A Study In Haikou Ancient Town’s Cultural History

Haikou town is located in the northeast of Fuqing city, built in the Northern Song dynasty. As early as the Tang dynasty, it is a place of strategic importance off the coast of Fujian, and Haikou town got its name because of pocketing "the sea of Dragon River". Besides the beautiful scenery, the rich traditional culture of Haikou town also worth studing.The ancient town’s traditional culture involved in political, economic and cultural changes and continuance, it is a hub of the evolution in the Chinese traditional culture. In recent years, the academic community began to pay attention to the historical changes and cultural protection of famous ancient town. With the trend of refinement in research of the town, scholars hope to explore the meaning and strategies of protecting and rebuilding ancient villages through multi-faceted research of the ancient towns.This paper take Haikou town in Fuqing city as the research object, referring to some local catalogues such as 《The catalogue of Fuqing city》,《The Haikou catalogue》, as well as 《The new Ruiyan catalogue》, which is divided into four sections in studying the history and culture of Haikou.This article is divided into three parts, the first is the introduction, which describes the basic information of the famous ancient town in China and part of the ancient towns in Fujian, plus the object of the study, the research methods and so on.The second part is divided into four chapters. The first chapter starts by tracing the origins of historical culture in the ancient town of Haikou trying to show the prosperity and tragic history of the ancient town Haikou by outline the basic information of it, including the pattern of two towns and one city in Haikou history; ancient bridge in Song Dynasty; ancient streets and graves. Based on a lot of the Chinese local catalogues, combine with field visit, the second chapter analyzes the cultural characteristics of folk beliefs in Haikou, through exploring ancient religious sites and ancestral cultures of Haikou town, Chapter three describes the education and the historical celebrity of Haikou. In the History of Haikou, it has a rich historical and cultural heritage, with which it cultivated a large number of historical and cultural celebrities. Although the prosperity of Haikou has gone because of catastrophe, leaving the buildings disappearing from the earth, its spirit still influences many great people with lofty ideals from one generation to another in the development of history. According to the historical data, such as the 《The Haikou catalogue》, Chapter four combs the folklore about Haikou, trying to resolve the formation and significance of the legend from the perspective of folklore.The third part is a conclusion, which summarizes the point of view in the whole text, and points out the significance and the purpose of this article. Haikou ancient town had a glorious history before, which gave birth to a splendid culture.But it increasingly depressed with the historical changes after300years of Qing Dynasty, the historical reasons behind which is an important reference to revive Haikou at present.