China 初識中國 Shao-Yi Chiang
Encounter China
初識中國
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index
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PREFACE
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Nanxun Retrieving the roots
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Jiangjia Village Old or New
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the Hidden Talents
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Superficilaity scratchinig the surfaces
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Events create Space
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Sketches
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PREFAce China for me is like a twin sister who exists in the parallel universe. It seems like I can proudly say I know more about her compare to most of the people on earth, but in reality, I do not know her. It is such a pity that I have never met her. However, it will be an opportunity to encounter her for the first time because experience will be the freshest, most original and sincere. I am Taiwanese. It is often a challenge for me to explain the ambiguous relationships between Taiwan and China, not so much to others but more to myself. We speak the same language, share a same ancestral history, and we celebrate the identical cultural roots. Disagreement in the political ideologies could sometimes dangerously make one to neglect the existence of others. And that probably is one of the reasons I have never set a foot in China before. But in the past 10 years while I was busy indulging in my own ignorance, Chinese economic boom has accelerated the urban development and town
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renewal. However, what has been neglected is the even faster transformation taking places in the rural landscape. Ever since the disastrous earthquake of Sichuan, the number of newly built houses around rural China has become three times that of the urban area. Vast so-called modernized houses were built by local craftsmen, who traditionally acquired essential knowledge through apprenticeship and experience. However, most of the time, such modernized houses were only copied as “styles”, which leaves the hidden value of the traditional houses abandoned and lost. Thus, investigations and close analyses are urgently needed. The local cultural identity of the traditional houses is also waiting for establishment. I understand there is a limit to the amount of places I can visit in a 4-week long travel plan. But through experiencing the limited destinations, observing phenomenon and drawing connections, I could understand China for the very first time. These embeded thoughts will be a pedestal for further discovery in the later time.
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Nanxun
retreiving the roots
Nanxun, located in the southern alluvial plain of the Yangtze River, was one of the typical water towns in Zhejiang Province, China. These water towns heavily relied on access to water and humanbuilt canals in times when road infrastructure was not yet fully developed. Towns prospered because of the thorough water traffic systems and local businesses benefited from water more than roads. Not until recent generations did motors and automobile take over the position of water traffic in China. Some of these water towns no longer exist, and some of them are transformed into the Chinese version of Venice which thrive in developing tourism. Tourism is one of the biggest sources of profit for Nanxun. The entire town is developed radiating from
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the historical parts and mainly spreading westwards. Contained within the modern periphery of Nanxun, the historical part of the town can be identified as an area encompassed a T-shape canal, with white-washed houses facing the water and several arch bridges linking in between. The prominent architecture characteristic is its close relationship with the water ways. The traditional Ming and Qing Dynasty domestic houses are in the form of a close courtyard with minimal windows open onto the public sphere. While this form meets the water ways, space between became paths designated for public uses and the exterior of architecture transformed in order to provide a better public utilization. Examples I observed such as the extension of roof sheltering over the public paths like an arcade, or walls marking the thresholds of the paths between building and water. Houses adjoins one another compactly along the canals with unique and comparatively over-sized fire-retarded walls in between, marking the water ways like slices of dominos.
