Jinmen

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Mandarin 金門／金门 (Jīnmén).

Pronunciation

• enPR: jǐnʹmǔnʹ IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɪn(ˌ)mɛn/, /t͡ʃin-/, /-mən/

Proper noun

Jinmen

1. Alternative form of Kinmen (county)
   • 1996 March 21 [1996 March 18], Jixiong (0149 2623 7160) He, “There Is a Feeling of Insecurity on Jinmen, Mazu, and Other Islands”, in Daily Report: China‎^[2], numbers 96-056, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 75, column 2:

     Located at the southern end of the exercise area, Wuqiu Dao consists of two islets - Daqiucun [Dachiu-tsun^{[sic – meaning Tachiu-tsun]}] and Xiaoqiucun [Hsiaochiu-tsun] with each covering approximately one square km. Formerly a township under Fujian's Putian County, its main dialect is similar to the one spoken in the Putian and Xianyou area. It was placed under the administration of Jinmen County after the Kuomintang Government retreated from the mainland.

   • 2002, Sara L. Friedman, “Civilizing the Masses: The Productive Power of Cultural Reform Efforts in Late Republican-Era Fujian”, in Terry Bodenhorn, editor, Defining Modernity: Guomindang Rhetorics of a New China, 1920-1970‎^[3], Ann Arbor, Michigan: Center for Chinese Studies, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 159:

     Chen Yi moved the provincial government inland from the capital Fuzhou to Yongan County in 1938, the same year that the city of Xiamen and Jinmen County fell under Japanese control (see map).

   • 2004 January 23, “Mainland City Greets Taiwan County with Fireworks”, in China Internet Information Center‎^[4], archived from the original on 26 April 2004‎^[5]:

     Xiamen City in east China greeted Jinmen County of Taiwan Province with a display of fireworks Thursday night, the first day of the traditional Chinese lunar New Year or Spring Festival.
     Xiamen and Jinmen face each other across the sea. The two started festive greetings by letting off fireworks in 1987, but Jinmen has stopped the tradition due to a lack of funds.

   • 2018 January 19, Meng-hsiang Chu, “Flying ‘red’ flags is not ‘expression’”, in Taipei Times‎^[6], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-01-18, Editorials, page 8:

     For instance, someone had the strange idea of decorating Mofan Street in Jinmen County’s Jincheng Township (金城) by hanging Republic of China “white sun” flags on one side of the street and People’s Republic of China “five star” flags on the other.

   • 2019 November 19, “Jinmen county (to be unified)”, in Information Office of Quanzhou Municipal People's Government‎^[7], archived from the original on 05 March 2023‎^[8]:

     The total area of Jinmen county is 153.06 square kilometers. The county has a registered population of 130,461 people and a cultivated area of 6,487 hectares.

2. Alternative form of Kinmen (island)
   • 2001, He An, “Andante”, in Patricia Sieber, transl., edited by Patricia Sieber, Red is Not the Only Color: Contemporary Chinese Fiction on Love and Sex between Women, Collected Stories‎^[9], Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 178:

     In their senior year, Zhang Zewei had been sent back from the military outpost on Jinmen and reassigned to serve in Zuoying, a more comfortable posting in a small town in the south.

   • 2013 June 3, Sarah Mishkin, “Taiwan’s small islands turn to tourism to stay afloat”, in Financial Times‎^[10], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 April 2022, Asia-Pacific:

     Jinmen, known historically as Quemoy, has had some success building a tourist industry on the back of its even closer link to the mainland, close enough that Taiwanese defectors were said to have swum from there to the Chinese city of Xiamen. The military is also in the process of handing over to civilian control other islands that are now restricted zones, including small islets named Erdan and Dadan.
     The transformation of Matsu and Jinmen’s defences has involved turning kilometres of bomb shelters built in the 1960s into historic sites that tourists can ride gondolas through.

   • 2023, Alexander V. Pantsov, “Under Washington's Wing”, in Steven I. Levine, transl., Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887-1975‎^[11], Yale University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 462:

     In August 1958 a serious crisis erupted again in the Taiwan Strait. This time the Chinese communists subjected the island of Jinmen (Quemoy) and the Mazu (Matsu) archipelago in the Taiwan Strait to a powerful bombardment. At the time one-third of Chiang Kai-shek’s ground forces were stationed there.

Translations

Kinmen — see Kinmen

Further reading

• Saul B. Cohen, editor (1998), “Jinmen”, in The Columbia Gazetteer of the World‎^[12], volume 2, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 1451, column 1
• “Jinmen”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “Jinmen” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.