Shanghai China Website » Fujian

Gulangyu Island

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:23:15 +0000

Gulangyu, separated from the main island by the 500-metre-wide Egret River, with an area of 177 square kilometres, enjoys a lauditory title “Garden on the Sea.” The original name of the islet was Yuan Zhou Zi. In the Ming Dynasty it was renamed Gulang, meaning ”drum waves”, because the holes in the southwestern reefs hit by the waves will make sounds like the drum. The Dragon Head Hill, Hoisting Flag Hill and Hen Hill stand in a line in the islet. Overlapping peaks foil the blue water, white clouds, green trees and bright flowers. The air in the islet is fresh. The entire place is free from any sorts of vehicles and is particularly quiet. All these render an atmosphere of a fairyland. The architecture in the islet varies greatly in style, Chinese and foreign. Thus the islet has a laudatory title “the World Architecture Museum” The residents here love music very much, and the number of the pianos possessed is in the leading place in the nation, though there is only a population of 20,000 people. Thus the islet is praised as the “Piano Islet”. Today, Gulangyu is listed as one of the nation’s major scenic spot. The main sites of interest here include the Sunlit Rock, Shuzhuang Park, Gangzihou Bathing Beach and Memorial Hall to Zheng Chenggong, which are visited annually by millions of people from all parts of the country and the world. Sunlight Rock Riguang Rock is also called Yellow Rock. It is the summit of Gulang Islet. On the mountain, huge and precipitous rocks form many caves and gullies. Pavilions are hidden among green trees. If you go up the steps, you will come to the Lotus Flower Convent first, where a huge rock named ”A Piece of Tile”, sitting on the top, forms a hall below. On the large rocks beside the convent are inscribed ”Wonderland of Gulang,” and ”Number One along the Egret River.” Behind the convent are ”the Dragon’s Cave of the Egret River,” ”the Cave of Summer Resort,” and ther scenic spots. Close to the convent is the historical site of Zheng Chenggong’s Dragon Head Mountain Fastness and the platform for directing the raining of his seamen. Coming to the top of the mountain, you can see the beautiful views of the sea nd the mountains, and the Xiamen Island and Gulangyu, Dadan and Erdan are all presented before your eyes. Shuzhuang Park Shuzhuang Park is situated on the seashore to the south of Riguang Rock. In the 21st year of the Guangxu period in the Qing Dynasty (1895), a rich merchant from Tainan came to Gulangyu with his family and made his home there. He hegan building the park in 1913 in memory of his native home in Banqiao, Taiwan, and used Shuzhuang, the homonym of his mother’s name to name the park. Now a bronze statue of the former owner of the park stands in the park. Architecturally the park is very cleverly designed by taking advantage of the mountain and the sea. There you can feel a stillness in things moving, and a movement in things still. It presents such a unique scene that you might find it difficult to tear yourself avay from it. Inside the park there are several beautiful views such as Renqiu Pavilion, the Forty-four Bridge, the Piled-up Rocks, the artificial hills, Danying Veranda and the Insensate Rock Room. No wonder the park ranks first among the famous parks in Xiamen. To its left is Gangzihou bathing beach, which is marked by clear water and sand, and has the capacity of bathing thousands of people at a time. Nearby there is YanPing Park, which was set up in memory of Zheng Chenggong. The Nine-bending Forty-four Bridge is the major view of Shuzhuang Park. This over-one-hundred-metre-long bridge looks like a dragon moving through the water On the bridge there are Watching Fishing Stand, Ferrying-to-theMoon Pavilion, One-thousand-wave Pavilion and so on. If you are strolling about or taking a rest on the bridge when it is at full tide, You might have a feeling of walking on the sea, coming up and down with the waves. On the Piled-up Rocks by the ninding crossing-the-sea bridge are inscribed these words: “Vast Sea and Boundless Sky,” and ”Resting the Head on the Currents,” which are so beautifully written and so vividly blended with the surroundings that you would find them pleasing both to the eye and to the mind!

10,000 Stone Botanical Garden

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:20:32 +0000

Tiger Brook Rock and Elephant Trunk Peak. Located on the north Lion Hill of southeast Xiamen urban district Wanshi Botanical Garden is a unique combination of park and botanical garden.With historic remains scatterring about, this place became a scenic spot for tourists since ancient time. Xue Qifeng, a famous scholar of early Qing Dynasty,praised it in one of his poems like this – “Hills and rocks combine all the views and the garden has been claiming unparalleled wonder through the ages.” Wanshi Botanical Garden heads the list of xiamen eight views by holding five of them.There are also nearly 100 stone inscriptions in rocks.

