In my quest to cover every Chinese TWHS in the list I...wait, what? Already 2(!) reviews for Quanzhou?! I guess I don't need to add more than a thumbs up.

All jokes aside, it's no surprise Quanzhou has already been visited and reviewed due to the inscription attempt in 2018. It was first recommended not be inscribed but then overturned to have another look in 2020 (delayed until 2021 due to Covid-19). Normally the politics behind these inscriptions are not pleasant to read about because it all deals with cooperations between countries, favours (in this case Tunisia writing a referendum to have it inscribed) and plain old ass kissing. To compare, Saudi Arabia had the same situation with Al-Ahsa Oasis and after debating and all sorts of haggling within the nation's representatives it was eventually inscribed as world heritage site (referendum by Kuwait). So as you can see these games played for an inscription are ruining what was once a prestigious site that experts review for including them alongside The Great Wall, Yellowstone etc. that dilutes it into "one more won't hurt" rather than "quality of quantity". If the list grows to 2,000 in my lifetime I may just look back and see that every dust particle is inscribed. HOWEVER, in this case the advisory board got it completely wrong. You can definitely see all three criteria it aims for an inscription and I am surprised that it was viewed so badly during the advisor's visit. For me this is a WHS already.

Before I get into the sites I want to get to logistics. Quanzhou is well connected with trains, being wedged between Fuzhou and Xiamen. It also has an an airport just like the other cities. The airport is small and west of the city but has buses running towards town. Perhaps it was previously planned to have a bus running a route past the inscribed sites and with it now delayed to be inscribed they scrapped that idea, but nevertheless you can take a bus (4 kuai) to Tianhou Temple (get off one stop before the one called Tianhou unless you like walking back) and from there you can walk around the small sites or take other buses as you please. There are also many golf-cart style e-buses in the old town area that seem to follow a certain route but I never figured this out. From the old town there is naturally also a bus to Jiuri Mountain and from there yet another one to the train station - as you can see this is a great town for public buses. I don't need to mention that you can always use a taxi-hailing app if you don't feel up for buses.

I did not visit all 16 components. I don't think it's necessary to get the picture. I definitely recommend Tianhou temple and most of the other old town sites. If you feel templed out then just do a couple of these. I found the mosque more pleasant to view from the outside gate as well as being shushed away from a caretaker when trying to peek into the new mosque further in (I did not STEP in if that's what you are thinking) made me feel that it's basically just a generic mosque surrounded by some remains of columns and stones. Seeing that you must pay for entry (it's "only" 3 kuai but still) you get to see very little from the inside that makes me recommend you should skip it. The old town gives you are great idea of the amount of religion passing around the world via the maritime route.

What to do next is maybe a little tricky because they are further out of the city center and require more time to move around. I picked Jiuri Mountain because I was leaving via the train station and it's located just nearby. It was a good choice with me loving nature and all. Don't be scared by the term Mountain because it's barely 100 steps up and you do not even need to ascend far to see the wind-praying carvings. They are near the bottom of the hill and the rest of the walk, while pleasant and not even an hour round-trip doesn't show you much more about the WHS part. These carvings are recordings of the prayers and offered sacrifices for a smooth wind and safety passage of outgoing voyages.

Lastly I want to talk about the only bad things I found in Quanzhou. In 1991 a Martime Exhibition by UNESCO came to visit Jiuri. That sounds great, right? Well, what they left behind is in my opinion not so great. You see, the carvings here are ancient - 700 years old. They have history and belong to that time period. The 1991 exhibition carved their own "we were here" graffiti-style blog into the same rocks - then each member signed as if they are proud of this. Maybe I miss something but I see this as a egoistic way to show they are big enough to be allowed to scribble next to ancient carvings. I find this shameful. To try and compare: there is Aboriginal rock art in Kakadu NP, Australia. Would it be cool for UNESCO members to come along and draw a doodle next to it as well? Certainly not. What recently happened there is that modern aboriginal artists, and they aren't many of them apparently, made a new on one of the rocks. These are ancestors of the people who made the original art and they continue the tradition that belongs to Kakaku NP and the people who live there for centuries. That I'm totally ok with. Not ok is what a bunch of travelers in the name of a big organization think they should CARVE into a rock next to original carvings no matter.

So while this review now ends on a big of a sour mood I want to sum up that Quanzhou is a great day trip to view several of its sites and I'm looking forward to its official inscription. The city has already made descriptions for all the places in Chinese and English (and Arabic for the mosque), Jiuri had a small exhibition for all the sites with a map and they are basically just waiting for adding a little Unesco sign.