Ancient villages, cultures reported being lost
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, January 10, 2015
Valuable ancestral hall
The village is the hometown of Chen Jingrun (1933-96), a mathematician who made significant contributions to number theory. But like most of the buildings, the former residence of Chen was bulldozed into debris.
The research team noted that the only valuable construction left in the village is the ancestral hall of Chen’s family, which is as old as the village itself. More than 1,000 memorial tablets of the family’s ancestors are placed in the hall.
Locals told the team that earlier last year, the entire village, including the hall, was sold to a developer by the government, arousing wide controversy. Eventually the government compromised and started a new master plan for the village.
The team found in some places that even though some villages remain, the living environment of the residents is threatened. For instance, the village of Jiazhao in northern China’s Shanxi Province is close to Taiyuan, the capital. Surrounded by cement and gas plants, the village suffers constant, severe air pollution.
“The village actually is very beautiful because of its brick carving, which is one of the intangible culture heritages in the country,” says artist Sun. “All the housing has delicate brick carving as decoration, but the natural environment is not good enough.”
The villagers told the team that maybe in three to five years, the village will be moved.
Yinjiao, another village in Shanxi, also greatly impressed the research team. It lies deep in the mountains near Taiyuan. The more than 300-year-old village is surrounded by forest and has retained its original appearance and landforms. When the village was first built, residents relied on the silver mine nearby, and that’s why it was named Yinjiao, literally meaning “silver angle.”
The village has Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) architecture, including a temple for Avalokitesvara Buddha, with a detailed fresco painted with natural mineral pigments.
“The villagers told us that Yinjiao is the only completely preserved village around,” says Chen. “There had been more beautiful villages nearby in the mountains, but they disappeared due to all kinds of reasons and the artistic architecture didn’t survive, either.”
Team members say they expected that through the journey, they could attract developers, designers and government officials to plan for restoration.
In 2013, Feng Jicai, president of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, said on a forum that every day nearly 100 villages in China disappear.
“Ancient, traditional villages contain the legacy of Chinese agriculture civilization,” he said. “But with the development of the society, the primitiveness of the villages as well as the culture attached to it is collapsing rapidly, and it is calling for our protection.”
Liu Wei, vice chairman of the China Institute of Interior Design, has been devoted to preserving ancient towns and villages in the countryside for years. He says the best way to protect the countryside is to return to its original style and features.
But developers and regional governments, which have strong economic incentives to build, sometimes are doing the opposite.
“I think we should learn from the locals, history and lands with a humble mind,” Liu says. “From my experience, villagers have strong awareness of protection of the old cultures and buildings.”
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