We left Shantou at 8:30 and reached Alilang close to 11. I had found the place on WeChat; entry was free if you shared a post to Moments, though children still had to pay. It sits well outside Meizhou city, about half an hour by car.
Alilang is small enough to finish in an hour. A few corners are decent: a windmill field packed with colorful plastic pinwheels, a flower garden with several colors, and a patch of rapeseed flowers. They are bright and photogenic. There is also a large lawn and a fountain. Overall it is okay, somewhat like Shantou’s Danying Ecological Park, but much smaller. You are done quickly, and because it is far from the city, a special trip is not really worth it.
We drove back to Meizhou after 1 p.m., rested at the hotel, and went out at 3 for the Hakka Museum. When we arrived, the main Hakka Museum and its branch, the Huang Zunxian Memorial, were under repair. The University Presidents Hall, Generals Hall, and Famous Officials and Honest Officials Hall were open, but there was little to see: all pictures, no objects. We were out in a few dozen minutes.
Our tickets for Ketianxia were for the night tour, and entry started at 6. I had been there five years earlier, so I led Jasmine down the small path to the left of the hotel lobby from memory. After walking for a while I realized it was wrong. A guard told us the entrance was up the path on the right. Ketianxia has changed a lot. Back then it was still under construction; the Hakka town was just a short lane of a few dozen meters, and the hill behind had only a few large Buddha statues. There was not much to do. Now a commercial area has grown outside the gate, and the whole place is much bigger.
Inside, many new areas have been built, especially on the hill, with new pavilions, paths, and a small commercial street. What surprised me most was the row of Guanyin statues I remembered: grid-like rooms have now been built around them. The old open dormitory layout felt awkward; now people can stay in separate rooms without disturbing one another. The commercial street at the foot of the hill has barely changed and still sells snacks and souvenirs.
At night there was a 40-minute song-and-dance show. It was all singing and dancing, with songs in Hakka that Elsa could not understand; she could not read the subtitles either and kept asking to leave. The show was fine overall but rather boring. If we had been watching it at home on TV, we would probably have run off early.
After the show we walked out of the scenic area and went into the Venice Water City. We kept walking and looking, getting farther and farther from where we had parked. The water city has a large stretch of water and looks quite nice.
The next day we planned to go to Yannanfei, a well-known Meizhou attraction. On the way we passed the Ye Jianying Memorial and stopped. It includes the former residence and several old houses. You could see that Ye’s living conditions had not been good: a large family squeezed into simple, small rooms. The houses are not handsome and have no special features. The memorial itself was another display of pictures, not very interesting. The grounds are large, with a big lawn and a pond. It made me think that only famous people get this kind of treatment; ordinary people’s houses would have been torn down long ago.
We reached the Yannanfei tea fields at 11, with light rain starting. We walked along the main road and saw several spots that seemed almost like attractions. We eventually found a bench and had lunch. Then we kept going and found more and more places with grand names but little substance. The disappointment grew. The ticket was expensive; was there really nothing in the whole park worth seeing? We walked until 2 p.m., and the answer seemed to be yes. There was hardly a proper scenic spot in the entire area. The names were there, but the content was not. If you stood in front of a so-called attraction without reading the sign beside it, you would not even realize it was supposed to be one. Yannanfei is not a place for sightseeing or exploring; perhaps it is better for staying inside and breathing fresh air. It did not feel like a scenic area at all, more like a retreat for retired officials, and it was only a few minutes’ drive from the Ye memorial.