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E-book Splendors of Quanzhou, Past and Present

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Penilaian

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Zaytun’s True Wealth Marco Polo was impressed by Zaytun’s gems, pearls, porcelain, and silk, but he overlooked the true wealth of this mythic port—the place and the people! Zaytun was blessed with an unparalleled natural wealth and beauty that the enlightened inhabitants maintained as meticulously as their miniature landscapes, which have been famous throughout Asia for 1,000 years. Zaytun was a city of gardens, lakes and forests, ringed by mountains, facing the sea, and nestled between two great rivers. Zaytun, with its three great concentric city walls, had a storybook setting that has inspired Chinese poets and philosophers for over 1,000 years. It is no wonder that the great Arab traveler Ibn Battuta remarked upon Quanzhou folks’ love of gardens. The entire city was indeed like a miniature garden but on a gigantic scale, with each citizen playing their part—even as they do today. Five Thousand Years of Balance For 1,000 years, Quanzhou folks have crafted their prize-winning miniature landscapes not to win prizes but for the sheer beauty of it. And even as they revel in the judicial juxtaposition of stone and miniature trees, so they have adapted their city to the confines of their unique topography to create not just family gardens but neighborhood gardens, public parks and city forests that reinforce rather than destroy their environment. I suspect this uniquely Chinese sense of balance and long-term perspective explains how China has survived for 5,000 years. “Land is Life” is an old Chinese adage that proved true in Quanzhou. Both land and inhabitants thrived, and the City of Light became a global commercial and cultural crossroads—a melting pot where merchants, diplomats, philosophers and missionaries from all over the world coexisted peacefully, intermarried, and most importantly, learned from one another. Jerusalem of Asia UNESCO dubbed Quanzhou a “World Museum of Religion”, because the city hosted every major religion, from Nestorian Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism to Islam. Quanzhou’s Muslim community supposedly dates back to the day of Mohammed himself, and the Persian Manichean religion survives today only in Quanzhou. Quanzhou people not only did not lack diversity of religion or philosophy, they were also well grounded academically. Called the “Academy Upon the Sea”, Quanzhou produced 2,454 “Jinshi”, successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations, 20 prime ministers, and 950 nationally acclaimed scholars. World Citizens Broad exposure to world philosophies, religions and academics helped nurture the uniquely global outlook that insured Quanzhou folks’ prosperity both at home and abroad. Today, over 7.2 million overseas Chinese,3 and 40 percent of Taiwan’s Han Chinese, trace their roots to Quanzhou. But Fujianese were a force to be reckoned with long before the City of Light became a beacon for the world. The Fujian Flame As we’ll see in China’s best maritime museum (see this chapter), China’s great maritime tradition was born right here in Fujian over 2,000 years ago, when King Fuchai built a shipyard near Fuzhou. Our province is named after King Fuchai, as are the great Fujian boats (“Fuchuan”), with their prows’ painted “dragon eyes” that enabled boats to see where they were going—which too often was straight into the mouth of a watery hell. And a few thousand years before that, the Minyue people of Fujian were the world’s first truly ocean-going explorers. The ancestors of the Austronesians, they crossed from Pingtan Island to Taiwan, and from there settled the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans, from Hawaii and Easter Island in the east to New Zealand in the south.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

950.4 BRO s

Penerbit

Singapore : Springer Nature., 2023

Deskripsi Fisik

139 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9789811980367

Klasifikasi

950.4

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

History of Asia at 1905 - 2000

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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