Gold Is A Many Splendored Thing

The treasures of an old center of imperial power and opulence go on display in a modern-day economic powerhouse

As surprising as it may seem, Hong Kong and the province of Shaanxi, 1,500 kilometers to the northwest, have a common heritage: the two places were at the crossroads of international exchanges, cultural and commercial.

Of course there have been differences, too. Shaanxi's heyday was between the 7th and 10th centuries as a powerful Tang Empire ruled China and many of its current surrounding regions from the province. Hong Kong, a speck in the South China Sea, would not burnish its credentials as a financial powerhouse until more than a millennium later, a century after the British colonized the island in the mid-19th century.