Scenes around Xiamen and in Yongding county

Random pictures

Pu'erh tea. Supposedly good for regulating blood pressure,lowering cholesterol and assist in losing weight. :-)) Mixed with honey,it is also supposed to be good for insomnia. The older the tea, the better the potency and the more costly it is. Can keep forever like wine?????

The ornate South Putuo temple in Xiamen

South Putuo temple. This building houses Kwan Yin statue.

Sunset at Gulang Island

Xiamen city viewed from Gulang Island

Bronze staues everywhere on Gulang Island. In the olden days, the expats prefer to live on the island so many colonial buildings abound.

Salted fish drying in the open on Gulang island

Another statue on Gulang island. Island is popular with the locals. Need a 5 mins ferry ride to the island.

Mother and child bronze statue

One of the many stately colonial buildings that are now neglected due to the squatters who have squatter rights in the buildings on the island.

Many brides ( we counted 7 brides) go to Gulang island to use the old stately buildings as props for their wedding photos

A very sweet bridal couple

Selling rambutans and custard apple 

Many vendors still use old traditional hanging baskets to sell food

Statues abound in the many landscaped gardens that dot the city of Xiamen

Traditional folk dance in Meilin town

Drying padi in Meilin town

A vendor at one of the Hakka tulous. The government apparently pays the residents of a Tulou as much as 4,000  to 100,000 renminbi   per family per year to  continue to stay in the Tulous to lend authenticity to the Tulous which are now very popular tourist destinations. The fee varies depending on the importance of each Tulou site.

Typical river facing a Hakka tulou with the mountains at the back

Harvesting padi in the countryside. Typically, 2 crops per year are possible.

Beautiful countryside scenery

A hakka napoleon in the making??

A 500 yrs old turtle that is fed on pork and carrots! A hakka turtle????

A hakka resident of one of the Tulous

Another proud hakka who showed me the tiny room where he stays.

Signboards in Xiamen

The signs speak for themselves. :-))

I would like to stay in a Bargain price room!

Xiamen & Fujian typical food we sampled.

We hear so much about the wonderful food of  Xiamen but unfortunately the food we had, a mixture of  local cuisine and typical Hakka dishes, were quite disappointing after all the hype.

Be the judge.

Sweet potatoes and chestnuts sold everywhere in Xiamen

Prawns in Chinese wine but not so good. Prawns not fresh at all.

Stir fry preserved bamboo shoots with fungus. Quite tasty.

Yam noodles. The color is enough to warrant caution. The noodles were quite tasteless.

Carp in chiili oil. Okay but I would not die for it.

Unlike previous times when we were in China where we had more vegetable dishes and only one miserable fish dish always floating in a  brackish suspicious looking sauce , seafood is now a regular feature on the menu and quite tasty. 

Tilapia in soya sauce. Surprisingly fresh and tasty.

Prawns in wine sauce. Eatable.

Typical breakfast spread of porridge with lots of  preserved vegetables

vermicelli with spicy tofu

Lotus root with fuchok

Tea on the day we arrived was a yam pudding ( very nice), some cold dessert, Fujian version of Hokkien mee ( tasty - yum,yum) and a jelly stuffed with small sea slugs  ( ugh!).

Crunchy soyabeans with pork ribs. Supposedly typical Hakka dish? Pretty tasty though!

Tofu. Quite nice.

Fresh bamboo shoots cooked with preserved vegetables. Tasty actually  without the usual bamboo shoots smell.

Fatty pork with preserved vegetables. Good.

Glutinous rice balls with  sesame seeds. A bit sweet but delicious.

What we did not try which was a good thing!

Tortoise dish???

A soup of lamb head and fish head???!!! Yucks!

Xiamen,Fujian Province 26th-30th Oct 2010 - Hakka Houses

Xiamen
Fujian's "earthern buildings " ( Hakka houses) in Yongding and Najing were declared World Heritage sites in 2008. Together with 22 Hakka family members,we took a trip to to our ancestors' birthplace to visit some of the Tulous.

MAS flies directly to Xiamen, the main city of Fujian ( Hokkien ) province in 4 hrs. Xiamen,a city of only 2.5 million people is the 5th most important city in China after Bejing,Shanghai,Shenzen and Guangzhou. It is a very well planned city with hardly any cyclist or motorcycles on the road because the public transport is good and the roads are actually free of traffic jams. A very livable city with good air and tree- lined streets and beautiful landscaped gardens.

Hakka tulous
In total, there are at least 30,000 tulous spread out in Yongding,Nanjing and Hua'an. Tulous are large farmhouses where an entire clan live together - homes particularly noted for their defensive function. With their earth walls ( 2 metres thick), wooden beams & posts, these large homes are at least 2 storey high and they close out the surrounding area. The southwestern Fujian villages with Tulous are located in the region where Fujian,Jiangxi and Guangdong meet. Perched high in the mountains, they have excellent feng shui with mountains as a backdrop and flowing rivers beside the tulous.

