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FUJIAN , on China's southeastern coast, is well off the beaten track for most Western travellers, which is a pity because the province possesses not only a wild mountainous interior, but also a string of old ports, including Xiamen , China's most attractive and interesting coastal city. From Hong Kong the well-trodden routes head directly west towards Guilin, or north to Shanghai, but a detour to Xiamen makes an excellent introduction to mainland China - boats from Hong Kong come here, as does a spur of China's rail network. Culturally and geographically, the province splits into distinct halves. One is made up of large, historical seaports and lush, semi-tropical coastal stretches, whose sophisticated population enjoy warm sun and blossoming trees even in January. The other is a rugged, mountainous and largely inaccessible interior, freezing cold in winter, home to around 140 different local dialects and with a history of poverty and backwardness - it is said that when the Red Army finally arrived in the 1960s they found communities unaware that the Qing dynasty had been overthrown. However, while inland Fujian knew very little of China, contacts between the coastal area and the outside world had been flourishing for centuries. In the Tang dynasty, the port of Quanzhou , considered on a par with Alexandria as the most international port in the world, teemed with Arab traders, some of whose descendants still live in the area today. So much wealth was brought into the ports here that a population explosion led to mass emigration, and large parts of the Malayan Peninsula, the Philippines and Taiwan were colonized by Fujianese. In the early eighteenth century this exodus of able-bodied citizens became so drastic that the imperial court in distant Beijing tried, ineffectually, to ban it. Today little seems to have changed. The interior of Fujian remains largely unvisited and unknown, with the exception of the scenic Wuyi Shan area in the northwest of the province, and the Hakka regions around southwesterly Yongding . The coast, however, is booming, with colossal investment pouring in both from Hong Kong and, in particular, from neighbouring Taiwan , many of whose citizens originate from the province and speak the same dialect, Minnan Hua. The cities of Fuzhou and Xiamen are among the wealthiest in the country, particularly Xiamen, whose clean beaches, charming streets and shopping arcades, it's hoped, bear the face of Chinese cities to come. The proximity of Taiwan to Xiamen accounts not only for the rapid economic development and the proliferation of first-class tourist facilities, but also for the occasional outbreak of tension, such as during the 1996 Taiwanese presidential election when the mainland authorities suddenly decided to hold large-scale military exercises just off the Taiwanese coast, as a gentle reminder to the Taiwanese people not to vote for separatist candidates.
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