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Taiwan blacksmith made crisis as opportunity


Relations between Taiwan and China are getting sore on each passing day. China is not ready to recognize Taiwan as Independent. Taiwan blacksmith Wu Tseng-dong think differently and made his attempts in realty. 

Known locally as “Maestro Wu”, his workshop on the island of Quemoy lies just two miles from the Chinese mainland. He turns shells into kitchen knives. Since 30 years, he has bashed out about 400K knives on Taiwan’s Quemoy islands. There is no surprise that blacksmith made knives used in kitchen but here in his case it is different.


In 1949, Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan when Communist troops won the control of the mainland. They continued to shell Quemoy Island. In August 1958, the second Taiwan Strait crisis began and nearly half-million shells landed in Quemoy during bombardment. Shells continued to target his home for another 2 decades. Many were packed with propaganda leaflets instead of explosives. More than 600 people were killed and 2,600 were injured in Quemoy because of heavy bombardment.


Wu has vivid childhood memories of hiding in air-raid shelters with his family at night while scavenging metal fragments by day for scrap. Quemoy has become a popular destination after the shelling ended officially in 1979. But cross-strait relations have deteriorated again. Wu says keeping the past memories alive help forge a peaceful future. Most of Wu's knives are made from the cases of the propaganda shells, which are better preserved as they did not explode on impact. The old shells are stacked high in Wu's workshop, which has become something of a draw for tourists. Wu Tseng-dong has forged a career fashioning kitchen knives from Chinese artillery shells once fired at his home.

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