This small town hides Quanzhou's most beautiful spring scenery, taking you to enjoy a life full of poetry.

The spring breeze is flourishing, and the cherry blossom forest welcomes the flowering season. Surrounded by mountains, with a thin mist, the farm is like a fairyland. The blooming season of cherry blossoms is from February to April every year.

Nan'an Yingdu Liangshan Cherry Blossom Viewing Farm is located in Liangshan Village, Sakapu Township, Yingdu Town, Nan'an, adjacent to ‘Yun Cong Gu Shi’ – one of the ‘Seven Rocks and Eight Courtyards’ in Yingdu. Liangshan cherry blossoms cover a full 70 acres, making it a great place to view cherry blossoms. There are more than 10 varieties, including mountain cherry blossoms, Huzhou cherry blossoms, Shiro Eboshu, and peony cherry blossoms.

Across the mountains and fields, a cluster of them, a group of them – it’s a sea of cherry blossoms.

Cherry blossoms prefer sunshine and warm, humid climates and have certain cold-resistant abilities. Spring breeze, cherry blossoms bloom, as the poem says: ‘Rain sounds fine in March, cherry blossoms resemble peach blossoms.’

Someone asked: ‘Cherry blossoms and peach blossoms look very similar, how can we distinguish them?’

Cherry blossoms: They open in clusters, with notched tips on the petals, and a ring of horizontal lines on the branches. They bloom first and then grow leaves.

Peach blossoms: They open individually, with slightly pointed petals, and bloom in early spring while growing leaves.

In the sunny afternoon, after viewing the cherry blossoms in Yingdu Liangshan, you can also stroll through Yingdu Town’s Hongshi Temple. As the sun sets in the evening, the ancient buildings will be illuminated, and this ‘slow life’ will make you linger.

Wengshan Hongshi Temple is located in Nan'an Yingdu Town, built in the Ming Wanli years, it’s a shrine where the Hongshi clan, originating from Yingdu’s ‘Wengshan’, jointly enshrined the tablets of their ancestors. It is commonly known as ‘Yingdu Five Generations Shrine.’

During the Anti-Japanese War, Quanzhou Muhing School relocated to Yingdu to avoid the war, using the Hongshi Temple for school for 7 years. After the victory in the War of Resistance, in 1946, the Yingdu locals established a private school, South Ying Middle School, in Hongshi Temple.

In 1949, the CPC’s Annan Regional Committee’s working committee established a underground branch in South Ying Middle School, organized guerrilla units, and mobilized the masses to carry out armed struggle. Hongshi Temple thus became one of the revolutionary sites in old Fujian.

Time flows by, elderly residents sit on stone benches chatting, the clear river reflects the golden light in front of the temple. Silent memories are stored beneath this land, and the building is the only key to unlock them.

At night, the lights are on, shimmering and dazzling, the ancient buildings don't have the magnificent grandeur of high-rise buildings, but they have a unique rustic simplicity, it’s the ‘treasure trove’ of history, and the ‘souvenir’ of the town.

Come to Yingdu and take a walk, view flowers, view the moon, view ancient houses. In a long holiday, give yourself a ‘good reason’ not to be at home.

There is a kind of life called ‘being in Yingdu’. Here there are ancient buildings, brilliant cherry blossoms, hazy mountain scenery, and a group of interesting people.

(Shot on March 15, 2020)

(Source: Quanzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism)