Every morning at nine o’clock, the Beishan Broadcast Wall sputters to life. Perched on a sea cliff facing China from the north-westernmost tip of Kinmen, the closest of Taiwan’s islands to the mainland, the hulking concrete structure was used to pump out propaganda during the Cold War. There are eight rows of loudspeakers stacked three storeys tall, although only a handful still work. The walls are cracked and weathered with waist-high undergrowth closing in. There is a clunk, a burst of static and then a disembodied woman’s voice.
“Dear compatriots in mainland China, I wish you well,” begins the recording of Teresa Teng, one of Taiwan’s most famous singers during the 1960s and 1970s, beloved on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. “I am speaking from the Kinmen broadcasting station. Life here is so happy, and I hope our compatriots on the mainland can soon enjoy the same life.” The wall has long since been decommissioned. These days it is a tourist attraction, cycling through the old broadcasts at a fraction of their previous volume as visitors pose for selfies and peer across at the skyscrapers of the Chinese city of Xiamen on the opposite shore.
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