Date: 17th November 2019, 11:00am
Right beside some wide sorghum fields in the northern corner of Kinmen Island stood a 3-storey high "speaker" that was made from reinforced concrete. This structure was known as Beishan Broadcasting Wall (北山播音墙) — a direct translation from its Chinese name.
There were a total of 4 broadcasting stations in the Kinmen islands. The larger Kinmen Island had two stations located at Beishan (北山) and Mashan (马山). One station was located on Little Kinmen (小金门) and another on Dadan Island (大胆岛). There was another broadcasting station in Beigan Township in the Matsu islands too — Qinshan Broadcasting Station (芹山播音站).
During the cross-strait confrontation between Taiwan and China, the role played by the broadcasting stations were to use psychological tactics by shouting to "fellow comrades" on the other side of the strait. Beishan Broadcasting Wall faces Xiamen, in China, and broadcasted both in Mandarin and Hokkien dialect, with a range of up to 25 kilometres.
When I last visited Beishan Broadcasting Wall in January 2013, the desolated broadcasting station looked like an abandoned "speaker shell". The sorghum wheats in the nearby fields had been harvested then and made the large "speaker" seemed ultra lonely standing in the lifeless field of dried weeds.
When I was back to the same spot again in November 2019, I was rewarded with 3 delights:
One. I heard Teresa Teng (邓丽君) — the most influential Taiwanese singer in Asian history — saying: "亲爱的大陆同胞，你们好，我是邓丽君。我现在来到金门广播站向大陆沿海的同胞们广播..." (meaning "dear fellow countrymen on the mainland, I wish you well, I am Teresa Teng. I am here at Kinmen broadcasting station speaking to fellow countrymen along the coast...").
Several loudspeakers were added to Beishan Broadcasting Wall and playing a voice recording of Teresa Teng's speech from many years ago. The volume of the "broadcasting" was definitely lower than what it used to be, otherwise, its visitors' eardrums would burst!
Do note that it was not an all-day broadcasting, refer to the website below for the broadcasting schedule：
Two. It was late autumn and the surrounding sorghum fields were not harvested yet. Green leaves and golden wheats added some lively colours to the dull-looking broadcasting station. The vast golden sorghum fields was something I missed on my last trip.
Three. 7 years ago, when I was here and looking down Beishan Precipices (北山断崖), where the broadcasting wall was standing on, it was mostly water down there as it was a high tide then. It happened to be a low tide when I was here again, the scenery of the beach below with clear blue sky was captivating. It looked untouched.
It was a rewarding trip for me to revisit Beishan Broadcasting Wall and the precipices after all these years.
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