The Chinese mainland and Taiwan kicked off the largest-ever grassroots-forum in southeast China's city of Xiamen Saturday evening, as more than 10,000 Taiwanese are expected to participate during the next seven days.

Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), declared the opening of the weeklong Straits Forum before a huge audience at the International Convention and Exhibition Center of Xiamen.

Now in its second year, the forum will feature 25 activities including leisure chats, galas, and religious worship, instead of formal dialogues and policy-setting negotiations that dominate other major mainland-Taiwan exchanges.

Organizers said about 80 percent of the Taiwan participants this year would be non-officials and over 60 percent were from central or southern Taiwan.

"The forum is a landmark innovation of cross-Straits exchanges. It is a grand gathering of people from all sectors across the Taiwan Strait and a platform for grassroots civilians from both sides to communicate," said Wang Yi, head of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office.

On the stage, Wang surprsingly used Minnan dialect -- the mother tongue of most residents in central and southern Taiwan -- to greet the audience.

Wang urged people from the mainland and Taiwan to unite to push for peaceful development of cross-Straits relations.

Taiwan's ruling party Kuomintang's vice chairwoman, Huang Ming-hui, sang "Girls of Alishan Mountain" -- a well-known Taiwanese folk song at the opening ahead of a gala show.

"People across the Straits need more interaction. Even disputes are OK because agreements can be reached through discussions," said Huang, also mayor of Chiayi City in central Taiwan.

With this year's theme, "Focus on livelihood benefits both sides of the Straits", the forum will gather residents from across the Straits to discuss cooperation on agriculture, tourism, banking, investment, publishing, and ethnic culture preservation projects, among others, organizers said.

As part of the forum, participants will even jointly worship their shared ancestors, gods, and legendary figures revered on both sides of the Straits.

On Saturday, thousands of Taiwanese surnamed Zheng and people from the mainland paid tribute to Zheng Chenggong, a naval general who forced Dutch invaders to leave Taiwan in the 18th century, at the foot of a giant statue of Zheng in Xiamen, Fujian Province.

Zheng, who died aged 38 in southern Taiwan, lived in Xiamen for 14 years and based his naval forces here.

Some Zhengs from south Taiwan worshipped Zheng Chenggong here on Saturday consider themselves the ancient naval general's descendants. And it was the first time for many of them to return to their ancestral hometown.

Xiamen, a coastal city with a population of 2.52 million, had been a flashpoint of cross-Straits rivalry through the 1950s and 1960s after the Kuomintang lost the civil war and fled to Taiwan in late 1940s.

Cross-Straits exchanges warmed after the Kuomintang, led by a new generation of leaders, returned to power in the 2008 Taiwan elections, ending the eight-year rule by the pro-secession Democratic Progressive Party.

In 2008, the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) resumed talks following a nine-year suspension.

A high-level platform for policy negotiations across the Straits, the ARATS-SEF talks resulted in the signing of twelve agreements. The shared aspiration for direct air links, shipping services and mail services across the Straits was achieved at the end of 2008.

Wang said though the goal of "three direct links" has been achieved, the mainland and Taiwan still need to work for closer interaction between the people on both sides of the Straits so they will feel increasingly connected to each other.

New Party chairman Yok Mu-ming said exchanges across the Straits should be carried out on a regular basis as water should be kept flowing lest it become stagnant