Haizhu Bridge

This guide to Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou opens with a 1932 rumor that sent mothers along the Pearl River locking their children in at night, after word spread that strongman Chen Jitang's fortune tellers had demanded a human pillar to anchor the new bridge's foundations. It follows the old practice behind that fear, the panic it fed in a city already jumpy about kidnapping gangs, and the real engineering story alongside it, a German-designed, British-steel, American-built span that opened in February 1933 to crowds along both banks. You'll hear how war later tore into the structure itself. Listen for the ironwork underfoot as you cross.