Train from Fuzhou to Shanghai
Category Archives: China
Locked in Time
Quanzhou
In a shady alleyway behind an old mosque.
Password protected.
Minimalist.
Not so minimalist.
Girl Power
Xiaozha – Nansai
With most of the men out at sea during the fishing season or playing mahjong to rest when not at sea, the Hui’An woman run and build the town. They are mothers, grandparents, seemstresses, cooks, butchers, construction workers, business owners. I wonder what demands they would make in a feminist equal opportunities movement…
Meet one great Hui’An lady who looked after me for the day.
Mother, Shop owner, Seamstress，My stylist (who had to keep readjusting my wonky headscarf everytime I returned!)
Having purchased randomly a top, trouser and headscarf, I luckily stumbled into the shop of this Hui’An mother in search of a belt. With the help of her daughter, I was promptly refitted with a trendy cropped top in a lighter shade of purple, and properly matching headscarf . The difference was immense! The cutting, colour shade, matching of patterns to suit the overall outfit and the person wearing it are all important rules of fashion. It was niave to think that I did not need to apply these rules when selecting their traditional dress, and could do it with an untrained eye just by choosing the right size.
wǒ bu míngbai
With the Chinese struggling to understand my limited version of Mandarin, my friend has been having to work hard as a translator… and brought me this as a gift.
I had to have it translated, “The whole world should speak Mandarin”.
Cart Restrictions
Gulang Yu
Boring Bricks?
Yongding County – Gulang Yu
Locally made custom branded Bricks in Zhencheng Tulou (振成楼).
三 is the character for “three” in Chinese, representing the 3 brothers in the family. 山 is the character for “mountain”, and is their generation name.
Ancient brickwork in direlict Shunyuan Tulou (顺源楼).
Suggestions to what the chalk graffiti says are welcome…
Leopard-print brickwork in Gulang Yu (鼓浪屿).
Colonial villas on this island off Xiamen city are influenced by European occupiers.
Plastic Fantastic
Yongding County
Shenyuan Tulou (深远楼)
Kindness from the Heart
Fujian Classic Tulou
16 September
I expected Yongding County to be a typical tourist stop, I expected to be harassed by the locals to buy and see things, I expected my first photo post in the land of mudhouses to be of a building.”
I was wrong.
Instead, I would like to introduce you to 3 people:
90 year old granny.
As we peered in nosily at her cooking and pottering around in the kitchen, she came out to chat to us. “We made these walls by pounding down the earth. These walls will stand for thousands and thousands of years, not hundreds like new buildings.”
76 year old grandpa.
As we examined a stone stand outside his room, he came out to invite us for tea. “I didn’t grow up in Fuzhan, I was born in Burma. I returned after the Japanese invasion and my father was killed.” He also scolded me, rightly so, “You are Chinese and you cannot speak Mandarin!”
Entrepenuer, Tulou owner and hostel manager.
(age unknown, however the grannies said he was too old not be married yet!)
Driving us around, telling us about his family and his ambitions to buy and convert this crumbling direlict Tulou into a hostel, he reflects “the people still living in these undeveloped Tulou, their kindness is from the heart”
The Tulou are amazing feats of architecture, each ingenious and unique in their own way. However, the greatest impression they left on me are how they have instilled such a sense of pride in family and community. This warmth extends even to strangers who wander without permission through their homes. Tourism may have changed the working functions of the Tulou, but the migrators of the past have passed down within the mudhouse walls their community spirit.