Xianglu Bay

2 min read

Xianglu (“Incense Burner’) Bay forms the visual core of the city’s captivating”love curve’-embracing the “Shell”, the Zhuhai Museum Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. Here, the former glory of the Xiangzhou Port, designated briefly as a tax-free commercial port at the end of the Qing Dynasty and then continuing to serve as a key fishing center for decades, is still tangible. In the old times, it was from here that the local fisherfolk set off on regular pilgrimages to the Xianglu Cave to make offerings and seek blessings, hence the name of the bay. The hill where the cave is located cuts straight into the sea, making the bay look like a water chestnut.

The sleepy, off-white sand beach that originally was part of the bay’s unique allure was restored in a campaign starting in 2015 to bring the ‘roots of the Xiangshan culture’ back into the life of today’s people of Zhuhai.he “Little Mermaid”of Zhuhai, a 9.9-meter-tall granite statue by renowned sculptor, Pan He, has come to constitute an important part of the city’s growing identity and sense of place for residents as well as visitors when they think of Zhuhai and the “pearly sea”. Depicting a fishing girl, the sculpture rises gracefully on a rock by the waterside, placed perfectly in the picturesque Xianglu Bay, harboring the “golden section” of the Love Promenade.

The folktale behind the statue describes a fairy maiden who is so struck by the local beauty that she disguises herself as a mortal fishing girl, joining in the daily chores of mending nets and searching for pearls, and doing her best to settle into life on dreamy Xianglu Bay. Eventually falling in love with a local boy who, dared on by bad influences, forces her to remove her Immortal Bracelets, this daughter of the Sea Dragon King dies immediately. Seeking the help of Jiuzhou the Elder, a life-restoring herb is found and the grateful couple, finding a huge pearl, present it to him in thanks. This, of course, is the pearl-symbol of Zhuhai-that the statue bears aloft.