Small as it is, the province known to many Chinese as Min, and Fujian to the rest of the world, is not hard to find in an atlas of China, for it is not tucked away in the heart somewhere, but lies instead on a perimeter. Indeed the fact that it is located on a periphery lapped by the sea is one of Fujian’s chief characteristics, setting it on its path to maritime trade. One of those pithy phrases to which the Chinese are much given says as much: ‘Sea,’ it tells you, ‘is paddy to the Fujianese.’