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The reason for starting my trip in Nanxun is due to some personal and extremely meaningful reasons. Two years before the democratic government retreated to Taiwan in 1947, my grandfather was sent to Taiwan to establish and progress the local telegraphic infrastructure. Ever since the government retreated to Taiwan, he had never gone back to his hometown. In 2008, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away in October that same year. He had mentioned not once, that he could still remember his old home located in Tang-Jia Crossing (唐家兜), Nanxun, China, where a Tang-Jia Crossing Medicine Stores resides nearby. Some 90 years later after my grandfather was born, I want to pay a visit to his origin on his behave. Hardly motivated by the tiniest possibility of finding the physical house, I was lucky to discover that his house could remain unchanged due to its close proximity to the historical district. Through rummaging information on the internet, I managed to locate the pharmacy grandfather mentioned and
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showed up in front of it two days later. It was a very cold day with feathery snow kissing my cheeks. The white-washed firewalls, pitchy roof tile and the inky water symphonized into a soulful Chinese painting. I entered the alley leads to my root while a swift of air sneaked under my coat and ran down my spine. The enthusiasm and excitement from discovering my origin vanished at the sight of the current condition of grandfather’s house. The physical architecture seemed unchanged and original, sharing the same quality found along the historical district. However, in front of each door were women dressed in modern clothing, standing and waiting in the cold. It did not take long for me to realize their purpose for standing in the cold. There is a flow of bitterness in my chest. The architecture remained the same as in my grandfather’s memory, but it no longer serves as a place for shelter, but a cheap and run-down secret hide-out for local sex industry. Across the river bank a renovated plaza collected
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noises and people. It seems to be the new town center. The new center is attached to the old water town which creates a brand new commercial section. This commercial area majorly serves the vast migrated labors from other villages who work in the local manufacture businesses such as shoe making and prefabricated construction materials. Many young labors filled with enthusiasm and prospect, came here, innocent to the social complexity, probably dazed and confused. No matter male or female, they become the targets of the growing local sex industry. According to Chen Bao-Fun’s (陳柏峰) article, the Moral Corruption of the Rural World, many rural villages are undergoing a tremendous transformation in redefining the traditional moral standards. Under the influence of consumerism which gradually makes its way from the city to the rural environment, women from villages who works in the sex industry no longer carries the usual ethical negative connotation or public pressure. Prostitution becomes a righteous choice for earning money. Since 1990s, more and more peasants abandoned the less productive agriculture businesses and migrated to big cities for part-time jobs. For males, labor works are demanding and well-paid. But for females, it is harder for them to find such kind of work. Thus many females ended up choosing prostitution to make a living. Such decision induced shameful gossips circulating around the villages and thus restrained the sex industry from spreading. However, what used to be unspeakable has become an honorable and respectful position for the amount of money it promised. Envy and jealousy to wealth made more women blindly follow their
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precedents into group of prostitutes. Chen mentioned that the fundamental reason for such demoralization is the invasive consumerism. Colorful advertisements targeting the villagers ignite their desire for materials without concerning their inability to satisfy such desire. This generates the demand for products but also strengthen their sense of helplessness and resentment to poverty. With low self-esteem and unsatisfied desire for a better life, they are prone to poorer decision making. This first impression deeply shook off my sense of comfort. Until then I thought I am adapting this foreign place fairly well because of the similar culture. I was ever since captivated by the fundamental social problems that are influencing the rural environment and want to see more proofs in a much general and ordinary contex. So I decided to pay visits to some other villages. Source: http://www.aisixiang.com/data/34549.html 《文化縱橫》2010年第3期<<陳柏峰：去道德化的鄉村世界>>
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The Villages old or new
Jiang-Jia Village, 40km away from Hangzhou City, is a family-based village founded 500 years ago by the Jiang (蔣) clan. The village is located in a valley with Fu-Chun River (富春江) cutting through. One major road in parallel to the river is providing its only connection to the cities. The current villagers are still from the same consanguine family who inherited the same last name, and they still consider themselves families with each other. There are houses that are nearly finished, recently finished, collapsed, in the state of collapsing, dilapidated, and abandoned. Construction methods range from rammed earth, wood, stone to concrete and reinforced concrete. Time periods thus can be discerned; wood structure often built before the 1940s; concrete construction did not emerge until 1980s and exterior tiling became popular after the 90s. I was lucky to acquaint two villagers while I wandered through the village clearly acting like an outsiders. With my poor vocabulary of the local dialect, we managed to understand each other through physical languages along with some writings. They confirmed my intention to see some old and new houses and warmly invited me to see their own.
