Luoyuan County 罗源县

Setting and landscape

The county is a long east-west strip bordered by Lianjiang (连江县) to the south, Gutian (古田县) to the northwest and Ningde (宁德市) to the north, and it looks across the sea to the Dongchong Peninsula (东冲半岛) of Xiapu (霞浦). Southeastern spurs of the Jiufeng Mountains (鹫峰山脉) enter from the northwest, giving a W-shaped profile of three high and two low bands. Twelve peaks pass 1,000 metres, the highest being Niumu Mountain (牛牳山) at 1,251 metres, while flat land is scarce. The coast has nine bays and twelve islands. The climate is subtropical maritime monsoon, with about 1,650 millimetres of rain a year and typhoons from July to September.

History

In 847 a northern district of Lianjiang was split off as Luoyuan, which became Yongzhen town in 861 and a county in 933. To avoid the personal name of the Song crown prince it was renamed Yongchang in 1021, and it took the name Luoyuan in 1022. In 1958 Neolithic sites were found on the outskirts of the county town and in Zhongfang (中房). The granite town wall, begun in 1499 and completed in 1579, lost its gates in 1938 and later became a ring road; only fragments survive on Fengshan hill (凤山). The county produced 221 successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations, 203 of them under the Song.

What to see

Chen Taiwei Temple (陈太尉宫) in Qianxi village (乾溪村), Zhongfang, is a national protected site. It began in 909 as the ancestral hall of the Chen family and blends building work of the Five Dynasties, Song, Ming and Qing; its main, side and front halls all have double-eaved hip-and-gable roofs.

Luoyuan is one of Fujian's main She (畲族) areas. Bajing village (八井村), 10 kilometres from the county town and more than 600 years old, is described as the first stop of the She migration into Fujian, and in 1956 it was one of the first three survey points in the national study to classify the She. Its She culture exhibition covers dress, She boxing (畲家拳) and She medicine.

Food and customs

On the Aojiu festival (拗九节), the 29th day of the first lunar month, households cook aojiu rice with glutinous rice, peanuts, red dates and brown sugar, and married daughters bring it to their parents as "filial rice". Families who have lost someone within the year may not cook it, so neighbours bring it to them.

Highlights

• Chen Taiwei Temple 陈太尉宫: Chen family hall begun in 909, now a national protected site.
• Bajing She village 八井村: She village of more than 600 years with a She culture exhibition.
• Luoyuan Bay 罗源湾: Narrow-mouthed deep-water bay between the Jianjiang and Huangqi peninsulas.
• Niumu Mountain 牛牳山: Highest peak in the county at 1,251 metres.