Yongding Tulou trip

Ever since I moved to Xiamen, I wanted to make a trip to the famous Tulou villages which are spread over Fujian province. Tulou （土楼） is Chinese for earth building, and it refers to the main construction material of these large multi-storey buildings, usually circular or square in shape, with a large inner courtyard, which often contains several other buildings, sometimes organized in concentric rings. The outer walls are made of compacted earth, usually yellow in colour, and sometimes reinforced with bamboo or wood. The inner balconies are all wooden, and often you will find stone or brick dividing walls as well. Tulous have been build since the 12th century until the present (latest are build in the late 20th century), but the design has hardly changed. Many Tulous have four floors, but three and even five floor Tulous also exist. Their characteristic ring shape might have inspired the late Steve Jobs for the design of Apple's new headquarters.

I made the trip to Gaobei Tulou cluster in Yongding county, in eastern Fujian province, almost 4 hours by bus from Xiamen, together with Miao Qi, my good friend and journalist/photographer. We arrived in Gaobei village just after three o'clock in the afternoon, when the tour groups had already gone, so it was pleasantly quiet. The only problem was that it rained a lot, but we didn't let that spoil our trip. The cloudy weather actually created good conditions for photography, with soft shadows instead of the knock-out contrasts of a sunny day. The first building we explored was also one of the largest and oldest. Chengqilou （承啟樓） was build in 1709, has an outer diameter of 62.6 meters, with four floors, and four concentric rings within the inner courtyard surrounding the ancestral hall. The outer ring alone contains 288 rooms, and its massive earthen walls keep out heat in the summer, and isolate from the cold in winter. The main gate is surrounded by a large granite frame, and interiour stone walls divide the ring in four sections, each with their own wooden staircase.

Next to Chengqilou is the slightly smaller Qiaofulou （侨福楼）, where we spent the night in a simple room on the third (and top) floor (70 RMB for two). Qiaofulou has an open courtyard with some small trees, and a well. On the ground floor, one of the rooms was retro-fitted as a modern bathroom, with hot shower and flushing toilet.
A Tulou can house hundreds of people, but nowadays the number of residents are a bit lower. Still, most buildings are occupied by many families, usually belonging to the same clan. Some Tulous have been occupied by descendants of the same clan for tens of generations. In the evening we visited yet another Tulou, where we chatted with some of the residents. The Tulou community is really like a small village in itself, although many people (especially the younger generation) now also have a modern house in the village outside.

The second day we visited the nearby village Hongkeng, which is stretched along both sides of Nianxi Creek, a picturesque little river, with many Tulous, both circular and square, and a variety of other houses, temples and stone bridges crossing the river in many places, making it easy to zigzag from one Tulou to the next. This village is has developed into a tourist attraction, and features a large visitor center with parking lot for tour buses.Fortunately, this second day we arrived well before the tourist crowd, which only swarms out across the area between noon and three o'clock, being four hours away from the city of Xiamen (and even further from any other place worth mentioning).
The most famous Tulou in this area is  Zhenchenglou （振成楼）, build in 1912 by a wealthy tobacco farmer, and features a large ancestral hall in its courtyard flanked by Western style columns, and decorative iron railings on the second floor balcony. Hongkeng village has a wide variety of Tulous, all open for visitors, which makes it a very interesting cultural site to visit. Some of the buildings are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites, as is Chengqilou in Gaobei village.

Cycling and dim sum

This week our teacher surprised us with two days off, and one of these days was selected for a morning of cycling along the coast, followed by a lunch at a big seafood restaurant in Zeng Cuo An, right at my doorstep, so to speak. Besides two of our teachers, fifteen of my classmates (basically all who still come to class daily, the other ten or eleven dropped out, more or less) showed up this morning at the bus stop in Zeng Cuo An, and I was notified by one of my classmates that they had arrived, so I could meet them there, instead of having to meet them at our college. Saved me a trip.
We rented tandem bicycles, which is a booming business all along the southern coast of Xiamen island, and took off. I had brought my own bike, of course. I'm still the only one in class with a bicycle, although there is one French student who invested in a fashionable electric scooter. He wasn't here today.
The weather was excellent, and I almost regretted not having brought my swimsuit. I had brought my hammock though, which proved to be a welcome surprise to some of my classmates who were eager to try it out.

