There are moments in travel when the surface of experience parts, and something deeper — something almost ancestral — stirs within. My recent journey to Xiamen and Quanzhou was filled with such moments. Two, in particular, stood out: a dinner with Chef Yu Jian Linyu on Gulangyu Island, and a visit to the Quanzhou Maritime Museum. These were not merely sightseeing stops. They were mirrors.

Our approach to Xiamen set the tone. Through the airplane window, as we descended through interspersed clouds, we spied a coastline of deep, almost bottle-green seas crisscrossed with elegant bridges, while boats of every size bobbed lazily on the gentle waves. It was a soft landing into beauty. That evening, as the eastern sky darkened and the city lights began their nightly performance, nature offered the finest spectacle: a full moon, a perfect sphere, casting magnificent beams of moonlight across the harbor that seemed to illuminate a path directly to our room.

Xiamen's coastline and harbor offer a glimpse of its unique charm by day and night. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Chef and the Storyteller

On the second evening, we took the ferry to Gulangyu Island — that car-free enclave of colonial mansions and winding lanes where the sea peeks through at every turn. We came seeking a restaurant called Meet Lin, and the search itself was a pleasure: meandering through tree-lined streets, up and down steep hills, with the South China Sea glinting through the foliage.

We arrived to find a restaurant of extraordinary intimacy — no more than twelve covers. The decor was warm, filled with memorabilia and knick-knacks that told many stories. And there, greeting us himself, was Chef Yu Jian Linyu.

What followed was not a meal. It was a conversation. Each signature dish was a vignette. As we ate, Chef Yu explained the history of each creation — their culinary and cultural sources, the traditions from which they emerged.

He offered a reflection I have carried with me since. Paraphrasing his words: "Delicious food makes life more enjoyable. The interplay and emotional exchange between people, food, and the environment results in these unique culinary creations."

Fujian delicacies, including Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, a luxurious traditional soup made with a rich variety of premium ingredients, and fresh seafood specialties. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In that moment, I was reminded that food, in an ancient culture, is a sacrament of connection. Chef Yu's kitchen was not so different from my mother's kitchen, in the sense that it is a place where memory, identity, and love are kneaded into every dish. The ingredients differed. The language differed. But the resonance was the same.

Dr Max Caruso with Chef Yu Jian Linyu at Meet Lin, Gulangyu — where every dish is a vignette. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Museum and the Message

The following day, we travelled to Quanzhou, about an hour from Xiamen. This city is significant: the starting point of the ancient maritime Silk Road, a place visited by Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta. At its height, it was a melting pot of cultures and religions, a UNESCO World Heritage City that embodied the meeting of worlds.

But it was the Quanzhou Maritime Museum that I found to be so fascinating. Among its wonderful installations, I found a quote that struck me with the force of revelation:

"Peace and Friendship, Cultural Dialogue, Looking Back on the Past, Looking Forward to the Future."

I paused, reading those words again and again, reflecting on the current challenges we face in our world.

Dr Max Caruso at the Quanzhou Maritime Museum. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A Brief Bridge

Born in Rome but raised in Australia, I have always felt like a carrier of deep time in a land that prized the new. I came to call this search my pursuit of ancient resonance, the quiet recognition that some civilizations share a conversation with millennia. That recognition crystallized when I built my life with my Shanghainese wife and found myself at home in Shanghai. The cuisine, the family rituals, the layers of history in every street corner — they felt not foreign, but deeply familiar.

In Quanzhou, at the Maritime Museum, I saw that ancient resonance on a grand scale. Here was a city that had once been the crossroads of the world, where merchants from Arabia, Persia, India, and Southeast Asia exchanged not only goods but ideas, faiths, and ways of life. The museum's quote was not nostalgia. It was a blueprint for how civilizations can endure.

The Quiet Days

The final days of our journey were deliberately unhurried. We rested, read, and simply enjoyed the breathtaking views from our hotel, with its uninterrupted 360-degree panorama. Sometimes, the change in environment is a holiday in itself, a lesson I am learning to embrace. We did not need to chase sights; we needed to absorb, to be together sharing those sacred moments in our time.

Dr Max Caruso writes in his journal, framed by the brilliant, cloudless expanse of Xiamen's bottle-green sea. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Two very different experiences in Fujian, yet they spoke a similar language. Chef Yu's dinner was intimate, a reminder that the deepest cultural connections are often made across a table, through food and story. The Maritime Museum was grand, a reminder that the civilizations we inherit are not monuments, but living rivers that continue to flow through us.

In both, I found echoes of my own journey in life.

Chef Yu said that the interplay between people, food, and the environment results in unique creations. I would expand on that. The interplay between people, culture, and history results in unique lives. And when two ancient civilizations recognize each other across the table, or across the centuries, something extraordinary happens. The splinter of Rome I carry from my own past ... I place into the deep, flowing river of Chinese civilization, where it is absorbed. The two ancient cultures recognized each other, and in many ways ... I am whole.

The author is the co-principal of Wuxi United International School, a self-described son-in-law of Shanghai, and a Roman (an Italian)-Australian educator who has spent three decades building bridges between civilizations.