Chen Xianwu, a 53-year-old scholar of the city's history and culture, says the paifang were all built to commemorate successful candidates who got excellent results in the imperial exams in Chaozhou prefecture, which covered today's Chaoshan area during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.
"Judging from historical literature, Chaozhou prefecture had 530 paifang. … The Taiping Road which extended 1.74 kilometers used to have 43, and people could see one every 40 meters," says Chen.
