Annual 'Kinmen Tunnel Music Festival' brings life to historic wartime site

Last weekend, one of Taiwan’s most renowned wartime attractions, the Zhaishan Tunnel on Kinmen, transformed from a military shelter into a vibrant venue for the annual Kinmen Tunnel Music Festival.

Originally built during the Cold War to protect supply boats from Chinese artillery, the tunnel echoed with the sounds of cellos and violins instead of conflicts.

Carved by hand from granite in the 1960s, the Zaishan Tunnel is situated on Taiwan’s frontline with China, near the cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou. Since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, Kinmen has remained under Taiwanese control, enduring regular bombardments from the Chinese military. Today, it has become a popular tourist destination.

Over two days, the festival featured 6 performances with around 200 attendees at each show, marking the 17^th consecutive year of the event. Musicians performed from a small boat, gently paddling through the brightly lit tunnel while playing a mix of classical pieces by Mozart and Beethoven alongside traditional Taiwanese and Chinese music.

“The music tells the story of this tunnel, speaking to the preciousness of peace and sharing its message with the world”, said a festival art director and a cellist, Chang Chen-chieh. Tickets for this year’s festival sold out in just two minutes, according to the organisers.

Although Marshal law in Kinmen was lifted in 1992, 5 years later, it ended in Taiwan; the island maintains a significant military presence. Many sites, including the tunnel, have been decommissioned and integrated into the national park that encompasses much of the area.

Audience member Cheng Kai-hsiang expressed his emotional response to the performance, stating, “Not only by the sound and the echo from the tunnel, but also because I could hear the waves coming from outside. That powerful, overwhelming feeling is really hard to put into words. It’s something you can only experience by being there in person”.