Listing is sweet music for ‘piano island’
Print Edition
GULANGYU island in southeast China’s Fujian Province, which has been included on the UNESCO world heritage list, is famous for its varied architecture and multicultural history.
It also has one of the highest ratio of piano ownership in China, with nearly 600 on an island smaller than 2 square kilometers. Many celebrated musicians have come from Gulangyu, earning the island its nickname of “piano island.”
Only a six-minute ferry ride from Xiamen, Fujian’s dynamic economic and culture hub, Gulangyu is home to 20,000 residents.
A former international settlement, the island features 13 consulates, churches, hospitals, schools and police stations, built by foreign communities from the middle to late 19th century.
In the early 20th century, the island attracted overseas Chinese elites, who returned and built private residences, often with a mixture of eastern and western architectural styles.
Gulangyu has more than 2,000 intact historical buildings, making it one of the best preserved international settlements in China.
Wu Yongqi, a historian on Gulangyu, said the styles developed here affected the architecture in southern Fujian and were brought to east and southeast Asia by Chinese immigrants.
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