Blacksmith Turns Decades of Chinese Bombs Into Kitchen Utensils

On Kinmen Island, a Taiwanese territory four miles off the coast of mainland China, nearly half a million bombs were dropped over the span of decades since the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis. This intriguing story from Atlas Obscura shares the story of one blacksmith who grew up during that time and learned how to reuse the metal and shrapnel from the bombs to make tools and kitchen utensils. The higher quality the bomb, the better quality the steel used.

As an island with a hostile neighbor and little access to imports, having useful steel literally falling from the sky created an entire industry for Wu and others like him. How’s that for focusing on the bright side?