The sound of a ship's siren on Saturday morning announced the start
of a homeward journey by 181 Taiwanese people who have businesses
or work on the mainland.
The ship left the dock at Xiamen in south China's Fujian
Province for Mazu, where passengers will take a flight to Taiwan
to celebrate next week's Spring Festival,.
This is the first time in fifty years that Taiwanese have been able
to make a through trip from the mainland to Taiwan without stopping
at Hong Kong or Macao.
Sources say that another group of more than 100 people will also
take the new route home and they will come back to the mainland the
same way.
Huang Tierong, a Xiamen-based Taiwanese businessman, said that the
new route is not only time-saving but also reduces the cost to only
a quarter of the former 16,000 Taiwan currency.
Passengers hope that the new route will soon become regular,
breaking the bottleneck of direct transportation between the
mainland and Taiwan.
Statistics show that since direct shipping transportation between
the city and Jinmen opened on January 2, 2001, some 22,000
Taiwanese have traveled to the mainland by sea.
Over one third of the Jinmen population have visited the
mainland.
(
February 10, 2002)