Introduction to Matsu Tourist Attractions in Fujian Matsu Township Tourism

Introduction to Matsu

Matsu usually refers to Lianjiang County (Matsu Township) under the jurisdiction of Taiwan. It is located at the mouth of the Minjiang River in Fujian Province, due north of the Taiwan Strait, and is actually owned by Taiwan. The area is under the jurisdiction of "Fujian Province" and has "Lianjiang County (Matsu Township)", with an actual jurisdiction area of ??29.6 square kilometers and 4 townships. The political center is located in Nangan Township (Matsu Island), generally known as the "Matsu area", or Matsu for short. . The prevailing language in Matsu is Mindong dialect with a Lianjiang accent, which is locally known as "Pinghua", "Matsu dialect" or Fuzhou dialect. The Matsu area consists of Matsu Island (also known as Nangan Island), Beigan Island, Dongju Island (East Dog Island), Xiju Island (West Dog Island), Dongyin Island, Xiyin Island and its affiliated islands***36 It consists of several islands and reefs. The geographical name is also called the Matsu Islands. It is now Taiwan's "Matsu National Scenic Area". Note: Dongju Island (East Dog Island) and Xiju Island (West Dog Island) belong to Changle City, Fuzhou.

Travel Notes on Matsu Island

Matsu is an outer island of Taiwan, separated from the mainland by only one water. After drinking Matsu’s wine and enjoying the fish that others had flown in from Matsu, Qi’an and I decided to set off from Taoyuan, Taiwan, to Keelung to take a boat to Matsu, and we also had to take his car with us.

I am a homeless person, and Qi'an is a peaceful office worker. It was almost nine o'clock to board the ship. In order to save time, I first took the Taiwan Railway from Taoyuan to Keelung. Keelung Port is right next to the train station and can be reached on foot. Qian left me behind and rode his motorcycle as soon as he got off work at 6:30. After going through the heavy traffic jam in Taipei, he finally arrived in time. We not only had to buy our own ferry tickets, but also motorcycle tickets. A 155cc motorcycle cost NT$600 for a ferry ticket, and the economy class ticket we bought only cost over NT$800 per person. Looking at the night at Keelung Port, waving to the cruise ship opposite, the ship slowly set sail towards Matsu. Taima Star is a new ship and the facilities on board are very good. In the evening, we had some snacks in the cabin, briefly freshened up, and closed the bed curtains to sleep. The ship arrived at Matsu Port at around six o'clock the next morning.

Before we docked, "Ode to Mazu" was played on the boat. This song is very rustic. I had heard it online before when I was doing a guide, but when I listened to it on the boat, the brisk and heroic rhythm brought me the feeling of traveling. It’s a good mood, and it actually matches it well. You can also see some of the history of Matsu Island from the lyrics.

After disembarking, we went to the warehouse to pick up the motorcycle. The goods, trucks, cars, and motorcycles were all placed together. The locomotive was tied with twine to prevent it from falling over the bumps. We first went to the B&B we booked before to check in. Since there is no bathroom on the boat, I wanted to take a quick shower. I contacted the owner of the B&B, but she hadn't gotten up yet and asked us to go to another house to wait. The door is unlocked and you can enter by pushing the door. You can take a shower inside and wait for her. After a while she came and took us to our accommodation. Qi'an quietly told me that her accent didn't sound like Taiwanese, but I thought it was almost the same. Maybe it was because the Fuzhou dialect spoken by Ma Zu was different from Taiwanese, and it skewed a little bit Mandarin. Later I asked her, she was actually from Fujian, but in my opinion, Fujianese speak similar to Taiwanese.

There is basically no public transportation on Matsu Island. If you are a free traveler, you have to rely on chartered cars and taxis. But since we have motorcycles, we are not afraid of going anywhere.

There are only a few scenic spots on Matsu Island. We didn’t have a complete travel plan. We picked up a guide book at the B&B and followed the road signs on the island. We drove casually and stopped to take photos wherever there was something interesting to see. This time we mainly visited Nangan Island, the most prosperous island in Matsu. To go to another island called Beigan, it was inconvenient to take a boat, so we didn’t go.

The Madame Cafe is built at the foot of the mountain, facing a bay with beautiful scenery. The buildings maintain the Matsu tradition and are all made of stones. The house is ninety years old. The proprietress knows how to live her life well, and she makes the shop very beautiful with some simple flowers and plants. Although it occupies such a good location, the price is not expensive. The second floor is a B&B. The coffee and B&B are run together, which is rare.

The name of Matsu Island comes from the Mazu believed by the people of Fujian and Taiwan. It is said that Mazu's father encountered an accident in Hainan. Mazu jumped into the sea to save his father. His body drifted to Nangan Island and was salvaged by local fishermen for burial.

Later, it was renamed Matsu. One reason is that Matsu is an important military place, and the word "female" in the place name lacks masculinity. The other reason is that it is disrespectful to Mazu. How can we use gunfire on Mazu's head?

Blue tears are actually a kind of seaweed, which is rare to find. Even if you choose the right season, weather and place, you still have to try your luck, and even if you can see it, the camera may not be able to capture it. Qi'an first took me to a very remote place. I had to walk on a plank road from the mountainside to the seaside. There were no street lights and no one except for a small military camp a hundred meters away. After arriving, we turned back to check out other places to see Blue Tears, and it just so happened that the B&B we were staying at was right on the beach. But that day there were only a few scattered dots floating on the sea. Blue tears are magical, they will flash when the waves are bigger. Take off your shoes and go into the sea, pat the water with your hand and it will flash a few times. Several high school girls nearby who came to the summer camp here were having a great time. People are afraid to get close to the large patches of blue tears for fear of being disturbed and dispersed when they reach the sea. However, these scattered ones can be played with.