The year of 1952 saw the construction of Wanshi Rock Reservoir around which the Botanical Garden was extented. More than 20 plant plots,flower nurseries and display rooms have been classified. They are specializing in palm, bamboo, orchid, potted landscape and medicinal plants,etc.Tens of thousands of tropical and subtropical plants are cultivated there.It is well-known throughout the world for its fruitful scientific research.

Wanshilian Temple was built during the reign of Emperor Kanxi of late Ming Dynasty and was rebuilt by Hou Shilang of Jinghai .Additional renovations were made in recent years.On the two sides of the mountain gate,there is a pair of antithetical couplets written by a Great Master Honyi for an abbot named Huiquan. Daxiong Treasured Hall,meditation abodes and monks’ rooms form a delightful contrast with those high giant rocks. Quiet and elegant, the temple reminds one of fairyland with the help of gurgling stream below the Haizeng Bridge in front of the temple. In the west part of the garden lies the Tipsy Fairy Rock, Sweet Spring Cave, Tianjie Temple and other sceneries.

Tianjie Temple occupies a high position and descends down. Its famous morning bell can be heard far and near and was listed among the eight views of Xiamen—”Bell Tinkling at dawn from the Heaven Border.” There are numerous stone inscriptions carved in the cliffs behind the temple and among which the one engraved before the Long Howling Cave during the reign of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty is the most valuable . This piece of Poems Wall has another name of “Smiling Rock in Peace” which is also among the eight views of Xiamen. There has been such a saying as “The things that can make one smile and happy can not be expressed.”It is personified and then spares more room for thought. Here is also the place where Zhen Chenggong used to read. At “Tiger Brook and the Moon Light” – one of the eight views of Xiamen,with rocks densely covering the valley and ancient banyans entrenching everywhere,a naturally marvellous and perilous sight is thus presented. In the evening of the 15th of every lunar month, the grand moon is hanging high above, shining over the arhat clay sculptures and the clay tiger set in the cave. The shadow fluctuates as the light twinkles.

The clay tiger seems to come back to life. When it is the midautumn festival night,visitors exceeding ten thousand strive to be the first to enjoy the sight of the wonderful moon. During the reign of Emperor Wanli, Lin Maoshi, a well-konwn bachelor, cut a hole in the rock and built a stone room named “Lincen Cave” in it. To the north of Wanshilian Temple are such views like “Carp Magic”, “Tiger Teeth Cave”,”Jia Tian Jing”(a path placing the sky in between two huge rocks),”One-line Heaven”and “Flying Whale Rock”. Each of them got their name from their similarity in form. We find another gigantic rock near the river bank, this one is carved with two Chinese characters “Lock Clouds”.It is said that this is the place where Zhen Chenggong killed his second cousin, Zhen Lian!

Xiamen City

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:18:43 +0000

Xiamen, China’s cleanest, most beautiful, seaport city, is located on the southeastern coast of Fujian Province. Xiamen City, as an adminis-trative unit, can be dated back as far as the Song Dynasty. It has always been an important trading port, but since its establish-ment as one of China’s first four Special Economic Zones in 1981, Xiamen has become a “window city” for China’s opening to the out-side world. It’s one of the municipalities approved by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, being specially designated under separate state plan and en-joying provincial level of power in economic management. Today, Xia-men is a rapidly growing city, with a vigour-ous economy and a fully-modern in-frastructure. Over the past 10 years, Xiamen has increasingly focused on the cultivation of inter-national trade, education, and tourism. Ge-ography Xiamen was recently voted China’s cleanest city, and hasmany attractions for the foreign visitor. Xiamen and its surrounding countryside offers spec-tacular scenery and pleasant tree-lined beaches. Gulangyu, also knownas Piano Island, is a popular,peaceful weekend getaway.Xiamen’s Botanical Garden is anature lover’s paradise. And the Buddhist Nanputao Temple, dating back to the Tang Dynasty, is a national treasure.

