25-year family legacy built on vital ferry route between Xiamen and Jinmen

Yang Chia-chi (center) tells his family story of the Xiamen-Jinmen ferry route during the Straits Forum on June 12. LYU MING/CHINA NEWS SERVICE

For entrepreneur Yang Chia-chi, the 30-minute ferry route between his hometown Jinmen and Xiamen, Fujian province, is far more than a transit line — it's a living family legacy across the Taiwan Strait.

As general manager of a shipping company founded by his father, Yang steers a business closely tied to the maritime crossing, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

Over the past quarter-century, the pioneering route has transported more than 24 million passengers, evolving from a basic link for separated families into a bustling, daily economic and cultural circle.

"I grew up listening to the rumble of ship engines and smelling the salty sea breeze," Yang said. His family's ties to the channel run deep, rooted in an earlier era of separation.

In the early days, many Jinmen residents who moved away for work could not have their remains returned home. Driven by a desire to help fellow residents, Yang's father purchased the company's first vessel.

He later established the maritime shipping company, dedicating his life to the ferry service between Jinmen and Xiamen, carrying the profound longing of countless cross-Strait compatriots separated for decades.

Yang's grandmother, born in Xiamen in 1915, married into a Jinmen family but was unable to visit her hometown for decades due to frozen cross-Strait relations. She passed away in 1998, just three years before the ferry line opened, leaving behind a lifelong regret of never being able to set foot in her ancestral home again.

When the route opened in 2001, Yang's father boarded the vessel holding his late mother's photograph. Stepping over the threshold of the old family home, he wept and said in the southern Fujian dialect:"Mother, we are home".

"The journey my grandmother could not finish in her lifetime is now a path traveled by thousands every day," Yang said, adding that the route remains a natural bond of cross-Strait kinship rather than a mere transport service.

Yang has witnessed how lifestyles on both sides have become increasingly integrated. Many of his friends in Jinmen travel to Xiamen for weekend trips, while residents of Xiamen visit Jinmen for shopping excursions.

The tourism sector in Jinmen has experienced a robust recovery following the resumption of travel for mainland residents from Fujian and Shanghai in April. Yang often sees heartwarming scenes of mainland families exploring historic streets in Jinmen on electric scooters.

Beyond tourism, trade is increasing, too. Yang estimates that Xiamen cargo exports to Taiwan via Jinmen will exceed 50,000 twenty-foot equivalent units this year.

Previously, shipping e-commerce goods to Taiwan took two to three days. Now, under a new express system, goods collected in Xiamen transit through Jinmen, depart for Taiwan the same night, and reach consumers within 24 hours, he said.

The maritime route has even brought Yang his own cross-Strait marriage. His wife is from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and her mother once ran a river snail rice noodle restaurant in Xiamen.

Yang said he ate at the restaurant 20 days in a row, after falling in love with the cuisine and the owner's daughter.

Looking ahead, Yang said the construction of the Xiamen-Jinmen Bridge, designed to connect Jinmen Island to the upcoming Xiamen Xiang'an International Airport, will further facilitate travel between the two places and place Jinmen on a larger development stage through closer cross-Strait links.

Contact the writers at zhangyi1@chinadaily.com.cn