After cycling and spending some time on the beach playing frisbee (also brought by me) and generally hanging out, we returned to Zeng Cuo An, where we entered the big (and apparently famous) Jiali （佳丽） seafood restaurant, situated right on the seafront. I have passed its large sea view windows numerous times, but never ventured inside. It looks rather expensive, but they have an all-you-can-eat lunch deal for 58 RMB a head, which is not bad, for the quality of the food and the level of service offered. Instead of a do-it-yourself buffet, you can just order anything you like from the menu, and the staff was surprisingly attentive and well-mannered, despite their young age.
The food (Cantonese style dim sum, similar to my memorable lunch with Ling Ling during my first trip to Zhuhai) was also quite impressive, with a large variety of delicate flavours emerging from the bamboo steamers in which most of the dishes were served. Fresh mango juice  was plentyful, and Fujian tea, of course. The lunch was offered by our college, another nice surprise. With everybody more than satisfied, we all went home for a well-deserved siesta.

Island hopping

I skipped classes this week to join Ling Ling for a short vacation to the Wan Shan archipelago, just south of Hong Kong in the South-China Sea. We had visited one of the islands on a short camping trip two months ago, but this time we took another ferry from Zhuhai to Wan Shan Dao （万山岛）, a scenic boat ride of almost two hours, passing several of the archipelago's more than 100 islands.
Already at departure from Zhuhai, security was very strict, with everybody having to show ID cards while purchasing tickets, and again at boarding. As the only foreigner in the crowd, I was withdrawn from the queue to have my passport examined by the military. The previous time no such security checks where performed, and I wondered if there had been some incident recently that made the military exercise such caution. Upon arrival at Wan Shan Dao, I was again escorted to a military office to have my passport copied and asked where we were staying. We didn't know yet, but were told to inform them as soon as we had found a place to stay. It was only after I noticed the large military radar installation on top of the highest peak of the island, that I understood the reason for all this. Apparently, this island is not so much a tourist destination as it serves an important role in China's strategic defence network.

We had brought a tent to go camping, but unfortunately this island does not have a beach, or any other useful location for camping (lack of planning on our behalf), so we opted for a guesthouse instead. On the hillside opposite the harbour we noticed a long low building behind a line of old trees and a nice looking terrace overlooking the bay. We climbed up a steep road and a staircase leading to the place and found some local people playing cards and drinking beer. After inquiring for a room, the proprietor pointed upwards to a single apartment which was set on top of the building, using the remainder of the flat roof as a private terrace. The sprawling branches of the big old trees were hanging low over the roof, perfect for suspending my hammock, which I had brought along.
Our quarters had a separate bedroom and living room, overlooked by a faded portrait of Mao Zhe Dong high up on the wall. I tied my hammock to two branches from the same tree, six meters apart, and was immediately very happy that I had brought it. It was much too hot to go hiking or anything like that, so we just hung out in our hammock for most of the day, eating delicious yangmei （杨梅）fruit which I had brought from Xiamen, only interrupted by short walks to the sleepy fishing village for lunch and dinner.

The next morning we left the island to find a beach on one of the more developed islands in the archipelago, Dong Ao Dao （东澳岛）. Our ferry had made a brief stop here on the way down, and most of the passengers had disembarked there. Being more developed, it has its share of tourist shops and elevated prices for just about everything, but at least it has some beaches, so we headed for the biggest one named Nan Sha Wan (南沙湾） or South Sandy Bay. At both ends of this beach two large hotels are still under construction, and an older resort is nestled up on the rocks. Behind the beach is a nicely laid-out park with lots of trees and shade, and a terraced network of picnic spots. There were not many people around. Most of the people present were actually workers watering trees and sweeping fallen leaves, and a group of lifeguards sitting under a large parasol on the beach, with not much else to do besides playing cards.
The nearby service center was not yet completely finished, but already open for business, with a small shop, change rooms, toilets, and showers. We set up our tent at the edge of the beach, and I found a pair of properly spaced shady trees to suspend my hammock from. Not a bad spot, but we had to pay 100 RMB a night to camp here, which was a bit high compared to our 130 RMB suite at Wan Shan Dao the night before, or free camping on Wai Ling Ding Dao, but the friendly staff waived the 20 RMB per head shower fee, so it wasn't all that bad.

