With Cao, they formed the “Development Association of Matsu Youth“ (Matsu qingnian fazhan xiehui) after the referendum. They gather together regularly to read and discuss, and they have started to participate actively in public affairs. In 2017, several people at the fisherman’s association meeting suggested relaxing certain restrictions on fishing boats that hire Chinese workers, allowing them to spread nets beyond 300 meters from the islands’ coasts (down from an earlier limit of 1,000 meters). Realizing that most of these boats were actually financed by Chinese investors rather than by locals, Cao Yaping and the Youth Association launched a vigorous “Defend Matsu’s Ocean” movement. Thanks to their efficiency and finesse in internet advocacy, more than 2,000 online and paper signatures (out of 6,000 long-term residents) were collected within three days, thus preventing the motion from going forward and conserving the coastal resources.

Over the past few years, the group has continuously sought a place that could serve as a “base” (jidi) from which to develop their Association. Recently, they found a long-abandoned building which used to be an elementary school during the WZA. It occupies a mere 18 ping (640 square feet) and was originally a branch of the main school intended for first through third graders in Zhuluo. Yet the school does offer something special: the basement is an air raid shelter, where Zhuluo villagers hid from bombs during the military period. The Youth Association members felt that the space holds a special significance, and that it could connect them directly to the era of martial law. After persistent efforts, they finally got permission from the government and local villagers to use the abandoned school. They themselves rehabilitated the building, which had been in disuse for fifty-three years (Figure C.3). It has become a base for them to relearn the lost way of living on the island with its marine ecology. For example, they regularly invite elders to share with them how to collect seasonal shellfish and sea weeds, and make Matsu dishes out of them; many of these practices were neglected or suppressed during the military rule.

Fig. C.3

Youth Association members together cleaning up the abandoned Zhuluo Elementary School

(Photo by Cai Jiaru)

At the end of a long conversation, I once asked Yaping what they intended to achieve now that they had found a base to work from. She responded resolutely with a clear set of goals:

Eventually, however, she shook her head and admitted:

I was thrilled to learn that the goal that she and the young members have set for themselves, out of this deserted school with a military history, is no longer self-stylization, as is the aim of Cao, or genealogical reconnection with ancestors, as Yang yearns for. Rather, by extending connections laterally and by cooperating with each other, they are pursuing a new ethic of belonging and living—in this new mode of being they could finally “become themselves.”

In the present day, people diverge not only in their past experiences, but also in their increasingly varied individual imaginations whose scopes have been greatly enlarged. The question of how people in the twenty-first century can come together to face the future is a very thorny issue, and one which resists a tidy summing-up. Starting from the imagining subjects and the mediating mechanisms they deploy to reach out to others is important, and indeed imperative, for us to understand the contemporary world.