Word: narrowed
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...China and trapped between the jaws of two promontories, Kinmen proved difficult for the attackers to chew and swallow. For several decades the island and mainland remained only on shelling, then on yelling, terms. Bombardment continued intermittently until 1978, and vast p.a. systems broadcast propaganda each way across the narrow straight - truly a dialogue of the deaf...
...would expect Kinmen to be a pockmarked moonscape - during 29 years of hostilities more than 940,000 shells were fired at the island - but as your plane descends you see the reassuring orderliness of small-scale agriculture among lush, tree-covered hills. Air-conditioned buses then take you down narrow, winding roads past fields of sorghum, which is fermented into fiery kaoliang, a clear spirit that is Kinmen's most prized export. The distillery is one of several essential shopping stops...
...much of the fascination is in the rodent-like life of the island's defenders, who live underground in tunnels that riddle the granite hills. Everywhere partly obscured metal doors lead to steps down narrow, intermittently lit passages with an oddly clammy warmth. Some carefully managed routes surface beneath concrete emplacements prettily enshrouded in bougainvillea. Other tunnels meander for kilometers to hideouts set in cliff sides, where you can gaze through slits in the concrete across waters dotted by fishing boats at the not-so-distant shoreline where other tourists stare back...
...Buddha stood two pretty girls in cotton-candy dresses who for $1.20 posed for photos with their pet python. It was curled up miserably in a basin with its mouth taped shut. Next to them were two more girls with a peacock. Downstairs at the entrance, shops offered a narrow but highly popular selection of souvenirs: jade bracelets, packets of ginseng and hard-core pornographic VCDs...
Last May, David Pearson was in big trouble. An unlikely coalition of hunters and communists was parading through the narrow streets of Aniane, a village in the Languedoc region of southwest France, baying for his blood. Shadowy forces were spreading misinformation to trash the project Pearson had spent the previous two years putting together. Some seven months later, he recalled, "I told headquarters that in the worst-case scenario, this could end up like Elian Gonzalez...