Tianhou Museum

This guide to the Tianhou Museum in Shenzhen opens with Zheng He, the Ming-dynasty admiral, stopping at this temple in Chiwan to pray to the sea goddess Tianhou before setting out across the Indian Ocean. It follows a storm that nearly sank his fleet, and the promise he made if his ships survived it, tracing Tianhou's own story back to a mortal woman born in Fujian in the year 960 who could read the sea and sky. Look for the ancient tree at the center of the courtyard, said to have been planted by one of the admiral's companions.