More on Gulangyu...

Ok, so I read a little in our Amoy Magic book on Xiamen about Gulangyu and it's history. As I mentioned the island is full of these wonderful old mansions, but all of them in varying states of disrepair. Apparently back in the early days of trade with China, and after the Chinese lost the opium wars and had to open more ports, Xiamen was one of the ports that opened. But, the foreigners that came we not allowed to live in Xiamen, or on the mainland, so they all built their homes and consulates on Gulangyu. A U.S. Consulate was built here in the 1930s with bricks that were shipped from the states.

One of the homes in better condition

But in the late 40s all those good times ended and, with money somewhat short, upkeep on these buildings stopped.

On of the crumbling buildings

One of the nice things about Gulangyu, is that it's a nice quiet walking village. There are no vehicles allowed on the island, except for a few electric carts that you can pay to cart you around when you've walked too much. The downside to no vehicles is that everything needs to be carted around by hand.

Carting stone to a construction site.

You see a lot of these carts being pulled all around the island, full of stone, brick, concrete, tools, etc. With the hills, tourists, and the narrow streets this would be a tough job.

Streets on Gulangyu

More old buildings on the island

We took more pictures of these buildings then one would have thought possible, eventually I'll get the better ones put into our Flickr site. There really is not a lot of information, at least in English, on the island, but if you are at all interested you could look quickly on wikipedia or maybe for a little on Amoy Magic.

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The island is also known as piano island, as a lot of the missionaries that first came over brought their pianos with them. Apparently it still is the greatest concentration of pianos per capita in the world with one in every five homes. You can hear people practicing when you wander the island which is a welcome break from the noise of the traffic that you normally have. There is also a piano museum on the island, Asia's largest, that we will try to make it to if we ever make it over there on a day less crowded...