Bruce Hume posted his synopsis of a Chinese Muslim’s Pilgrimage to al-Andalus. Well worth the read if you are interested in Spanish culture. It is also interesting to see how someone from China manifests their hispanofilism.

Written over several years and six visits to al-Andalus (Morocco, Portugal and southern Spain),  we see how Zhang Cheng-Zhi discovers the links between the Moors and China, from the Uighurs in Xinjiang to the port of Quanzhou in Fujian, to the prevalence of fig trees in China’s northwest. Increasingly fascinated by the spirit of the Muslim conquerors, their irrigation technology, and the olive trees so prevalent in southern Spain, he actually tries to transplant them to northwest China. His experiment fails, but his clumsy efforts to somehow grow the olive in China, a fruit rendered sacred by its mention in an oft-repeated Koranic verse (see Chapter 17, below), is an almost desperate attempt to bring part of his beloved al-Andalus back home.