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Fujian
From Wikitravel
Contents
Fujian (福建) [1] is a province in South East China.
[edit] Cities
The prefecture-level cities are:
- Fuzhou, the provincial capital. Population 1.2 million in the city itself, 6.6 million for the prefecture
- Longyan in the West of Fujian, 192,000 / 2.8 million
- Nanping up the Min river from Fuzhou, 236,000 / 3 million
- Ningde on the coast, North of Fuzhou, 125,000 / 3.2 million
- Putian between Fuzhou and Quanzhou, 170,000 / 3.2 million
- Quanzhou, a historic port, 330,000 / 6.5 million
- Sanming up in the mountains, 207,000 / 2.7 million
- Zhangzhou inland, Southwest of Xiamen, 250,000 / 4.5 million
- Xiamen, port city and special economic zone, 700,000 / 1.3 million
Smaller cities or towns include:
- Mawei, Changle and Fuqing, suburbs of Fuzhou
- Xiapu, on the coast up North near the Zhejiang border
- Chongwu, a lovely old walled town, with excellent beaches nearby, near Quanzhou
- Jinjiang, across the river from Quanzhou
- Jimei, on the mainland opposite Xiamen island
[edit] Other destinations
- Gulang Yu - an island across the narrow strait from downtown Xiamen, no cars or motorcycles, lots of pianos, colonial-era buildings, and tourist shops
- Meizhou Island - has the primary temple of the sea goddess Mazu. Her annual festival, in spring, brings in hundreds of thousands of visitors, mainly fishermen or sailors from Taiwan and Southeast Asia, the island is also being developed as a more general tourist resort, in Putian
- Mount Wuyi - a scenic area famous for its tea, beautiful mountains, vigorous rocks and limpid waters
- Taining Town - a UNESCO Global Geo park near Sanming
- Yongding County - home to the Hakka earth round houses; fascinating, centuries-old buildings that are home to a whole clan
[edit] Understand
Historically, Fujian has been one of the more prosperous and outward-looking provinces of China. In the 1900s, two of China's five treaty ports - Xiamen and Fuzhou - were in Fujian. After the Second World war, however, Fujian's traditional trade with Japan was reduced and her other main customer, Taiwan, was the enemy. Recently, however, Fujian is recovering. Like other coastal provinces, it is now one of the more modern and prosperous areas of China.
Fujian has a higher proportion of Muslims than most areas of Southern China due to the history of trade via the Maritime Silk Road, and quite a few Christians since it was a focus of 19th century missionary activity.
[edit] Talk
Today, all educated people in Fujian speak Mandarin. It has been the language of education throughout China since the 1950s and is now the lingua franca in Fujian as everywhere else.
However, Fujian also has dozens of its own dialects. The terrain is mountainous; at one time nearly every valley had its own language. These dialects are usually described with the prefix "Min", where Min is another name for Fujian. These dialects are not mutually intelligible, though they do share certain common features. Generally speaking, the "Min" group of Chinese dialects is the most different from standard Mandarin of all the dialects in China. Minnan has fewer similarities with Mandarin than English has with Dutch.
Among the most important is Minnan Hua, (Southern Min), spoken in Xiamen, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and surrounding areas. There are slight dialectal variations of Minnan between the three cities; the Xiamen dialect is considered to be the prestige dialect. Many people in Taiwan speak the same language, though they may call it Taiwanese. In Malaysia and Singapore, the same language is called Hokkien (the Minnan word for Fujian). The language of Hainan is related to Minnan, but not mutually intelligible with it.
The Mindong (Eastern Min) or Fuzhou Hua (Fuzhou speech) dialect is spoken in Fuzhou and also has a large number of speakers in the northern coastal areas. In Malaysia and Singapore, it is known as Hokchiu (the Mindong word for Fuzhou). There are variations; the Mindong dialects in Fuzhou and Fu'an, which are only about 4 hours apart by car, are not mutually intelligible.
Other Min dialects include Minbei (Northern Min), Minzhong (Central Min) and Puxian, named for Putian city and the surrounding Xianyou county.
The Hakka (客家 Kèjiā) people in the West of Fujian, and in several other areas of Southern China, came as refugees from one of Northern China's wars some centuries back. Hakka means "guest people". They have their own Hakka language (客家话; Kèjiāhuà), related to Northern dialects rather than to any other Fujian language.
[edit] Get in
Fujian is well connected via China's domestic airline, bus, highway and train networks.
The main airports are at Xiamen and Fuzhou; both have flights to Hong Kong as well as many mainland cities. Xiamen also has cheap international connections to Manila, Singapore and Bangkok; see Discount airlines in Asia for details. The scenic Wu Yi Mountain area also has an airport with good domestic connections. Often package deals are available - flights and accommodation, and perhaps a guide, for a fixed price.
