Mang Shan Tour. 3 Stockade of the Ghosts ( 莽山行.3 猴王寨)

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The visit to Mang Shan was a really hectic experience. We covered not one mountain, not two mountains but three the same day! And on top of that, a natural history museum. 

 

This is the entrance to the Mang Shan Natural History Museum

Mang Shan Tour. 2 Stockade of the Ghosts ( 莽山行.2 鬼子寨)

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From the top of the mountain, we went downhill to another tourist hot spot, the Stockade of the Ghosts (鬼子寨). The place got its name from a slice of Qing Dynasty history. At that time, the Qing soldiers were in hot pursuit of the army of a rebel called Li Chi Shing (李自成). When they reached a valley of one of its streams which Li had caused to be blocked up, they set up a camp there for the night . But whilst they were sleeping, Li broke the dam and torrents of water came tumbling down amidst the "ghostly" cries resounding from the surrounding hill deliberately mimicked  by Li's rebel soldiers to scare them away. Those not washed away by the floods ran for their lives and never ever returned.

Mang Shan Tour. 1 Tin Toi Shan (莽山行.1 天台山)

Since its introduction to China in the early Han Dynasty, Buddhism has grown deep roots in China. Long after it ceased to animate spirituality in its birthplace in northern India, it has sprouted not only shrubs but almost a forest of temples and monasteries on all the famous and not so famous mountain sides of China or even at their peaks. The ordinary folks worship the Amida Buddha as a "god" who would answer prayers, something which the Buddha has admonished against because for him, the only thing which matters is the dharma and the practices based on it. Others  are attracted by its preaching of the need for purity to be found in silent meditation and contemplation of the illusions of worldly wealth, secular power and political influence. Still others find solace from its teachings on the fickleness and impermanence of human emotions. Those with a penchant for thought find plenty of nourishment in its profound analysis of the nothingness of being and the consequential need for compassion for the less enlightened. But whatever the cause, it's rare that we don't find a Buddhist temple or two amidst the hills of China.

I visited one such hill in China: Mang Shan (莽山), at the northern tip of Quangdong (廣東)Province where it joins the south-western tip of Hunan (湖南)

Tour to Fujian 4.2 -old Amoy (福建之旅4.2--舊日廈門)

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Our tour of Fujian concluded with a brief tour of the old Amoy which had been there long  before the 2nd World War (which in China meant the defensive war against the Japanese invasion which started in 1931) with suitable postwar and post-1978 modifications.

At the head of the street, we saw this sign which says that it's a Chinese cultural historical heritage street.

Tour to Fujian 3.1 -Gulangyu & Southern Sound (福建之旅3.1 鼓浪嶼 與南音)

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Our next stop is to one of the most visited domestic tourist spots in China, Gulangyu (鼓浪嶼), a car-free, bicycle free small island of less than a square mile just about 10 minutes by ferry off the the coast of Amoy  which is home to some 20,000 locals. As a result of the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 after Qing Government admitted defeat in the Opium War, Amoy was designated one of the Treaty ports and Britain established its consulate there and by 1903, it was designated an International Settlement and 13 countries established their consulates there including USA, France, Austria, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Belgium and Japan as part of the then Chinese foreign policy of using "barbarians to control barbarians" (以夷制夷). .Some foreign churches and hospitals were also built there. In 1898, an English pastor established the first Western style Kindergarten on the island "The Kindergarten of Virtue"( 「懷德幼稚園」). Perhaps for such reason, the island has been called a living museum of foreign architecture (萬國建築博覽會). The island was occupied by the Japanese in 1942 during the Sino-Japanese war which started in 1937 and wasn't returned to China until 1949. It was thus exposed to Western influence quite early.. Because there's a piano museum and an organ museum on the island and the Xiamen Academy of Performing Arts and a Piano School of the Central Conservatory (中央音樂學院鼓浪嶼鋼琴學校), the island is sometimes called Home of Pianos(鋼琴之鄉) and "The Island of Music" (音樂之島). The island is the home of Chinese conductor 陳佐湟 and also that of the famous Chinese poetess 舒婷. The name "Gulangyu in fact means "island of wave drums" from the drum like echoes created by the seawaves within some of its sea-caves.
The island was first settled by people at the end of the Sung Dynasty and the start of the Ming Dynasty. Originally, it was called Round Sandbank (「圓沙洲) or Little Round Sandbank」(「圓洲仔」) but got its present name only during the Ming Dynasty. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Koxinga established it as a training ground for its navy for resisting the Manchus. Even today, we can still see the remains of the former navy training ground at Stone Bastion Gate (石寨門) and there's a statue of him guarding the harbor and looking over to Taiwan where he eventually went and settled.   

