Soon we found a door decorated with a bright-red-and-yellow balloon arch. We went up the small lane and saw two men placing firecrackers on the ground all the way from the street to their home at the foot of the stone wall.
The characters on the balloon archway in front of their house indicated the family’s surname as Wang, and the father told us his son had gotten married that day. The new couple would return at noon to see the relatives.
We left with an invitation to come back and meet the new couple and continued our walk, soon arriving at the South Gate of the stone wall. Just inside the wall there is a temple, richly decorated with brightly colored patterns on the roof and red couplets on the front wall. (Couplets are a pair of lines of Chinese poetry often placed beside doors.) Throngs of women were busy cleaning the floors, walls and a life-size horse sculpture in front of the temple. We entered the temple and found more people busy cleaning the stone floors, stone columns and wooden furniture inside. They told us it was a Temple of Guan Yu, a famous general in Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-280) and widely revered for his loyalty and righteousness.
Leaving the temple, we suddenly heard loud fireworks from the north. We followed the sound and saw a line of people carrying new quilts and bags. At the front, a couple walked hand in hand. We followed them through zigzag streets, found out that the man’s surname also was Wang, but not from the same group as the earlier residents we met. I asked where they would spend their honeymoon. They said they hadn’t decided Ñ they’d never felt a need to visit anywhere outside of Quanzhou.
“You have everything here: beach, seafood, good weather. So you don’t have to go anywhere else,” I said.
We saw them through the East Gate and decided to go back under the stone wall and see the Wang family we met early in the morning.
Soon we found the balloon archway and strips of red paper where the firecrackers had been. We went up the zigzag road and walked into Wang’s courtyard. Everyone looked busy, and we saw the new couple standing at the door with red couplets at their sides. It was a perfect photo of renewed life in the old town.
Along with others, we climbed to the top of the stone wall. From there, we could see clusters of stone houses inside the wall and brick four-to-five story buildings outside the wall, a sharp contrast of old and new.
We saw all the relatives of Wang gathered in the courtyard and began to eat a lunch that started with soup with fish balls.
Taking our leave, we walked toward the Temple of Guan Yu, and to its south, we entered a park with nice beach. There is a 10.8-meter-tall memorial statue of Qi Jiguang, a famous general in the Ming Dynasty who fought against invading Japanese pirates. We also found a lot of stone sculptures facing the sea and a pole marking the meteorological division of the East China and South China seas. The stone carvings show the excellency of Hui’an craftsmanship, which was listed as one of the first intangible cultural heritages of China in 2006.
The beach is a delight, with sand that is soft and white. Grilled meat is served on the beach in peak travel seasons in spring and autumn. Summer and winter are quiet and cozy instead.
While we were in the park, people in white garments came out of the East Gate. They burned colorful paper houses as tall as 2 meters for their dead relatives. The red paper houses with golden decorations and flowers turned to ashes in an instant. The relatives kowtowed toward the East Gate.
Leaving the park, we headed toward the center of the town, where we found some small shops, a market and a cinema from the 1970s. There were several halls in memory of locals’ ancestors. It’s said there are over 100 ancestral temples in the old city, and among them, the hall of Wang’s family is the most impressive.
The front gate of Wang’s ancestral temple is elaborately decorated with golden couplets carved on stone gate frame. Entering the gate, we see paintings of two traditional door gods on another door to the inside of the temple. There is a list of all the ancestor’s names and pictures of recent generations on the wall.
On the other side of the wall, we saw a series of 10 stone carvings telling the story of how the family immigrated to Chongwu.
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