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China's History of 5,000 Years
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Ancient
Residential Houses in Peitian Village
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Photographs by Liu Shuxian
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Peitian Village.
The main hall in a house
Side rooms
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Peitian Village
is at the foot of Guanzhi Mountain, a scenic attraction in
Liancheng County, Fujian Province. In ancient times, the village
was on a main route contested by military strategists. In
the village live more than 1,000 people of the Hakka ethnic
group, all with the family name Wu. Their ancestors moved
here from central China 700 years ago, bringing the culture
of central China with them. Their culture mixed with the local
customs to become the Hakka culture, and the ancient residential
houses in Peitian testify to this cultural blending.
Ancient structures still existing
in the village include thirty well-preserved residential houses,
twenty-one clan halls and temples, six schools, and two street
archways. There is also an ancient 1,000-meter-long street.
All the residential houses are built with quality materials
and are of fine workmanship, in a typical architectural style
of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. They
were built by adapting the layout of northern courtyard houses
to local conditions, especially the rainy, humid climate of
the south. All the houses are symmetrically arranged along
a central axis.
In each house, the hall on the left
is where people offered sacrifices or spoke with the head
of the clan, the main hall was reserved for the reception
of officials, the hall on the right was for meeting guests
and friends, the top story of the two-story buildings served
as the family library and study, and the rooms on the flanks
were bedrooms. |
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| A courtyard house |
A gable decoration |
A cobbled courtyard |
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| A door |
Openwork in a main hall. |
Beam decorations. |
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