 

The ferry pier of Gulangu

Tour to Fujian 2 Tulou at Yongding (福建之旅2 --永定土樓)

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 The second day of the trip to my native province brought me to one of the most peculiar forms of architecture which has now been admitted as part of the UNESCO's cultural heritage. The tulou (土樓) of Yongding in Fujian Province (福建永定), a county administered by Longyan (龍岩市) in the south-west of Fujian Province bordering Tai Po County (大浦) and Mui County (梅縣) of Guangdong Province (廣東) at its south west. But in the Jin (晉) Dynasty (265-420 CE) , Yongding was part of Sin Lo county of Jin An Region( 晉安郡 新羅縣 ) and in the Sung  (宋) Dynasty (960 -1279), part of 上源杭縣 but in 1478 during the Ming (明) Dynasty (1368-1644), it was renamed Yongding (永定 ) and formed part of Ting Chau Division (汀州府 ) and Ting Chau Military Region (汀州道) but on 1st September 1049, it was placed under Longyan City (龍岩市)  after its "liberation" by the Communists, just one month before the  establishment of the PRC was proclaimed on Tian An Mun Square (天安門廣場) by Mao Tsetung.  Yongding is all hill country, fed by the Ting River (汀江) and its tributary the Yonding River (永定河), a 280 KM river which is the fourth longest river in Fujian, feeding, inter alia, Changding( 長汀) as well as Yongding( 永定 ) and Tai Po of Mui Chau, Guangdong (廣東梅州大浦). Its highest peak Mang Dong Yang (茫盪洋) rises to some 1450 M above sea level. The locals there speak the Yongding dialect  (永定話), a sub-dialect of the Hakka dialect (客家話).

Tour to Fujian 1 Amoy. Jimei Academic Village (福建之旅.1 廈門, 集美學村)

The end of 2013 and the start of 2014 is a bit unusual this year. For the first time, I begin to have an inkling of how it felt to be in a province from which my ancestors came. I see how they must have lived in the past and the way they live now. I have heard my father talked about the place he spent a number of years when he was a young man before he came to Hong Kong and married my mother: Amoy in southern Fujian province: the kind of dialect he spoke, the kind of food he ate, the kind of weather he experienced, the kind of values he had and the look of the countryside and old buildings which gave birth to them.

It all started as so many other journeys, at the HK International Airport. Christmas is not yet gone.

Christmas Tour 3 Ku Lo Village, Hok Shan and Siu Kong, San Hui (聖誕之旅 3: 鶴山古勞水鄉. 新會小岡)

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It's another two hours before we got back to our hotel. By the time we arrived, there nothing but thunders in my stomache.. 

Roast goose fired with "Lai Chee firewood"

Christmas Tour 2. Toi Shan, Chik Ham, Ku Lo & San Hui (聖誕之旅2 台山 梅家大院. 赤坎)

(Cont'd)

After the fortress-houses of Floating Moon Village, we stopped by at another group of buildings in Toi Shan, those belonging mainly to the Boey (Mui) family many of whose descendants are now in the East Coast of America and Canada. 

This is a panoramic view of the two rows of houses copied from the Internet. There are a total of some 108 such houses more than half of which belonging to the biggest name there Boey (Mui). So they are popularly known as the Mui Family Court (梅家大院). They were all built in the 1940's just before WWII and reflected the Western architectural style of the period and is the site where the famous Chinese film "Let the Bullets Fly" was filmed. It's one of the best preserved kind of buildings of the period. A typical feature of such houses is that each of their verandahs are supported by front pillars on the kerbside facing the huge courtyard.