Nanputuo Temple

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:15:37 +0000

Nanputuo Temple South Putuo Temple is situated below the Five Old Gentlemen Peaks in the southern part of the island of Xiamen. It was first built in the Tang Dynasty and is one of the sacred places of Buddhism in Southern Fujian. Inside the temple there are the Heaven King’s Hall, the Daxiong Hall, the Great Compassion Hall, all of which are built in an exquisite and grand style. Enshrined in these halls are the statues of Maitreya, Sanshi Reverend Buddha, Thousand-handed Guanyin (Bodhisattva), Four Kings of Heaven, and the eighteen archats. Although all are serious and solumn in appearance, each is distinctly different from another. The temple attracts a large number of pilgrims at home and from abroad. The excellent craftsmanship of the Thousand-handed Guanyin is marked by its thousand hands and thousand eyes and glistening golden colour. As to the Pavilion where Buddhist scriptures are kept, it has a rich collection of the historical articles of Buddhism. such as classics, statues of Buddhas, bronze bells from the Song Dynasty, calligraphic works and paintings from the ancient times. Among them, “Intriguing Lotus Scripture” written in blood in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty and the statue of Guanyin in white porcelain, a masterpiece of He Chaosong, are most valuable. In the temple are preserved many inscriptions, among which the stone inscriptions written by Chen Di and Sheng Yourong in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty and the one on a stone stele written by Emperor of the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty are most famous. Behind the temple, inscribed on the wall of a rock is a large word “Buddha” which is 4.66 metres in height and 3.33 metres in width. And farther behind, high up on the mountain stands a screen of five peaks coloured by green trees and bamboos and marked by serene valleys and rocks of pleasing shapes. They are called “Five Old Gentlemen Reaching the Clouds,” and are one of the eight grand sights of Xiamen. Coming to the top, you not only have a view of the mountain undulating in the wind, but also the view of the sea surging in the distance.

Jimei

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:12:25 +0000

As one of the four major scenic spots in Xiamen, Jimei enjoys a long-term fame for its tourists attractions like Turtle Garden ,Returnees Garden and the former residence of Mr. Tan Kah-Kee. Jimei is a small town on the other side of the bank facing notth Xiamen Island. With Gaoji Causeway and Xingji Causeway meeting there, Jimei becomes the sole gateway into Xiamen. Jimei is also the hometown of Mr. Tan Kah-Kee, a famous overseas Chinese leader who devoted homself wholly to the education cause. He had started various schools in the town, including Jimei Normal School, Jimei Navigation Institute, Xiamen Aquatic Products Technical Institute and Agriculture School besides Jimei Kindergarden, Jimei Primary School and Jimei Middle School. Equipped with Science Hall, library and hospital, these schools brought the town the name “Jimei School Village” which is renowned at home and abroad. The Turthe Gardeb was built during Mr. Tan Kah-Kee’s lifetime and later was chosen as the place where his grave was to be laid. Mr. Tan Kah-Kee’s residence was turned into a memorial hall and the Returnees Garden with Mr.Tan Kah-Kee’s bronze statue in it was built in his memory. In Jimei, there is still the relics where Zhen Chenggong had drilled his soldiers and the ruins of old Jimei Village — Yenping Old Fort. The Turtle Garden was constructed in 1950 by Mr. Tan Kah-Kee on the former site of “Turtle Head Palace” from which came its present name.In the centre of the garden is the Jimei Liberation Monument with an inscription by Mao Zedong on the front and a tablet record written by Mr.Tan Kah-Kee on the back.The stone foundation of the monument consists of two stages. The lower stage has eight steps ,signifying the eight-year Anti-Japanese War; the upper stage is composed of three steps, symbolizing the three year Liberation War. They are telling the later generations that victories were hard-won and therefore should be cherished. The foundation of the monument is surrounded by gray jade carvings and relief sculptures polished with great care,embodying a concentrated reflection of exquisite workmanship and a unique style of south Fujian stone carving art. The former residence of Mr.Tan Kah-Kee is situated on Jiageng Road in the town of Jimei.It is still keeping its old looks to be visited and pondered. Mr.Tan Kah-kee was living frugally all his life. No one can keep unmoved when they see how
simple those daily necessities and clothings are.To the west of the residence is an exhibition of Mr.Tan Kah-Kee’s life story.

Wuyi Mountain

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:02:48 +0000

The Wuyi mountain scenic spot situated in the middle of the Wuyi mountain range, within the boundary of Wuyishan City, has an area of 60 sqkm. The Nine Twist Stream, a meadering brook running nine kilometers through the mountain, is a beautiful, natural landscape painting.

Well-known for its scholars and poets like Zhuxi, Luyou and Xinqiji who visited and lectured here. As a result, a valuable cultural heritage has been preserved. A 3, 000- year coffin in the shape of a boat, known as a hanging coffin. And many stone and porcelain relics are kept on display. Wuyi Scenic Spot has been designated as a key national scenic spot.

Nine-Twist Stream

Originating in the Wuyi Natural Reserve and flowing through mountain valleys. The Nine-Twist Stream runs nine kilometers and has 9 twists in its course. The clean water moving past rocks and cliffs combines with the exotic peaks crowned by green groves presenting a real-life traditional Chinese painting.
It takes about 2 hours to drift down the stream by means of a very old type of bamboo raft. So this experience is unique and memorable. No visitor should miss the chance.

