Hokkien Culture

Geographical Connections Specific locations mentioned in this article include: Quanzhou Prefecture, Jinjiang, Nan’an, Tong’an, Anxi, Yongchun, Dehua, Hui’an, Fengzhou (Ancient Prefecture site), Licheng District (Old City core), Nanyang (Southeast Asia), Luzon, and Malacca. I. 618 AD: Where It All Began Here’s a wild thought: the way you say the word “eat” in Quanzhou today is closer to how people said it in Sui dynasty China than your Mandarin textbook. Quanzhou dialect didn’t just happen. It has coordinates. ...

Geographical Connections Specific locations mentioned in this article include: Quanzhou Prefecture, Licheng District (Old City), Zhongshan Road, Kaiyuan Temple, Confucian Temple, Tianhou Temple, Qingjing Mosque, Cai Family Ancient Dwellings (Guanqiao), Luoyang Bridge, Anping Bridge, and Nan’an. Have you ever thought about how a city’s face grows out of a pile of bricks and stones? I was flipping through the Quanzhou Architectural Records when one number stopped me cold: 12 years. That’s how long it took to build the Twin Pagodas. Not a building — a pair of stone towers, one 48 meters high, held together with nothing but mortise-and-tenon joints. No steel, no concrete. And it survived an 8-magnitude earthquake during the Ming Dynasty. ...