Discover Xiamen
Jimei School Village
集美学村
Off the island, a whole township of schools built by the same overseas-Chinese philanthropist who founded Xiamen University, in a hybrid style of Western arcades under swallowtail Minnan roofs. Also his tomb, the Turtle Garden.
The story
What makes this place special
Jimei School Village is the collective name for the schools and cultural institutions that Tan Kah Kee (Chen Jiageng) began founding in his home town in 1913, paying for them out of his Southeast Asian business fortune — primary and middle schools, teacher training, navigation, fishery and commerce colleges. 'The early buildings of Jimei School Village and Xiamen University' were listed as a national key protected site in 2006, and the village was named in China's first list of twentieth-century architectural heritage in September 2016. The buildings define Jiageng architecture: Western-plan bodies with Chinese roofs, in red brick and granite. Nanxun Lou, completed in 1959, is the most prominent — a building on an E-shaped plan, 74 metres at its widest and 40 metres deep, and the tallest building in Fujian when it was finished. Aoyuan, the Turtle Garden, is Tan Kah Kee's own burial ground.
What you’ll discover
A whole district of school buildings rather than a single site, strung along the water at Jimei with the Dragon Boat Pool at its centre and the schools around it. Aoyuan is the set piece: a 50-metre open colonnade whose walls carry 58 carved bluestone panels of historical scenes, leading past a screen wall to Tan Kah Kee's tomb, where fifteen stone reliefs around the enclosure tell his own life story. Nearby are his former residence, the memorial museum, the Guilai garden and Jiageng Park. The view across the Dragon Boat Pool to the school roofs is the standard photograph.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- The carved stone at Aoyuan is the reason to come. Fifty-eight panels of Chinese history along the entrance colonnade and fifteen of Tan Kah Kee's own biography around the tomb — it is an entire didactic programme in stone, and visitors walk it in four minutes without reading it.
- Reserve for Aoyuan and the Tan Kah Kee Memorial Museum in advance; they operate separately from the open school district.
- Metro Line 1 goes to Jimei School Village station, and the elevated section of that line crosses the sea on the way, which is a short free sightseeing trip in itself.
- Go round the Dragon Boat Pool to photograph the school buildings from the far side; from the near side you are standing in them and see nothing.
- It is a working school district with thousands of pupils. Term-time mornings and the end of the school day are busy with children and the buildings are not open to wander into.
When to come
A weekday morning outside school rush hours, in autumn or winter. The Dragon Boat Pool view is best in late afternoon light. It is on the mainland side of the bridge, so allow a half day.
Getting around
Good in parts. The Dragon Boat Pool promenade, Jiageng Park and the approaches are flat, paved and step-free, and Aoyuan's entrance colonnade is level, so the main carved-stone sequence is accessible. The tomb enclosure and some of the garden terraces have steps, and the historic school buildings have steps at their entrances and stairs inside with no lifts. The metro station is step-free.
Worth knowing before you go
Metro Line 1 crosses the sea on a causeway to get here - sit on the right-hand side for the one over-water metro ride in China.
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