“[A] special report appeared in the December 1995 issue of China Times
Weekly. It included some new information regarding the dalumei [大陸妹] and their activities in general and included an interview with three of the fifty-seven dalumei then held at the women’s detention center in the city of Hsin-chu in northern Taiwan. It revealed the dalumei’s
wide spectrum of social backgrounds but emphasized their shared desire
for money as the prime motivator for their migration to Taiwan, as
exemplified by the newly coined saying “The old Gold Mountain is in the
United States, but the new Gold Mountain is in Taiwan!”22 The three dalumei interviewed
were presented as having not the least bit of shyness or shame: they
bragged about their success making money and vowed to try to return to
Taiwan after deportation. The threat of dalumei was therefore the
threat of massive migration: besides the fifty-seven detainees, the
article noted that no one “dared” figure out how many dalumei were actually in Taiwan. The article ended with the story of a dalumei connected
with high government officials in China, noting that the Chinese
government had been known to employ dalumei as spies to work in bars and
restaurants in Chinese coastal cities frequented by Taiwanese
businessmen, and concluded that some dalumei in Taiwan might be communist agents sent by the Chinese government. Dalumei
as money-chaser was now replaced by the projection of national security
concerns as China began to conduct its ostentatious military exercises
targeted at Taiwan.” – Shih Shu-meiVisuality and Identity, 2007