An island made by many worlds
Explore Gulangyu’s international settlement through its lanes, overseas-Chinese builders and the everyday work of keeping an island inhabited.
Xiamen.
Xiamen’s cultural landscape crosses water in several directions. Gulangyu gathers houses, gardens and musical institutions shaped by local residents, overseas Chinese and foreign communities. Jimei gives educational ambition an architectural form, while Zhongshan Road brings commerce beneath the shelter of its arcades. Nanputuo sustains religious practice and study; a bowl of shacha noodles opens another story of travel and adaptation. These places make a city best understood through people’s choices: what they brought home, built, taught, cooked and continued to care for.
Xiamen
Who keeps Gulangyu sounding?
Meet Gulangyu’s musical culture through family practice, instrument repair and performances that connect organs, chamber music and Chinese instruments.
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The school town built across an ocean
Explore Jimei School Town through Tan Kah Kee’s educational ambitions, overseas connections and an architectural landscape made for learning.
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Under the upper floor
Walk Xiamen’s Zhongshan Road through its qilou arcades, maritime connections and the changing threshold between shops, homes and pavement.
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A port in a bowl
Follow Xiamen’s shacha noodles from sauce and noodle pot to the wider maritime connections that shape a flexible coastal food culture.
ReadXiamen
Gulangyu
An island settlement where migration, architecture, gardens and music meet at the scale of a lane.
Jimei School Town
Tan Kah Kee’s educational vision takes form in a school town shaped by overseas experience and local architectural traditions.
Nanputuo Temple
A living Buddhist institution understood through devotion, study, service and vegetarian cooking.
Zhongshan Road
Xiamen’s arcaded commercial street links the port’s wider networks with the sheltered passage beneath an upper floor.
Photo credits and rights
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Sunlight Rock rises above Gulangyu, with Xiamen across the water.厦门市鼓浪屿文化旅游发展中心 · Rights status unspecified Photo source ↗ Original aspect ratio retained. Display copies resized only when needed; no enlargement, crop or retouching.
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The Organ Art Center on Gulangyu.厦门市鼓浪屿文化旅游发展中心 · Rights status unspecified Photo source ↗ Original aspect ratio retained. Display copies resized only when needed; no enlargement, crop or retouching.
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The gateway to Jimei School Village, Xiamen.厦门市文化和旅游局, credited by 闽南文化生态保护区（厦门市） cultural platform · Rights status unspecified Photo source ↗ Original aspect ratio retained. Display copies resized only when needed; no enlargement, crop or retouching.
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The arcaded shopfronts of Zhongshan Road in Xiamen.Xiamen Municipal People's Government · unknown Photo source ↗ Original aspect ratio retained. Display copies resized only when needed; no enlargement, crop or retouching.
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A bowl of seafood shacha noodles in Xiamen.Windmemories, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Original aspect ratio retained. Display copies resized only when needed; no enlargement, crop or retouching.
