Quanzhou

Quanzhou is one of the twenty-four famous historic cultural cities for Liyuan Opera, Puppet Show, Gaojia Opera and notable sites such as Kaiyuan Temple,  Ashab Mosque, Scholar Street, Fengze Square and The Embassy Lounge, which acts as a platform for mixing traditional Chinese art with modern building techniques and designs. It also acts as the unofficial headquarters for the expats of Quanzhou.    

The city was once the eastern terminus of the Maritime Silk Road and home to a large international community, mostly Arabs but also including Persians, Indians and others. The English word "satin" comes from "Zaiton", the Arabic name for Quanzhou, the port from which that fabric first reached the West.

Marco Polo sailed home from Quanzhou. He described it as the world's busiest port, with Alexandria second. After the emperor cut off foreign expeditions, destroyed the records and let the great ships rot in the 1420s, Quanzhou declined considerably. Today, it is less well-known than Fuzhou or Xiamen, but it definitely has its own attractions, notably interesting architecture and good shopping.

In the city downtown, there are many new 4 to 6 floor buildings with the traditional Chinese tile roofs with points on the corners. Near the old mosque there are new buildings with Islamic themes in the architecture. The rebuilding of the Zhongshan Road shopping area got a UNESCO award for heritage preservation, and Quanzhou got an international award in a contest for most livable cities in 2003, neighboring Xiamen had won the previous year.