Sixteen Zhangzhou Street Scenes

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Sixteen Zhangzhou Street Scenes

If you identified the location of the photos I shared last week as Zhangzhou (漳州), the southernmost prefecture-level city in Fujian province (map), treat yourself to a bowl of Zhangzhou-style duck noodle soup or whatever other Zhangzhou treat you desire. If you didn't, I still recommend trying the soup.

The coastal city borders the far better known (at least in China) city of Xiamen. By high-speed rail it is about 8 hours south of Shanghai and 3.5 hours northeast of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. When I passed through Zhangzhou over a year ago on a long-distance bus, this portion of the high-speed rail line was sadly not yet open.

Similar to what I did earlier this year with Yangjiang's Jiangcheng District in Guangdong province, I will share a set of street scenes from a central urban area in Zhangzhou's Xiangcheng District (芗城区) north of the Jiulong River. Like the Yangjiang post, the photos were all taken within an approximately 10 km² (4 sq mi) area, and I walked to all of the locations. Although they certainly are not representative of Zhangzhou as a whole, which covers an area of 12,888 km² (4,976 sq mi), they offer a brief "everyday" look at a central area in Zhangzhou and provide a bit of context for upcoming posts. And if they raise a few questions, all the better.