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Some 15km north of Xiamen proper, across the bridge, on the mainland, is the Jimei School Village , a site of huge significance for the local Chinese and the Fujianese in particular, as a model of what Overseas Chinese patriots are capable of when they return their money to the motherland. Chen Jiageng , or Tan Kahkee as he is known in the local dialect (1874-1961), is Fujian's most famous "returnee". Having earned his millions in Malaya, he started endowing educational institutions in the Xiamen area after the establishment of the Republic in 1911, and continued to do so for the next fifty years. As well as Xiamen University itself, Tan Kahkee's most enduring legacy is here at Jimei, where what must be the smartest high school in the country is set in a beautiful park on the seafront. You can reach Jimei by bus either from the small bus station on Siming Lu just south of Xiahe Lu (buses run every 30min and take 30-60min depending on traffic) or from outside the train station. From the Jimei bus stop you can hire a cycle-rickshaw to take you around the whole site for about Y40, otherwise it's a pleasant two-hour walk. From the main gate to the village (very close to the Jimei bus stop), the sights are about twenty minutes' walk east. The enormous Jimei High School itself, a grand Chinese-Gothic arrangement of patterned bricks and fancy windows, is the huge building facing onto the lake. Past the front of the school, bear left through a small park containing Tan Kahkee's statue and across a street at the northern end you'll see his former residence . The wing on the left contains a fairly interesting photographic record of his life, his business achievements and his patriotism, with captions in English. The ideological complications of a communist state accepting money from a millionaire capitalist are not addressed. A short walk farther east from the residence is the celebrated Ao Park , projecting right into the sea, and entered through a corridor lined with a series of stone engravings telling the stories of China's mythic ancient history.
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