Jianyang District 建阳区

Setting and landscape

The Chongyang (崇阳溪) and Mayang (麻阳溪) streams meet in the urban area, and the Nanpu stream (南浦溪) crosses the district from north to south. Wuyishan city lies to the north, Jian'ou (建瓯) and Shunchang to the south, and Shaowu and Guangze to the west. In Huangkeng (黄坑), the 19-square-kilometre Dazhulan (大竹岚) area forms part of the core of the Wuyishan nature reserve and is known for collecting natural-history specimens.

History

A county was first carved out of Jian'an here in 205, making Jianyang one of the five oldest counties in Fujian. In 282 it took the name Jianyang, glossed by the district as "the city on the sunny side of the mountains". From the Song onward Masha (麻沙) and Shufang (书坊) were known across China for woodblock printing, their "Jianben" (建本) books travelled far, and the area was one of the three printing centres of the Song. Zhu Xi settled at Kaoting (考亭) in his later years to teach. The forensic pioneer Song Ci (宋慈) was born at Tongyou (童游) in 1185 and wrote the "Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified" (《洗冤集录》). Jianyang became a county-level city in 1994 and a district of Nanping in March 2015.

What to see

The Jian kiln site and the Tomb of Zhu Xi (朱熹墓) are national protected sites; the tomb is at Jiufeng village (九峰村) in Huangkeng. The kiln made black-glazed bowls sent to the Song court as tribute, and the firing technique for Jian ware (建盏) is on the national intangible cultural heritage list. The site of the Kaoting Academy (考亭书院) is on the edge of town, and Song Ci's tomb is in Chongluo (崇雒乡). At Mount Taiyang (太阳山) in Shufang, which housed the Fujian provincial Communist Party committee in 1941–1943, there is a revolutionary history memorial park.

Food and local products

Shuiji bianrou (水吉扁肉) are pork wontons whose filling is pounded with a wooden pestle rather than chopped, then served in bone broth with spring onion. Masha is known for Caijia meat pies (蔡家肉饼), oval pastries filled with sugar, sesame and pork leaf fat, and mazi guo (麻滋粿) is glutinous rice pounded with a wooden mallet and dusted with sugar and sesame. Jianyang jieyou citrus (建阳桔柚), Jianyang white tea and Xiaohu bayberries (小湖杨梅) carry national geographical-indication protection.

Highlights

• Jian kiln site 建窑遗址: National protected site where black-glazed tribute bowls were made for the Song court.
• Kaoting Academy site 考亭书院: Where Zhu Xi settled to teach in his later years.
• Tomb of Zhu Xi 朱熹墓: National protected site at Jiufeng village, Huangkeng.
• Shuiji bianrou 水吉扁肉: Wontons with a pestle-pounded pork filling in bone broth.