Dawanfeng(Great King Peak)

Because this peak is shaped like an ancient Chinese majestic official’s hat, people call it Great King Peak. It sits commandingly at the mouth of the Nine-Twist Stream, southeast of the Wuyi Palace. Standing on the 530-meter peak, it greets tourists as they set out their trip. At top of the peak old trees grow thick, while on the eastern side you can see Immortal-Transformation Cave(shenzhen-dog) . According to Zhuxi, the great Confucianist, King Wuyi lived in this cave. A deep split extending from the top of the peak into its bottom is said to be the place where a special envoy in the Song Dynasty worshiped King Wuyi.

Jade Maiden Peak

Located south of the second twist and facing a big deep pool, this peak looks like a girl standing gracefully. The rock in Jade Maiden Peak appears skin-smooth while the dewy-green grass and tree sat the top suggest a girl’s hair. As we look at the peak’s reflection in the water, we can imagine a graceful, deep-in-thought, traditional girl, wishing for a bright future. This peak symbolizes the beauty of Wuyi scenery.

Heavenly Tour Peak(Tianyoufeng)

The Tianyouguan Hotel

This peak stands near the middle part of the stream. Made up of three huge rocks, it can be seen from the third, fifth, and sixth twists. You can reach the summit along the path from Tea Plantation Cave(Chadong), if you can go up the 800 steps past the Clothes- Drying Rock(Saibuyan), you will finally reach the top, arriving at Bird’s Eye Lookout(Yilantai). Standing here, you enjoy an panoramic view of the whole peace. The Tianyouguan Hotel, a graceful traditional- style building, has rooms for those guests who want to see the stars of the Milky way and the sun rise. This peak provides the grandest view of Wuyi mountain area.

Taoyuan Cave(Taoyuandong)

The Beautiful Scene of Taoyuan Cave

This cave is located north of the sixth twist of the stream. A cool, dark place, it lies at the center of surrouding mountains, an attractive setting. When you enter the cave, you will be plunged into the darkness, but walking another ten metres, you’ll see a shaft of light. Then you will be looking across a peach orchard with a stone gate, a paradise away from turmoil of world. In the old days scholars came here to escape the cares of society. Now the old Kaiyuan hall has been remodeled as a hotel and small shop.

Dazhufeng Snake Garden

In Huanken Village of Jianyang county you cansee an unusual snake garden. The specially-designed garden with an area of 6,000 sqm metres , contains some 10000 snakes of various kind–the country’s largest. The Wuyi snake medicine has become well-known at home and abroad. Facilities of the garden include viewing spots, a guest house, restaurant, and service department. In the souvenir shop you can buy snake wine, snake bile wine and powder, snake- skin articles, dried snake and snake oil.

Wuyi Mountain Nature Reserve

This nature reserve is located at the common boundary point of Wuyishan City, Jianyang and Guanze Counties. It extends 52 km. from north to south, and 22km from east to west, enclosing an area of 570 square km and the mountains here are steep and heavily forested. Abundant rainfall and warm, humid weather give it a typical moderate sub-tropical climate, this is one of the five key nature reserves in China.
Forests cover 92% of the area. Bamboo groves number more than 80 and include one-third of the Chinese bamboo species. Among the 3, 000 to 4,000 plants growing here, 149 families and 1,899 species have been identified. This plant diversity led to the nickname “natural plant farm”.

More than 400 kinds of larger wild animals, including more than 100 species of mammals, live in the reserve. Birds also thrive here, some 300 species being found in this wildlife

Guangzhi Mountain

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:49:50 +0000

Guangzhi Mountain lies in the east of Liancheng County, Fujian Province, which is 1.5 kilometres far from the county town and stands upright. The scenic areas cover 123 square kilometres in circumference. Its highest peak looks like a crown worn by an ancient judge(in Chinese, the crown is called Guangzhi).

It implies integrity and incorruption. Hense, the name of “Guangzhi Mountain”. In 1986, it was awarded as one of the ten most beautiful tourist spots in Fujian Province for its natural beauty. And in 1994, it was listed in the key scenic spots of national level by the state Council of China.

Guangzhi Mountain belongs to DanXia topography, so the color of the rocks is wine. Exotic flowers, rare herbs, rare bitrds and animals can be seen everywhere. ShiMen(stone door) Lake lies in it is like a jadeite. The water is crystal clear, and no matter how deep the water is, you can see the bottom — the pebbles, sand, and weeds. The mountain is so grand and the water is so clear and beautiful that people say “Guangzhi Mountain Scenic Spot is the only place which couples with yin and yang (hardness with sofeness)”.

The Guangzhi Mountain Scenic Spot was first developed in Song Dynasty. Some great names in history, such as Ji Xiaolan, Lin Zexu, Zhao Puchu and Luo Dang, left many ¬inscriptions here, which present a splendid sight for the scenic spot.