Kulangsu Gallery of Foreign Artifacts from the Palace Museum Collection(Gu Gong Gu Lang Yu Wai Guo Wen Wu Guan 故宫鼓浪屿外国文物馆)

This spectacular new branch of the Palace Museum in Beijing’s Forbidden City opened in May 2017, after a long, ambitious renovation of a foreign hospital from 1898 (jiu shi yi yuan 救世医院). The museum showcases 219 beautiful, unique, and interesting treasures from foreign countries that were moved here from the Palace Museum. It’s the first branch […]

Kulangsu Organ Museum (Eight Diagrams Mansion / Bagua Mansion) (Ba Gua Lou 八卦楼)

The Kulangsu organ museum’s beautiful red dome is visible from across the bay in Xiamen. The museum, housed in the old Bagua Mansion, is one of Kulangsu’s most important tourist attractions–both for its impressive collection of organs and for its stately and imposing architectural style. The Bagua Mansion, also known as Eight Diagrams Mansion, is […]

Pianist Yin Chengzong’s house (Yin Cheng Zong Zhai 殷承宗宅)

Kulangsu’s most famous pianist, Yin Chengzong, still owns and periodically visits this hilltop house. It is one of the island’s most beautiful private homes, now inhabited by the pianist’s brother, Yin Chengdian, who is a first-rate musician in his own right and the former dean of the Xiamen Music School. In 1924, Yin’s father bought the […]

Hai Tian Tang Gou Mansion (海天堂构)

Hai Tian Tang Gou Mansion was built by Philippine Chinese Huang Xiuliang and Huang Nianyi between 1920 and 1930. The mansion is a complex of five villas in symmetrical styles laid out on both sides of the Middle Villa, which is the complex’ central axis. The mansion is regarded as a perfect marriage of eastern and western […]