Highway and external marine transportation are convenient. Everyday, there are regular tourist buses bound for Shenzhen city. Foreign passenger ships can berth at Mawei Harbor.
[edit] Get around
The main mode of intercity travel is by bus. There are trains, but some routes are not convenient because of mountainous terrain. New lines for high speed trains, on a more direct route along the coast, are under construction but will not be in service until at least late 2009. Flying within the province is relatively expensive.
[edit][add listing] See
[edit] Landmarks
[edit] Parks and landscapes
[edit] Museums
- The provincial museum is in Fuzhou, in the park beside West Lake (Xi Hu).
- Mawei, just outside Fuzhou, has a museum commemorating a battle there between the Chinese navy and the French in the 1880s.
- Xiamen has an Overseas Chinese Museum, located downtown roughly halfway between the ferry terminal and Xiamen University (Xiamen Daxue or Xia Da).
- Quanzhou, formerly one of the world's great ports, has a Maritime Museum.
[edit] Itineraries
One could plan a tour of Fujian devoted to exploring its amazing variety of religious structures. Quanzhou has Qingyuan Mountain, a major Taoist site that attracts visitors from all over China, one of China's oldest mosques, and the world's last Manichean temple. Putian has the Mazu temple. Xiamen, Fuzhou and Quanzhou all have major Buddhist temples, and dozens of smaller temples are scattered around the countryside. Fujian was also a major area of missionary activity in the 19th century and Christian churches abound, mainland China's oldest church is in Xiamen. The original Shaolin Temple, one of China's greatest centers of kung fu, is in Henan, but during one of China's many wars a lot of the monks fled South and founded Southern Shaolin with temples in Quanzhou and Putian.
[edit][add listing] Do
[edit][add listing] Eat
Fujian has its own cuisine, largely based on seafood.
- Fish Ball. also known as the "Yu Yuan," was chopped dried fish, add egg white, mixing flour, some of them add pork or shrimp. Then cooked in boiling water. edit
- Wind duck paste. Wind duck paste, is to use sweet potato powder (sweet potato flour) and hacked to pieces of the wind duck, winter bamboo shoots and silk, the film mushrooms, meat, garlic paste mixed with boiled. edit
- Tai Chi Taro. is to cook taro nut and pressed into mud, adding sugar, eggs, water and oil. After the taro cool down, people sometimes add chopped kernels, cherry on the surface.It is one of the traditional Fujian’s desserts. edit
- Light Cake. It is make with raw material of flour, salt, sesame seeds. The shape of light cake is similar like Donuts. It doesn’t have much taste. In Fuzhou, people usually do not face sesame cake is called "light cake", with the sesame, they called "Fuqing cake. edit
- Wonton. is the most common snack in Fujian. The wonton skin is thin, it cooks in a short time. The boiled dumplings would be required in the process of adding cold water 2 times. After cooked, it looks half transparent. edit
- Fo Tiao Qiang. means(Buddha jumps over the wall). which is the most famous food in Fujian. It contains dainties of more than 30 kinds: Shark's fin, sea slug, chicken breast, duck, pig's trotters, dried scallop, mushroom, abalone, pigeon egg. with other condiments. It's said that after the dish is cooked, the air is heavy with a strong fragrance. Legend has it that it smelt so good that a monk forgot his vegetarian vows and leapt over the wall to have some, giving rise to its name. edit
[edit][add listing] Drink
Fujian is famous for tea (in the 19th century, Fuzhou was China's busiest tea port) and you can get good tea almost anywhere. In fact, the English word "tea" was derived from its Minnan name. Try the tea eggs (茶葉蛋 cháyèdàn), hard boiled eggs cooked in tea, available on streets everywhere.
Like most of China, Fujian has quite a few locations for several large coffee chains, including UBC Coffee (上岛咖啡 shàngdǎo kāfēi), Ming Tien and SPR. It also has some good smaller chains, Blenz, Dawin and King Buck; these are usually cheaper.
As anywhere in China, beer is widely available. Hui Quan is a Fujian brand, a light palatable lager.
- Tieguanyin Tea. (Name of a Godness)This tea is grown in Songlintou and Yaoyang in the Fujian Province. It is one of the cherished teas grown in Fujian. edit
- White Tea:. The white tea is grown in various regions of Fujian including the ShuiJie and Zhenghe counties. The white tea leaves have a unique shape. White tea is a little bit fermented tea with a mild flavor but leaves a sweet taste later. edit
[edit][add listing] Sleep
[edit] Stay safe
Like other areas on the Southern coastal, Fujian is prone to typhoons, which occur mostly from July to September. The province is also located on several small fault lines, and so is occasionally hit by earthquakes, though these tend to be minor.
[edit] Get out
Neighboring provinces along the coast are Zhejiang to the North and Guangdong to the South. Jiangxi lies inland of Fujian. There are good connections to any of these by road or rail.
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