Site Search :
查查英汉在线翻译
Newsmore
·Fifth Ministerial Conference of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Held in Beijing
·Drug Fight Confronted with More Challenges
·Senior CPC Leader Returns to Beijing after Four-country Visit
Culturemore
·Calligraphy, Then and Now
·Lotus Painter Cai Qibao
·The Olympic Ideal
Tourismmore
·Riverside Romance in Central Anhui
·Into the Wild – Hiking through Qizang Valley
·Folklore Flying High in Weifang
Economymore
·China’s Soft Power: Room for Improvement
·Browse, Click, Buy - Domestic Consumers Head Overseas with Online Shopping
·A Private Company’s Road to Internationalization
Lifemore
·Zhang Jiao, Ardent Advocate of Afforestation and Green Farming
·First Single Children Come of Age
·E-Government: Open, Approachable Government Websites
Around Chinamore
·Scientists Uncover Causes of Mass Extinction in the Ashes
·Kaili -- Scenery, Music and Southern Charm
·Ningxia: Putting Money Down on Culture
Around China  

An Embarrassment of Riches: Putian

By WU MEILING

PUTIAN is an economically and culturally prosperous city on the southeast coast of China in Fujian Province, facing Taiwan across the sea. It is blessed with fertile land and was and is inhabited by a clever people. The ancestors of the locals had a literate civilization more than 2,000 years ago and encoded their stories in “celestial-seal” and “tadpole” scripts carved on rocks with astrological and divination purposes that still await decoding by their modern offspring.

 

 Her fans are legion: a public prayer for the blessing of sea goddess Mazu.

 

Goddess of the Sea

Meizhou Island of Putian City is an eyebrow-shaped island embraced by the beautiful sunshine and gentle waves of the Meizhou Bay, a natural deepwater harbor that is rarely seen in China, or anywhere else in the world. The island is the home of Mazu, the Chinese sea goddess and protector of those who live in maritime country. With the inevitable migration of coastal residents to other parts of the world, for centuries her cult has been spread across the globe. Today overseas Chinese still worship Mazu, and many visit Meizhou Island as their mecca to join the locals paying homage to their goddess at the time of her birthday.

1   2   3   next page  

VOL.59 NO.12 December 2010 Advertise on Site Contact Us