Wenzhou

cctv.com 12-08-2004 10:51

Nowadays when you hold a golden credit card of any kind, even going to the end of the world would not be that challenging or miraculous anymore. Neither you nor me can deny the importance of money. Since we are believers of "traveling to learn". We take this trip, coming to the legendary millionaire's hometown and learn some secret of "getting rich"!

Located in the southeastern coast of Zhejiang province, most travelers only know Wenzhou as the gateway to one of china's most famous mountains in southern china: Yandang mountain. But in recent years the city has created a new sector of tourism of its own--business tourism. Schooled MBA tourists flock here is visiting this booming town known as "the hometown of china's new rich".

New wealth is not news in booming China. What makes this isolated urban region of seven million people this remarkable really made me curious.

Beautiful, it may not. But urban legend of this city is amazing. Cut off from the rest of the country by mountains and sea -- until the 1990s, there was neither a railway nor a highway leading to Wenzhou, and traveling to Shanghai took 24 hours aboard ship then. Today, the city's wealth is even blamed for driving up the cost of housing in Shanghai, five hours north on a brand-new expressway.

Modern Wenzhou originated in desperate journeys struggled to feed itself. Dense population, barren limited land and isolated location drove many local Wenzhounses out of the hometown and even overseas to make a living, started as early as Song dynasty, more than 800 years ago. Before they leaving for a new start elsewhere, most of them prayed in the temple in the middle of Jingxinyu isle lying at the edge of the city, as their last goodbye words to the hometown. Many of them never retuned home, but if they do, they often return in style. And this of course would be the first place they would come to visit, known as returning.