Most of the tulous are circular, square or phoenix shaped. Of all the shapes, the circular one is without doubt the strangest and most mysterious.

Hegui place, Pushan Village, Meilin town,Nanjing county.  

Hegui place. The square tulou is highest at 5 storeys. Built on swampy  land.

Another view of  the Hegui complex seen through the padi fields

Yuchang Building, Xiaban Village,Shuyang town, Nanjing County. 500 yrs old.The building posts are inclined but it still stands erect. Unfortunately,the building is spoilt by the commercial activity on the ground floor which is distracting.

Exterior of Yuchang building.

The earliest tulou was constructed in 769 during the Tang dynasty. Quite a few were also constructed during the Song & Yuan dynasties. Those built during the Ming dynasty can be seen everywhere. Most,however, date from the late 17th century to the 1970s. They were built by the Hakkas who fled to the south from the war torn Central Plains. As they settled in the south and their population grew rapidly and they amassed more wealth, they were concerned about living  and working in peace and contentment. They wanted not only for the entire clan to have a secure home that will shield them from the elements; they were also interested in the entire clan having a home where people can live together and where their spirits would be inspired.

From various readings, there were 3 preconditions for the tulous coming into existence. First, the mighty cohesive strength of the clan; secondly a relatively peaceful living environment and thirdly considerable financial resources.

Tianluokeng Group Tuluos,Shangban village,Shuyang town,Nanjing County. The complex comprises 4 circular buildings and one square one. The placement is precise and tasteful. From the top,the cluster  looks the petals of a flower.  

Another view of  the Tianluokeng cluster. Belong to one clan.

Zhenfu building in Nanxi village,Hukeng town,Yongding county.

The mountain is behind it and a river beside it. Built in 1913, it adheres to the 8 Trigrams design.

When you enter a Tulou, you sense first that this is a large clan city and only later,do you notice that it consists of many single families. So a tulou is an extended family and it is also a small kingdom.

It occupies more than 4000 metres of land and has 3 halls & 96 rooms. A lot of stone and tile was used in the interior.It is the sister building to the Zhencheng building 4 kms away.

Another view of the Zhenfu building

Typical interior of a tulou. On entering the main entrance, you see the hall which also serves as the public lounge or leads into another courtyard where there is an  ancestral worship area setup. Generally, long wooden benches are placed on either side of the room where the residents can sit and chat with one another. In many halls, you see hullers for rice & other grains and mortars for pounding cooked glutinous rice into paste.

There are 2 passageways; one on either side of the hall as if they are the 2 long arms gathering all of the rooms ( which are  of the same size and shape) into a circle. The courtyard has at least one well where women wash vegetables and do the laundry.

If it is a large circular building,sometimes there is also a ancestral temple in the center of the courtyard. The temple is square with 2 large halls,each having rooms on both sides. It serves as both a family temple and a clan "council" and it can also serve as a school.

Zhenfu building. . Each Tulou has its own name recorded in the clan history or to commemorate ancestors. On either side of the building entrance is a couplet. Most of these are moral maxims containing the building name. Almost every circular building has only one main entrance and when it is closed, the interior is a world of its own, sheltered from everything on the outside. The 2 door  leaves of the entrance are thick and tall and generally covered with sheet iron like 2 armored warriors standing guard.

Zhengcheng building,Hongkeng village,Hukeng town,Yongding county. 

Passage way on the top floor

Zhencheng building, Hongkeng village,Hukeng town, Yongding county. This earthern building, with an inner and an outer ring shaped like the 8 trigrams, occupies 5000 metres of land. The 4 storey outer ring is 16 metres high with 184 rooms. The 2 storey inner ring has 32 rooms. The outer ring is separated into 8 equal sections. A staircase to each section leads from the 1st to the 4th level.

Mountain at the back and river beside the building. Typical setting for a tulou.

Square tulou. The round tulous came about because the square tulos do not offer good lightning to all  the rooms.

Courtyard in foreground in a square tulou.

Square tulou in the Chengqi luo complex,Gaobei village,Gaotou town,Yongding county.

This Chengqi building has a history of 300 years.The building consists of 4 storeys with 4 circles of buildings with altogether 400 rooms, with smaller circles inside bigger cirlces and small rings inside bigger rings.

Another view of the Chengqi building,Gaobei hamlet, Gaotou town. Work started during the Chongzhen period ( 1627-1644 of the Ming dynasty) but only completed 3 generations later in 1709. Occupying 5376 metres, it is 73 metres in diameter. Perimeter of outer wall is 229 metres. The main building has 3 rings. The 4 storey outer ring has 72 rooms on each floor. The 2 storey second ring has 40 rooms on each floor. The third ring is single storey with 32 rooms. The ancestral hall is in the center.

Chengqi building. The 1st tulou that we visited.Note the windows are only on the last 2 floors of hte building for protection. Usually the kitchen and bathrooms ( out houses are situated away from the building) are on the ground level while food storage is on the 1st floor. The sleeping and living quarters are on the last 2 floors.