Advertisement
Hi Friends,
I'm sitting in Shaoguan enjoying a quiet Saturday, thinking about the wonderful trip I took last February to Xiamen, Fujian Province. Life has been hectic ever since so have just now found time to write it up. During the Spring Festival holiday, I took four of my student friends -- Yuki, Dong Ping, Helen and Mary (affectionately dubbed “the girls” since all unmarried women in China, under the age of 40, prefer “girls” to “women”) -- and spent a week there. Why Xiamen, you may be asking? Because it’s beautiful and historic, and I thought it might be a fun, warm place to go in February. Turned out to be mostly cold and grey, but beautiful, historic and fun it truly is. In a nutshell, this port city of 2.5 million, which sits directly across from Taiwan (only 100 miles away) on the South China Sea, was first known to the British hundreds of years back as the source of that great new drink, tea. Later, in 19th c. America it was the place from which thousands of Chinese emigrated to work as laborers on the transcontinental railroad. Over the centuries it's had different names, with Amoy its name
Cityscape
On ferry to Gulangyuin the local language of Min-nan. From this language of the “coolies” came the English words tea, Pekoe, ketchup and Japan.
The city of Xiamen is stunning, with the ocean surrounding it on three sides. One of China's first Special Economic Zones (early ‘80’s), thanks to a lot of money and a lot of development, it’s truly a showplace. My hunch is the PRC developed it to compete with Taiwan's economic success. Since it's had decades to develop, it seems more like Hong Kong than a Mainland city. Big attraction -- it's CLEAN (unlike Guangzhou, which is modern but SO dusty and dirty from all the ongoing contstruction). Due to its importance as a port city, Xiamen was unlucky enough to be commandeered by the British in the 19th century as a “concession” for trade. The British legation was housed on the tiny island of Gulangyu, just across from the city, until the Japanese took over Xiamen in the late 1930’s. Out of its unfortunate origin, Gulangyu Island (tiny, at just 1 mile across, 3 miles around) has been maintained as a pristine and charming historic landmark for decades. All the buildings are vintage 19th century, looking very European. No
Aboard ship, chilly morning
On our way to Gulangyu Island, via turnaround at Quemoy Island, Taiwan cars and NO BICYCLES are allowed. The city has beautified the island with an ocean-front walkway around the entire perimeter, a large sculpture park, an aviary, and many lovely museums. Locally, it’s called Piano Island because a music-loving Chinese industrialist in the 1980's built a museum to house his several hundred antique pianos (no photos allowed). Other residents got into the act, and now there are several thousand pianos on the island, with the Xiamen Philharmonic housed there as well. Ok, by now I’m sure you’ve got the idea. Xiamen’s a great city to visit.
More to come about Xiamen and Fujian Province, but enough for now.
Zaijian,
Jo Anne 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0382s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Hank
non-member comment
Great to hear from you!
Jo, how interesting to be visiting birthplace of tea, of all places! Thanks for the update.