Editor's note: A number of Chinese cities have maintained their cultural memory in the form of historical neighborhoods that have only added to their multilayered charm and vigor with the passage of time. China Daily is taking readers on a journey to some of these timeless areas, where President Xi Jinping has left his footsteps and remarked on the preservation and vitalization of heritage. In this installment, we wander about the Sanfang Qixiang neighborhood in downtown Fuzhou, sheltered by luxuriant banyan trees and immersed in a cultural atmosphere that helped nurture the course of modern China.

The densely packed, historical buildings, with their mottled white walls and green moss on their black tiles, red lanterns hanging from their eaves and swaying in the wind, have a way of luring visitors into a sense of anachronism at Sanfang Qixiang.

The historical neighborhood's 200-odd ancient buildings, with their Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasty elements, fan out like a fishbone, creating mazelike lanes and alleys that constitute the fabric of the 40-hectare complex in downtown Fuzhou, capital of East China's Fujian province.