’Gate on the sea’
3 min readIt took only 10 years for the earth-shaking changes to transpire.Today，the’gateon the sea’is connected seamlessly with the archipelago proper and the inland by two beautiful spans on the East China Sea，becoming the bridgehead of one of the world’s architectural wonders and the frontline of China’s new millennium of marine economy.
The word’new’，however，is a rather vague summary of the epoch-making significance of the rise of Jintang in the 2lst century.The sea-spanning glory is only the warming up of the island’s resumed potency.Behind the prosperity of Jintang that started from the ancient times is the enterprise and acumen of the locals that made this water-locked island the archipelago’s granary.The weather-beaten wharf of Ligang in the northwest of Jintang was formerly called’liegang’，meaning’port of hunters’and suggestive of the wisdom and bravery of Jintang people.
’Port of hunters’
In the Guangxu years of the Qing Dynasty，carpenters from the inland settled down in Ligang.They thrived in their adopted homeland and built the area into a scenic，busy street flanked by willow trees.The 400-meter long stretch，divided into three sections by two lovely bridges，blossomed into a residential and shopping haven that looked like a scaled-down version of the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival（a masterpiece by Northern Song painter Zhang Zeduan that captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital，Bianjing）.The festive spirit and worldly commotion of the’port of hunters’lasted for hundreds of years.
The seeds of handicraft tradition sown by the Qing Dynasty carpenters blossomed into the carpentry boom of Jintang from the late 1970s to the 1990s, when the country’s most sought-after carpenters and painters were from Jintang.
Born with an inquiring mind and deft hands, Jintang people have never been confronted by scarcity of land. The Lujia’ ao area at the foot of the Immortals Hill has long been a prolific production base of fritillary bulb, the extracts of which are used in traditional Chinese medicine as cough remedies, often in formulations combined with extracts of loquat Over the past four decades, Jintang has been a hotbed of private capital entrepreneurial undertakings. The island’s first generation of screw manufacturers in early 1980s laid a solid industrial foundation for the long-standing economic vitality of Jintang. Ever since a local technician known as He Shijun made the first molding machine screw in Jintang, the island known as China’s ‘ screw capital’ is worthy of its name. Powered by more than 600 screw manufacturers of all sizes Jintang boasts the only screw and barrel quality inspection center and more than 70% of the national output, making itself a must-see industrial tourism destination.
The southwestern corner of Jintang is sizzling with the operation of the first two 70,000 DWT container berths of the Dapukou Container Terminal that connects Zhoushan with the world through 12 international routes. The interaction of the terminal with the Mu’ ao Wharf shows the immeasurable potential of Jintang acting as a key player in the logistical future of Zhoushan.
The rosy future of Jintang also includes the China-Australia Modern Industrial Park-Zhejiang Province’s second state-level international industrial cooperation park-launched in May,2016 and involving a total capital input of more than 10 billion yuan. The focus on animal protein import processing makes the park a trendsetter in the development of all industrial clusters across Zhejiang Province, lighting up the entrepreneurial passion of all Jintang people.
The blueprint of Jintang can also be viewed at the peak of the Immortals Hill. The mythical immortals are nowhere to be found, but the view of the seascape and the five bridges at the mountaintop is beyond description. Viewed from the Gonghou Hill in the northwest, Jintang Bridge looks like a flying dragon catching its breath onthe Grey Turtle Sea under a vast deck of clouds. It takes such an immersion in the gallant sight to truly understand the immense implications and solemnity of the ‘ millennium dream’ of restoring marine glory shared by all islanders in Zhoushan.
