In Dr Scott's introduction to the island, he notes it "became notorious for heavy drinking, excessive gambling, wild nightlife and exotic bordellos." That makes a change from tunnels - off we went to explore! Read more »

This was an unexpected bonus. A tunnel runs into the hill opposite our hotel, and leads to an underground theatre!

Here's what I saw as the taxi pulled up at the hotel: Read more »

Today's Xiamen is a large Chinese city, covering most of the island. If you look at this 1945 map though, the old Amoy city was in the south-west corner of the island.

I hadn't seen this map when we visited, but luckily the standard unscientific approach took us to the same part of town: if there are winding roads on a map, they are worth checking out (modern sections tend to be built on a grid layout). Then if they are too narrow to get a car down, they are definitely worth a look.

Names

First let's clear up the various different English versions of Amoy's name.

Traditionally, though Chinese pronunciation varied according to your dialect, everyone wrote things the same way. So, the place we're talking about is 廈門. If you lived there you spoke the local dialect of Hokkien, and pronounced it something like "Amoy". If you're from Beijing you say "Xiamen", today's official name. And if you're Cantonese it sounds like "Ha-moon". Just to add to the fun, in simplified Chinese it is now written 厦门.

I'll use Amoy. Read more »

We're just back from a long weekend in Xiamen, or Amoy as it used to be called. It was opened to British trade in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking, the same treaty that ceded Hong Kong to the British. And though Amoy's international settlement never matched Shanghai or Hong Kong for size, it beats them soundly in one respect - most of the old settlement is still standing today.

Here's a summary of our weekend. I'll start with a brief introduction to where it is and its history, then cover what we saw in the old town and the international settlement (as you'll see, they were in nearby but separate locations). There's alsoa bonus entry on a tunnel network I stumbled upon, and some notes on getting there and around.

On with the history...