Fujian Province, 593km (371 miles) SE of Wuyi Shan, 109km (68 miles) N of Xiamen
Quanzhou was once Zaytun, "one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce," according to Marco Polo. "Twice as great as Bologna," said Franciscan friar Odoric da Pordenone, who was in China from 1323 to 1327. "The harbour of Citong is one of the greatest in the world -- I am wrong; it isthegreatest. I have seen there about an hundred first-class junks together; as for small craft, they were past counting," said Moroccan Ibn Battuta, who visited the area in 1345 to 1346. The Franciscan bishop of Zaytun wrote of Genoese merchants in 1326, and the city had other foreigners, including many Arabs.
But after the Ming expulsion of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in 1368, China gradually closed itself up, and by the time of Europe's next contact, via the Portuguese in the 16th century, Zaytun had withered. In the 19th and 20th centuries, while almost all its neighbors became treaty ports with resident foreigners and trading, Quanzhou was overlooked.
Today Quanzhou's center has been overtaken by a different kind of commerce, mainly cheap sneakers and plastic sandals that smell like mustard gas. The suburbs are filled with factories and white-tiled blocks of apartments. The downtown area is even more depressing, with Wenling Nan Lu, the main drag, consisting primarily of karaoke clubs interspersed with sleazy short-time hotels, along with a few large brothels thinly disguised as hotels. That said, Quanzhou's interesting history is now receiving more of the attention it deserves, with two new excellent museums and a host of attractions to see outside the town.