The sea is nice and clear here, far away from the mainland, so swimming was excellent. In the late afternoon more people showed up for a swim, most of them probably staying at other locations, since we were the only campers out there, and the resort didn't seem to be very busy.
We had to go to the town again the next day to get some food, and we took the opportunity to go for a short hike up the hill behind the village to a lookout with a nice view over the harbour and several other islands, including Wan Shan Dao.
The next day early in the morning we took another hike, this time to the so-called Honeymoon Pavilion on the hill next to our beach, reached by climbing a long stone staircase seemingly ending in the heavens. The three-tiered pagoda has a large bronze bell hanging from the roof on the top level, with a bas-relief of a couple making love in a kneeled position. Next to the bell, a heavy polished wooden beam is suspended horizontally for striking the bell, which results in a warmly resonating and vibrating sound. With nobody else around, a stimulating environment indeed!

Fei Fei's graduation show

Yesterday at the Chinese European Art Center, Lin's room mate Fei Fei was showing her best work of the past three years at the Art College of Xiamen University.
The most striking piece was a monumental shoe sculpture, more than two meters high, and made of fabric used in traditional costumes worn by some of China's minority peoples. The fabric is woven around a wire frame, and has the shape of an elongated high-heeled fashion shoe. It's a striking combination, the size and stretched proportions of this symbol of high fashion, combined with the traditional material, symbolizing China's changing cultural identity.
Also impressive are her woven garments, made of a very rough rope material, clashing with the intimate and soft nature of women's undergarments. Suspended from the ceiling by almost invisible nylon thread, the stiff and rough material already makes your skin feel itchy just by looking at it. I immediately had fantasies of girls actually wearing it, and asked Fei Fei if she had tried them on. She had (not really surprising, since she wanted to make a well-fitting shape), but also showed me a book with a photo of a model wearing the thigh-high stockings and a pair of knickers. Pretty kinky!
Besides her sculptural work, Fei Fei also showed some video pieces, which I can not really comment on, since I didn't have the patience to watch them completely. Showing video in a gallery environment always has this problem, in my experience. Especially during openings, when the social chatter makes focused observation of audio-visual work nearly impossible. Nevertheless, it was a good show. This time again in the pleasant company of my recently graduated journalist friend Miao Qi.

The forward-looking society

The fast economic development of China in the past decades has no doubt benefited from a future-oriented attitude, taking decisions based on their impact on the immediate future. This strategy certainly payed off, given the fast rise of GDP and leading economic position in Asia, and arguably in the world at large. However, there are some serious side-effects to this forward-looking approach. Neglecting to look back from time to time, reflecting on the impact of fast growth, or even sideways, to compare your heading with those of your fellow countrymen, has lead to an increasing wealth gap, not to mention environmental problems. Large areas of China are not benefiting as much as the focus areas of economic growth in the South-East. And even there, within the metropolises of Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, the social disparities have increased alongside the growth in wealth.
A forward-looking attitude is also prevalent in traditional patterns such as finding a suitable partner for marriage. More often than not, the choice is based primarily on financial benefits for the future of the family of the bride-to-be, with a substantial dowry to be paid to the bride's parents before she can be taken away to be incorporated into her future husband's family. In many cases, Chinese people don't get to marry the one they love, but the one most suitable for a sustainable and financially sound future of the family.
Even in daily routines such as driving a car, looking forward seems to be the only rule. Hardly any Chinese driver ever looks sideways, let alone backwards in their rearview mirror, before taking turns or passing other vehicles. Pedestrians behave in a similar manner, crossing the street without ever glancing sideways, just straight ahead in the direction where they are going, often forcing me to brake abruptly when driving my bicycle.

慢 means: “slow”