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Dahao

Dahao is located in the middle part of Haojiang District, which belongs to Shantou. The east of Dahao is connected with Guang’ao Street and the west of it extends to the Dahao section of Shenshan Expressway. In the west, Dahao adjoins Shantou bay bridge. The Haojiang river is running through the south of Dahao. Dahao covers an area of 20.2 square kilometers. The total population is up to 73 thousand people. Among them, the Overseas Chinese, the Compatriots of HongKong, Macao and Taiwan take up nearly 30 thousand of all the population. The district government lies in here and it is the political, economic and cultural center of the whole district.

History of Dahao District
Dahao District got its name for Dahao Mountain and it original belonged to Chaoyang county. In 1958, Dahao District was designated as a suburb of Shantou, which was called “Dahao Commune”. In 1961, Dahao District belonged to Chaoyang county again, but in 1974 again was as a suburb of Shantou. In 1980, It renamed Dahao Town. In 1984, Shantou formally established Dahao District. In 2003, Haojiang District was established, and then Dahao District had gradually been merged with Haojiang District.

Climate
Dahao abuts the Tropic of Cancer, and it belongs to subtropical monsoon climate. It is a mild climate with an average annual temperature 22 degrees celsius, four distinct seasons and abundant rainfall.

Language
Most of the young people in Dahao can speak both Cantonese and Chaoshan dialogue, while the older generation tend to speak Chaoshan dialogue more often.

Tourist Attraction
Dahao is a popular tourist resort of Shantou all year round. There are many scenic spots like “Qing Yunyan Resort” (青云岩风景区），“Beishan Bay Resort” (北山湾度假区）and the largest mangrove ecological zone of China. Also, the “Qing Yun Monastery” (青云禅寺）and the “Dahao Ancient City” (达濠古城）which were built in Ming-Qing dynasty are the famous cultural attractions.

Beishan Bay Resort

Beishan Bay Resort, built in 1993, is located in the northeast of Dahao Peninsula. It covers 4.1 square kilometers surrounded by mountains. To face the fierce competition in tourism market and attract more tourists, local government has invested about one million yuan to repair and improve the facilities of Beishan Bay Resort. Now, by the beach, there are lots of mountainous villa - hotels for tourists to enjoy the beautiful sea view. Many local family usually spend the holiday here, in which it is full of life vitality.

Dahao Ancient City

Built in Qing Dynasty, Dahao Ancient City was labeled as Guangdong Provincial Cultural Relics in 2010, which is only 0.014 square kilometers even smaller than a football field. However,as an old Chinese saying goes “A sparrow may be small, but it has all the vital organs”（麻雀虽小，五脏俱全）, Dahao Ancient City is the only well-preserved ancient city in China. It was original used as a fender wall to prevent the invasion of pirate and flood. In Qing Dynasty, there was just a 100-meter-long and 3-meter-wide road going through the whole city. After the founding of New China, Dahao Ancient City was rebuilt and gradually shifted from a military defense city to a tourism city. Today, this ancient city has become a tourist spot. With some newly-built theaters, open stages and basketball courts, it is also a cultural activities center of Haojiang District.

Local Food
Dahao snacks has won a good reputation at home and abroad. Among them, Dahao Fish Balls and the Rice Pastry are really popular.


 * Dahao Fish BallFishball Noodles.jpg

Dahao Fish Ball has earned a high repute either domestic or overseas. The custom of eating fish ball originated around the Spring and Autumn Period. At that time, a king called Chu Pingwang(楚平王）liked eating fish very much. However, Chu was a cruel king and once a fishbone stuck in his throat, he would order to kill the cook. Many cooks died because of that. Until one day, a new cook came up with an idea, that was to separate the fishbone from the fish, then shaped the meat mud into round balls, which were the fish ball. Chu really appreciated the fishballs. As time goes on, the fish balls have been passed down and have become the local snacks. Fish balls can be deep-fry or as a popular food for soup or barbecue.


 * Dahao Rice PastryPuffed rice cakes.jpg

Dahao Rice Pastry is famous for its special taste and ways of making. It has a crumbly texture with a strong flavour. “Zhang Kaihe”(张开合） is the most well-known store in making Dahao Rice Pastry with a long history. Because of wise management and highly sophisticated making methods, the Rice Pastry of “Zhang Kaihe”(张开合） has won the domestic and abroad market. The Rice Pastry is mainly made of glutinous rice, sugar, malt sugar and lard. Firstly, boiling down the glutinous rice and drying in the sun. After removing the impurities of the glutinous rice, then putting it and the lard together into a pan and bringing slowly to the boil. Finally, adding both malt sugar and sugar into the pan, together making them into fillmass. The secret of the making process lies in the well-controlled of the heat, because too low and too high temperature would easily influence the final quality of the flavor. Excessively high temperature will make the rice taste too soft, while too low temperature would cause the rice taste too hard.

Industry
For the past few years, Dahao has achieved great success in local industry. It focus on developing the local industry, especially traditional industry like traditional craft products. Up to now, Dahao totally has 42 enterprises which engage in traditional craft production. Among them, 15 enterprises have owned the right to import and export. These enterprises have abundant unique experience in shaping and promoting their brand images. Also, the traditional craft products always win the favor of many foreign merchants in some trade fairs and are sold far to more than 40 countries of Europe, Japan and Southeast_Asia.