Southeastern China has served as a gateway to the country for hundreds of years - even the region's largest city's name - Xiamen - translates as Lower Gate, acknowledging the city as the historical entrance to Southeast China. Xiamen has an historical feel and the Gulang Yu five minutes off the coast retains many of the buildings constructed during the peak of China's trade with the United Kingdom. The area is also home to some of China's most unique historical village - the round and square earthen Tulous. Let's start there.
TULOUS
The historical village homes of China vary significantly across different regions. In certain areas there are villages, other areas walled city - in the region outside Xiamen homes are giant apartment type buildings in a circular or square shape. The oldest Tulou is almost 800 years old, however, many of the buildings were constructed as recently at the 1960s. Most Tulous are at least three stories tall with approximately 80 rooms that can accommodate up to 300 people. The circular or square design creates an open courtyard in the middle where community cooking and water facilities are located. While a few of the Tulous exist primarily for tourist purposes others continue to operate as a primary residence as they have for the past 800 years. Most are located about a three hour bus ride west of Xiamen.
The oldest Tulou, Yuchanglou, was originally constructed in the 1300s and has survived multiple earthquakes as evidenced by the slanting wooden beams supporting the upper floors. The ground floor of the Tuluo is primarily shops catering to the many tourists that pass through. There's a stream that runs by the Tulou creating an ideal photograph opportunity.
The oldest Tulou, Yuchanglou, was originally constructed in the 1300s and has survived multiple earthquakes as evidenced by the slanting wooden beams supporting the upper floors. The ground floor of the Tuluo is primarily shops catering to the many tourists that pass through. There's a stream that runs by the Tulou creating an ideal photograph opportunity.
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Obligatory tea tasting stop. Hey, everyone, we are here for the tulous! Writing this reminds me of how delayed the bus trip was when leaving Xiamen. Fortunately I was one of the last ones to board the bus. But then we sat at a hotel. And sat at a hotel. And sat at a hotel. Then a mother approached the bus driver to complain presumably as to why the AC wasn't running - at least that's what I would have been complaining about. What happened next was one of four instances where I saw an older man get into an argument with a younger woman. In each instance, even though I didn't speak the language, I knew some derogatory comment about a woman must have been said. I only saw four fights in China and they all involved an old man and a younger woman. With this instance, I saw the old man bus driver yell at what had to be the woman's husband and point at the woman at which point the argument escalated into a brawl of pulled hair, head locks, and absurd kicking where the person kicking was simultaneously trying to kick their opponent AND back up at the same time. The end result was that eventually a new bus driver was brought in and we were delayed two hours in leaving. Now I would have made up time with cancelling the tea drinking. But I'm not Chinese. You don't mess with the tea drinking ritual.
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Back to the trip. Further down the road is Loudouleng which is probably the most photographed Tuluo. It has 5 Tulous - three circle, one square, and one oval - which can be viewed from a lookout above. Some of the Tulous in the area were constructed in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution - the CIA thought the Chinese were building missile silos. Looking down on Loudouleng you can see why.
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The Official Tourism Tulou cluster is in Nanjing. Despite the commercialization the Nanjing Tulous are still pretty amazing to look at even if they were incredibly crowded. Near this cluster are a few other Tulous not included in the official tourist site. These Tulous have not been refurbished by the Chinese government. Some of these Tulou’s still have people living inside in pretty poor conditions. By pretty poor conditions, I mean they still poop in buckets - see the photo on the bottom right. While the grandchildren may have jumped three generations in twenty years, a lot of the grandparents are still living like it's 1920.
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To get the full Tulou experience it's worth spend the night in either a Tulou or a house in the Tulou complex area. I spent the night in Hong Keng and had a personal tour of the fourteen Tulous in this cluster. Hong Keng has a nice setup because a quiet village had sprung up around the Tulou’s and youare able to see the villagers engage in their nightly activities. The village had electricity, internet, etc. - people were watching TV together, old woman had an instructional dance video playing, and little kids were running around in the dark.
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XIAMEN
Xiamen's Zhongshan Road is a pedestrian shopping boulevard that many of the local residents congregate around each night. The street offers a variety of street food but the obvious highlight that everyone seemed to be eating was deep-fried squid on a stick. I found the stall and ordered one for myself. It was one entire squid and it was so large it required two sticks.
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A mile away from the historical area Zhongshan Road is Yundang Park. Along the far side of the park’s lake is a series of cafes - the cafes are mostly indistinguishable but combine to form a nice stretch to order a coffee and unwind at the end of the day. I have no idea what it was about this section of Xiamen but years later, I'll find myself day dreaming about this calm, quiet, cool neighborhood I visited in China and wonder where it was, then remember it was in Xiamen. I wish I spent one more day here.
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Gulang Yu makes for a good day trip while in Xiamen. Gulang Yu is a short five minute ferry ride across the bay from Xiamen's ferry terminal. The island does not have just a few preserved colonial style streets but an entire island of building after building built during the colonial period from the 1840s up to WWII. At a far end on the island is a statue of General Chong who conquered the Dutch and claimed Taiwan for China. In addition to the historical buildings, some of which have been converted into bed and breakfasts, are a few tourist dedicated streets offering milk tea, candy, and other Chinese favorites.
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On the train ride from Hangzhou to Xiamen I sat and talked with a young Chinese man in the train's dining car. We agreed to meetup the next day since we were both going to check out Gulang Yu. Here's where I learned how difficult the Chinese language is. A museum on Gulang Yu had a historical information placard written in both Mandarin and English. This young man, looking to do me a favor began translating. I was going to point out that English was written below but I was curious how well he'd be able to translate. Up to now his speaking had been fine. He starts translated and is struggling with the first couple of sentences. I'm reading below and I can tell it's not the most complicated writing - it's "General Chong arrived on the island". I asked the guy, why can you speak English so well but are struggling with the translation. He said "well, the Chinese letters could mean multiple words (I though of Ma and Horse which are both spelled the same but pronounced with different tones) and so I need to understand the full sentence and I'm translating as I read the words." That's when I knew I would never learn Mandarin.
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For additional tuluo Xiamen photos see FLICKR ALBUM.