| Welcome To Tim's page! | |||||||||||||||||
| Thanks | Welcome to Xiamen, China! | ||||||||||||||||
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Special thanks to fortunecity for giving me the opportunity to join hands with friends all over the world. | Welcome to my city, Xiamen! | ||||||||||||||||
| Tale of Egrets, the story of my home city | |||||||||||||||||
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My home city Xiamen, the entrance of the nation's mansion in Mandarin, has been well known for her blue sky, green mountains, clear sea waters, comfortable weather conditions, convenient sea, land and air transportation and, most important, the friendly and hardworking people. Thousands of years ago, when the aborigines set foot on this island for the first time, flocks and flocks of white egrets greeted them hospitably. The beautiful birds told them where to take shelter, where to grow rice and where to catch fish in the sea. Our ancestors lived and worked here with the egrets happily. So this island got her name, the Island of Egret. The egrets are friendly birds with snow white feathers, slender bodies, long black or yellowish beaks and long legs; besides, they may well be one of the most intelligent birds in the world. The island they made their home long ago has been indeed a paradise for them and human beings as well. Xiamen sits at the outlet of Jiulong River, or Nine Dragon River, on the coast of southeast China. The lower reach of the Jiulong River has been the 'Land of Rice and Fish', that means an area with ample agricultural products. Its upper reach has been famous for the Fujian Wulong Tea, mushrooms and other well-known local produce. This subtropical island is midway between Japan, Shanghai and Hong Kong, Singapore. It's some 250 kilometers east to Taiwan. The egrets might not know that here is an ideal location for a deep-water port. Ships of 150,000 tons may berth at the wharf of Xiamen. The municipal administration of Xiamen was set up some 600 years ago. Trade had played an important role in the development of this city. Businessmen from all over the country and the world came here, they brought various goods and cultures with them, left with everything they need and the hospitality of the local people as well. There were not always rainbows in the sky over Xiamen in the old days. The invaders from the West and the East turned this city into a troubled land over a century. Local people struggled in misery; lots of them fled this miserable island, settled down in Southeast Asia and other countries. Egrets lowered their heads and sighed in grief in those sombre days; their happy songs could not be heard any more. The founding of the People's Republic brought new hopes to Xiamen in 1949. A dyke was built which connected the island with the mainland and a railway linking the nationwide network at Yingtan in the neighboring Jiangxi province was completed in the late '50s. A number of factories were set up, Xiamen was ready to take her path of development. Unfortunately, the tension between two banks of the Strait kept this island from further development. The turmoil during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 almost paralyzed the economic development in this city. The egrets hovering in the sky, looking to the east across the Strait, had been looking forward to the reunion of their countrymen in the distance. Looking downward at their homeland, they had been expecting the spring to come. The Spring did come in the Golden October of 1976. The downfall of | |||||||||||||||||
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