老外看老鼓浪屿--Timeless bridges

        对我来说，福建的石桥有一种难以描述的魔力。桥头带有屋顶的关卡里，矗立着一尊巨大的石头像。它就是800多年前的造桥者本人。这些石桥自从建成之后，功能一直没有任何变化。

    —— 麦肯兹·格瑞芙  1956年

    For me, the Roman coliseum rises yawning like an empty wasps’ nest; life has gone from it. Even in Lucca, whose coliseum is a teeming hive of cell-slums, built with the help of Lombardic bricks and Romanesque hewn stones, builders and users are buried in history -- remembered it is true, but as a legend.
    But across the great stone Fukienese bridges the people swarmed, thinking, acting, writing, talking, exactly as their forebears had done for more than seven hundred years. The stream of pole-carriers, litter-bearers, pedestrians, flowed unbroken throughout the centuries, the strong tide of life undiminished, undiluted; an endurance so close-textured, so ubiquitous that, living in China, one accepted in and only afterwards was amazed... 
    The great bridges of Fukien had an indescribable fascination. [...] At the roofed gateway sat a massive stone figure, the twelfth-century builder himself. When we saw them, their function had not altered in any way since they had been built.
    －－ Averil McKenzie－Grieves， 1956