representative and popular government in a corner of the sacred soil of
old China. Correctly speaking then, it was little historic Portugal,
and not ancient China, that first established a republic on Chinese
soil, and Portugal’s republican influence, _multum in parvo_, as well
as America’s and France’s, has been influential with Chinese reformers.
Fuchau, the capital of turbulent Fukien province, is situated
twenty-five miles from the coast on one of the most romantic rivers
of China, the Min. “Fu” means happy, and is the most used word in
superstitious China, if we except perhaps a “strange oath” or two,
and the family name Chang, which almost half of the Chinese carry.
This city lies in a river plain surrounded by a glorious amphitheater
of hills. With Hongkong, Fuchau joins as the two most scenic ports
of China. The wide walls are thirty feet high, ten miles around, and
up a mountain on one side, and there are seven fort gates, the most
notable being the North Tower, with its curious spirit shrines. The
most noted temples are those to the goddess Kwan Yun, the God of War,
and Ching Hwang Temple. The seven-storied White Pagoda is famous. It
has Romanesque doors and stunted galleries with railings. It is more
ponderous than beautiful, and is remarkable for its great antiquity.
The city is a noted educational center, missionary and native, It was
a reform center even back into the Dowager Empress Tse Hsi’s day in
1897 and 1898, and produced its martyr, young Lin, who fell a victim
of that reactionary Jezebel. Six miles south of the city on Ku-Shan,
1,700 feet high, is the noted Bubbling Well Monastery. The chair ride
there affords a wonderful view. Fuchau is a health resort, as it has
many hot springs. The Pacific Coast Chamber of Commerce was entertained
by the city guilds at the Nan Pu Tu Temple in October, 1910. The valley
of boulders is notable, as are also the rich pumelo groves. Fuchau used
to be a great tea port. The trade declined from 1898 to 1907, but it
is picking up again with the increased demand for China teas. Pagoda
Island exhibits a severely plain and ancient pagoda and some remarkable
Pai Piku (white stern) junks of the olden time. An ancient bridge nine
centuries old, with sixty arches, on which are many overhanging shops,
propped from the piers, connects one of the islands.
Fuchau went over to the rebel provisional government in October, 1911,
but the Manchu city was not captured until a month later. There is a
naval arsenal here, a dock, navy school, mint and a foreign settlement
on Nan Tai Island. The climate is extremely trying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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