Qualla: Zhuhai Fisher Girl

Zhuhai Fisher Girl: Introduction

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Vmenkov, CC BY-SA 3.0. She stands on a rock at the water's edge, trouser leg rolled high, a fishnet draped across her shoulders, both hands lifting a pearl toward the sky. The Zhuhai Fisher Girl has occupied Xianglu Bay since 1982, and in that time she has become something the people who commissioned her couldn't have fully anticipated: not just a civic landmark, but the city's face. Before Zhuhai was a Special Economic Zone — before the development money, before the airport, before the highway bridges — this stretch of the Pearl River Delta coast was, as the sculptor later described it, replete with wormwood and undergrowth. The statue arrived before the city did.

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Image: User:Vmenkov | CC BY-SA 3.0

Zhuhai Fisher Girl: A Celestial Daughter in Disguise

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Vmenkov, CC BY-SA 3.0. The legend behind the statue exists in multiple versions, but one runs like this: the daughter of the Dragon King visited the Pearl River delta, fell in love with the beauty of the Zhuhai region, and disguised herself as an ordinary fisherwoman. She lived among the people there, ...

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Image: User:Vmenkov | CC BY-SA 3.0

Zhuhai Fisher Girl: The Sculptor and the Controversy

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brücke-Osteuropa, Public domain. Pan He was commissioned to create the statue ahead of Zhuhai's formal designation as a Special Economic Zone. The commission itself was not without tension — the cost was considered controversial at the time, and early design proposals leaned toward male imagery rather than the f...

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Image: Brücke-Osteuropa | Public domain

Zhuhai Fisher Girl: Recognition and a Companion Piece

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brücke-Osteuropa, Public domain. In 2005, China Post issued a commemorative stamp titled "Beautiful Zhuhai" to mark the 25th anniversary of Zhuhai's designation as a Special Economic Zone. The Fisher Girl was its image — a confirmation that the statue had become inseparable from the city's identity in the decade...

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Image: Brücke-Osteuropa | Public domain

Zhuhai Fisher Girl: The View from Xianglu Bay

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today the statue stands on its boulder in the bay, accessible by a boardwalk along the shore that allows visitors close views from the water's edge. The surrounding area — once overgrown, as the sculptor noted — is now one of the more developed stretches of Zhuhai's coastline, wi...

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Image: N509FZ | CC BY-SA 4.0