‘A weird separation’: life in Taiwan goes on despite invasion fear, documentary maker says

S. Leo Chiang discusses his film Island In Between, which explores Taiwan’s anxiety about mainland China invading and how it affects life

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S. Leo Chiang films at the Beishan Broadcast Wall, a bank of 48 loudspeakers on the Quemoy Islands once used to blast Taiwanese propaganda towards nearby Xiamen in mainland China. Photo: courtesy of Island In Between

Stephen McCarty

Published: 7:15am, 1 Jul 2024Updated: 8:22am, 1 Jul 2024

In 1967, Taiwan inaugurated a supersized audio cabinet called the Beishan Broadcast Wall.

Comprising 48 loudspeakers that could be turned up way past 11, it still stands, 10 metres (33 feet) tall, in Quemoy (also called Kinmen), a group of islands that in the 1950s was on the frontline of confrontation between communist China and Taiwan, to which the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek had fled.

Although it no longer serves as a propaganda tool for blasting songs by Taiwanese pop queen Teresa Teng Li-chun (and invitations to opposition troops to defect) towards the mainland Chinese city of Xiamen, roughly 3km (2 miles) away, the wall of loudspeakers does occasionally revert to type and relay Teng’s “Sweet on You”.

This is what happens in writer, producer and director S. Leo Chiang’s Island In Between – nominated for the best documentary short film Oscar at this year’s awards.

But here’s the even more curious thing: moments later, Chiang’s film cuts to a video snippet from a concert he attended in Beijing’s Workers’ Stadium, in which, ironically, Taiwan’s A-Mei is lustily delivering that same signature Teng tune.