Xikou, about sixty kilometres south of Ningbo in the Siming Mountains, is the birthplace of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader who ruled China from 1928 to 1949 and then governed Taiwan until his death in 1975. The town preserves his family compound (Fenghaotang), his mother's tomb, the school he attended, and the ancestral hall of the Chiang family in a state of careful — if politically complicated — commemoration.
The landscape around Xikou is genuinely beautiful: the town sits in a narrow valley on the Shengli River, surrounded by wooded hills, and several good hiking trails connect the Chiang family sites with temples and viewpoints in the mountains above. The political complexity of the Chiang legacy in mainland China adds an interest to the site: the official position is cautiously positive, emphasising his role in the Anti-Japanese War, and the memorial plaques thread carefully around the more uncomfortable aspects of his biography. The journey from Ningbo takes about ninety minutes by bus.