Past and present stand side by side. [Photo by Chen Yingjie for China Daily]

A bridge of trade

The tide still rises and falls, day after day, in front of the Estuary and Shihu stone docks, which no longer receive sailors from afar. Liusheng and Wanshou pagodas remain, but today's cargo ships do not need them to navigate.

Still, visiting these sites is like a pilgrimage to the past and a journey to reconstruct the full picture of a trade system.

For its protection, no motor vehicle is allowed to pass over Luoyang Bridge, about 10 kilometers away from downtown Quanzhou. It is quiet now, but it is easy for today's visitors to imagine the glorious heyday of the 731-meter-long bridge with its 47 grand arches, and 968-year history.

"In its time, it was a super construction over the sea and represented the country's highest level of bridge-building techniques and wisdom," says Wu Yujuan, director of Quanzhou Cultural Heritage Conservation and Research Center.

Wu says local people invented a method to cultivate oysters on the foundations of the bridge to cement the construction as glue. Consequently, in ancient times, fishing them from water was strictly prohibited by local government.