Fuzhou
Fuzhou Social Welfare Institution
Fuzhou Da Dao Zhong Duan
Fuzhou, Jiangxi, China
344000
Half the Sky’s 14th Children's Center opened 6/2004
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Infant Nurture Program since June, 2004 |
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Little Sisters Preschool Program since June, 2004 |
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Youth Services Program since June, 2004 |
Fuzhou, or Linchuan, is a city of 3,700,000 located in north central Jiangxi province, south of the the province’s capital, Nanchang. An agricultural and commercial center, Fuzhou is also known for its hot springs; many of the city’s hotels claim hot spring water supplies.
The city was formerly called Fuchow or Fu-chou. Its name has been officially changed to Linchuan, to set it apart from the much better known Fuzhou nearby in Fujian Province. However, most people and local bus station signs still refer to the city by its old name, Fuzhou.
Fuzhou was the home of Wang Anshi, the famous reformist prime minister of the Song Dynasty, Zeng Gong, an influential scholar and historian of the Song Dynasty, and Tang Xianzu (1550-1616), the great Ming Dynasty dramatist.
Tang Xianzu’s masterpiece, the Peony Pavilion, is considered the finest of all Chinese legends. Hand-copied manuscripts of the play were widely read. The Peony Pavilion was especially appreciated by women, who sympathized with its heroine Due Liniang. One woman named Fang Xiaoqing, who was trapped in an unhappy marriage, became engulfed in sadness after reading the Peony Pavilion. She so identified with Du Liniang that she lost her will to live. After her death, Fang's tragic story was the subject of a popular opera.
In the legend, Du Liniang is a young girl, who is dreams of a young scholar she meets in a Peony Pavilion. Deeply moved by this dream, she takes a stroll in the garden and suddenly falls ill. She paints her portrait, writes a poem, and tells her maid to hide the portrait and the poem under a stone. Shortly after, Du Liniang dies and is buried in the garden near that stone.
Years later, a scholar named Liu Mengmei comes to town to participate in the state examinations. When he falls ill and looks for help in a small shrine, he finds the painting of Du Liniang. That night, he dreams of her; in the dream Liniang asks him to revive her. Liu Mengmei opens Du Liniang’s coffin and is able to revive her.
After passing the examination, Liu Mengmei takes the painting with him and visits Liniang's father, who accuses him of being a grave robber. Even when Liniang appears, her father does not believe she is alive. The emperor himself finally frees Mengmei and allows the lovers to marry each other.
If you adopted a child who was in a Fuzhou Half the Sky program, we will be happy to send you any progress reports with translations we may have on file. Please fill out and send us this Form so we can start processing your request.
You should also have received a Memory Book at the time of the adoption so that your child will have an additional record of her/his earliest years in our program. If you don’t read Chinese and don’t know anyone who reads Chinese, we suggest that you check with a local college to find someone who can translate it. If you did not receive your child’s Memory Book, our Beijing office will try to track it down, though occasionally there are bureaucratic glitches and the institution is unable to find the original or in even rarer cases a copy. In every case, we will do our best to retrieve the Memory Book.