Xiamen

I’m composing this blog three days after the event and the coastal towns we’ve visited are beginning to run together in my mind. Yet, what we have seen in each place is quite different. Xiamen is an attractive city of four million. For seventy years it was a British-run treaty port (until 1912, and then called Amoy). Like Shenzhen, it was an early designee as a Special Economic Zone (as of 1980). It has prospered since but maintained its attractiveness.

Once again, we were greeted with interesting modern constructions.

One can pick only one excursion and we opted for the “included” one, a visit to the Huihe Stone Cultural Park.

We’ve seen several Chinese Coast Guard ships but no Chinese Navy craft. The hills along the coast are dotted with hilltop military outposts, including radar installations. Right: The skyline in route to the museum.

Left: On entering the museum, we were confronted with this large photo of Premier Xi greeting Putin. Right: One of the museum guides.

A theme I will get back to several times during the trip is that 1) much of what we are seeing is relatively new. So much was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s that the museums and historic architecture we are viewing are reconstructions and not original. Salvaged artifacts are now placed in museums such as the Huihe Stone Cultural Park. Thus far there has been no mention of the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, during which tens of millions starved to death, nor of the devastation of China’s cultural heritage during the Cultural Revolution. I doubt this will change.

By contrast, there is a clear obsession by the Chinese of two things. The first is the “Century of Humiliation” for the period between the 1st Opium War (1839-42) to the victory of the Communists in 1949. The second obsession is, of course, Taiwan. I can’t tell you how many times we have been reminded by guides that Taiwan is “part of China”. Likely, this is more true of this coastal region of China, where we are not far from Taiwan.

Here is a random selection of sculptures and art we viewed in the museum. The exhibits are a mix of historic and more recent art.

There is a heavy Buddhist emphasis in the artifacts. Today, in China, more than 200 million Chinese still practice Buddhism and Taoism.

The museum includes more modern works. The moon goddess in the righthand picture is by a Chinese sculptorbut clearly Western in form. In fact, several similar sculptures were not only ancient Greek in style but had classic Greek faces.

We watched a demonstration of a traditional tea ceremony. This was followed by a puppet show in classical Chinese style. Each puppet was operated with two hands inside to give it more detailed motion.

What we missed in our tour was a view of Xiamen’s picturesque colonial architecture. A nearby island is a UNESCO world heritage site. One can’t see everything.

Our next port? Pingtan, just across from Taiwan.