Matsu was once a small fishing village. The cross-strait confrontation turned this place, which is only 9.5 kilometers away from the mainland, into a military center. The most recent battle was in 1965. Until the 1990s, Matsu Island The battlefield government affairs have just been stopped, and now it is mainly developing towards tourism. However, there are still many military stations on the island, and slogans such as "Be on guard", "Kill Zhu and pluck out his hair" and "Liberate the Mainland" can be seen everywhere. I came to Matsu to see the many national army soldiers stationed on the island. The sea breeze blows and the sun shines, which makes them look particularly manly. Adult males in Taiwan are required to serve and receive military training. Serving on the outer islands is more difficult. In the past, Matsu had frequent civil aviation flights with Taiwan Island. Young people serving in the military had to go home during the holidays and had to take a boat.

Wu Nianzhen’s article "I Never Hold Her Hand in My Life" took place in Kinmen and told the story of him serving as a soldier in Kinmen. In fact, Matsu is similar. When he went to serve in the army, his girlfriend at the time bought a thousand envelopes for her, wrote her address on them, and spent five months' salary on each envelope with a two-dollar stamp, making Wu Nianzhen carry a More than a thousand envelopes went to Kinmen. When Hou Hsiao-hsien was filming this scene, he thought it was too sensational and no one would believe it, so he deleted the scene.

A friend was in a boot camp. During the same period, there was a man who pretended to be sick every day and wanted to avoid military service. Later, lots were drawn to decide where to serve. That person didn't go, so the squad leader drew for him, and Mazu was chosen. In the end, Tian Tian pretended to be sick and had no choice but to pack his bags, vomited all the way to Matsu by boat to serve, and complained that Tian Tian should not respond and the earth and the earth were not working.

There are many military camps on the island. On our way to find Blue Tears, we encountered the national army standing guard at a small sentry post. As we rode over, I waved to him and said, "Hey, hello!" When I came back, I waved to him again. Unexpectedly, he responded with a standard military salute. I was flattered.

Kinmen sorghum wine is very famous, and Matsu’s sorghum wine can rival it. This time I went there with an important responsibility, which was to buy the "aged wine" from Matsu Winery. This wine, which was featured at the Ma-Xi meeting dinner, has been plated with gold, and its value has skyrocketed, with a bottle selling for NT$800 (originally it only cost more than NT$200). The tourist winery had sold out, so I went to the store in Matsu to look for it. I thought the local ones would be cheaper, but I didn't expect that the price was the same as on the main island, and each store only had a few bottles in stock.

The Baba Tunnel was once a military war preparation tunnel, and was later handed over to a winery for wine storage (the Baba Tunnel wine sold on the market has nothing to do with the Matsu Winery, so be sure to recognize it!). The tunnel is warm in winter and cool in summer. The temperature outside is more than 30 degrees Celsius, but inside it is only about 20 degrees Celsius. It is an excellent place to store wine. You can smell the aroma of wine even before you walk in, but it is not pungent at all. The tunnel is very short and can be visited in ten minutes, but it smells like wine and is so cool, so I, a little drunkard, couldn't stop wandering in it. The aged wine stored in it is more than 20 years old, older than Ner Hong. The old uncle who was guarding the gate saw us taking pictures and said that we were missing the point and wanted to take the camera himself to take pictures for us.

When I went back, I bought a pack of dried mussels at the tourist shop in Matsu and took it on board to eat. After paying the bill, I opened it and ate it directly. The proprietress hurriedly chased me out and said, "Hey, miss, you can't eat this raw!" But we Ningbo people always eat it raw.

Matsu is really fun. I will go there again in the future to go fishing and see Blue Tears.

Is Fuzhou Matsu Islands fun? How should I get there?

1. Also known as Mazu, the Mazu Islands are located in the northern part of the Taiwan Strait, facing the Minjiang River, Lianjiang Port and Port China, and Luoyuan Bay. They are separated by water. As a shipping hub, they have always played a sentinel role. . The Antarctic, Arctic, and East Thirty-Six Juguang Islands are collectively known as the "Matsu National Scenic Area" in Matsu and Taiwan.

2. Beach Road Iron Castle Village is on the west side of humanity from Nangan Island to Tianjin Beach. Here is a prominent maritime independent fortress with rock and underground tunnels, Shishi City, gun base, and underground construction work. , open to the public for free all day, visitors must walk along the forest plank roads and stone steps, step by step, and enter the fighting atmosphere of the Iron Castle to experience the past.

3. Best tourist season: Matsu has a subtropical oceanic climate, with four distinct weather seasons, cold and wet in winter, foggy in spring and summer, and generally stable weather in autumn. The temperature is the lowest between December and February every year, and slowly rises after March; the temperature is the highest in July and August, with the monthly average temperature around 29 degrees, and then gradually decreases, with the lowest monthly average temperature in February, only around 10 degrees.

4. Located between Beihai Village and Mei Natural Harbor of Charity Tunnel Village, the mouth of Hong Kong and Macau, it is also an important attraction that has witnessed the hardships and military history of the channel to perfection. The Beihai Tunnel in this water maze has no gorgeous decorations, but a mysterious and tranquil display of magnificent beauty. The entire tunnel crisscrosses the trail and takes about 30 minutes to complete. The dew coming from the rocks, the ticking echo in the dark tunnel, is very mysterious.