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Ancestral Hall
Jiang-Jia Village
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Jiang-jia Vilage, Fuyuang City, Zhejiang Province, China
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Jiang Ban-jin’s House
Jiang-jia Vilage
The first house I visited is a newly built reinforced concrete three-level house. Jiang Ban-Jin, owner and also designer of this house, was a former committee secretary of this village. After his retirement in 1990s, he transferred his old dwelling to his neighbor and constructed a new one across the road which finished in 2006. His previous experience in construction committee allowed him to make adjustments to the construction plan and selections of materials. He proudly referred to his house as “just like the hotel” for its newly installed modern facilities (telephone, air-conditioners and bathrooms). The house is split in half sharing between two households. The west wing belongs to Jiang Ban-Jin and the other belongs to his brother-in-law. The entire house is elevated one meter off the ground for concern of flood. He wants his house to be used for hundreds of years. The second house I visited is a wooden structure house dated back to more than 200 years ago. Temen (台門) is a local style that refers to houses that surrounded an entirely enclosed courtyard with
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Jiang Lun-lin’s House
Jiang-jia Vilage
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a front door and two side entries. These side entries usually lead to the side entries of another Temen owned by a different household who is under the same family. So right next to this house, there is an identical house belonged to their relatives but is currently collapsed and abandoned. Jiang Lun-Lin, owner of the house, is the 22nd heir of this family who inherited this property from his father. But his children are all working and living in the city; they rarely come back. So he has leased two extra rooms out to two helpers of his farmland. The condition of the house is not so optimistic with many parts in the state of collapsing and deteriorating. The main hall on the first floor, which used to be an important center for ancestral ceremonies, is used for storage now because of its openness to cold air. While all bedrooms are on the second floor, kitchens and working spaces are on the first floor. No electricity or piping is embedded so they have to rely on the additional pulled wires dangling across the sky well. He spoke with pride when he mentioned the history of the house, but not when he talked about the current conditions. Jiang Ban-Jin and Jiang Lun-Lin are friends and neighbors to each other. Though where they live might be seemly different, their life styles are in fact very similar. For example, they both enjoy the ventilated environment. In a 4 degree Celsius day, they would rather wear 6 layers of clothing without heat than close any doors or windows. They love and they use the sunlight. So courtyard in the old house and balcony in the new one are their working spaces for drying goods and vegetables. They still
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store firewood for use of cooking, though gas stove is affordable. They are both in a critical period of changes, from their life styles to their houses. In this state of changing, some qualities will eventually disappear and some will transform and live. I was scared to see many traditions slipping away and concerned with the invasion of the “standard life styles”. But after talking with them, I wonder. Should my previous naïve and emotional nostalgia be a reason for them not to pursue for a better living? Aren’t they all having the opportunity to seek for a much convenient, safer living environment? Or is there an option in between such dilemma?
Ancestral Hall Jiang-Jia Village
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Jiang Ban-Jin’s House
Jiang-jia Vilage
Jiang Lun-lin’s House
Jiang-jia Vilage
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The New - Jiang Ban-Jin’s House
Section Elevation
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Interior of Jiang Ban-Jin’s House Jiang-jia Vilage
Plan 3F
Plan 2F
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The old - Jiang lun-lin’s House
Section Elevation
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Door Carving of Jiang Lun-lin’s House
Jiang-jia Vilage
Plan 2F
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Wall of Collapsed House Jiang-Jia Village
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Three Rural Issues Rural China has undergone many major transformations in the past one-hundred years. From land reformation in the 1950s, the Great Leap Forward campaign of the Communist Party in the 1960s to the later Cultural Revolution, rural villages always played an important role in the Chinese political and social history. After the Chinese economic reform, rural China is facing many social issues. Three Rural Issues (三農問題), concept proposed by Economist Wen Tie-Jun (溫鐵軍) in 1996, were three main issues identified as the future problems rural China has to deal with. They are issues regarding agriculture, rural villages and peasants accompanied with other social problems such as population mobility and wealth disparity. Agriculture, in need of industrialization and advancement in technologies, has to raise their production efficiency and intensified the industry. Rural villages are facing problems like the lack of infrastructure, poor facility in public health and educational resources. Ultimately, peasants are the core to these three problems. Because of their lowpaid positions and the increasing disparity between city and rural areas, labor in the rural area were forced to depart and seek opportunity in the cities, leaving only the elders and children in the villages.
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New Rural Houses Chu-Jia Village
The New Villages Policy The Chinese central government, in realizing the emerging problem of the rural areas executed the new rural village policy (新農村建設). Adopting from the Korean New Community Movement in 1970, the major objections of this policy is to advance the rural infrastructure such as road network, irrigation facilities, drinking water, public health, education and land reform. At the same time, intensify and industrialize agriculture in order to generate more empty land for development such as highway and rail development in alleviating land shortage problem in the urban area. Chu-Jia Wu village (裘家塢村) is one of the villages influenced by this policy. When I visited, a great part of the old village was demolished to create farmland and spaces for construction of infrastructures such as the high-speed rail. New houses are offered to the owners to compensate their old houses. These new houses are built in adjacent to the remained old village but in its own gridded layout. Four to six houses form a row and face the rear of another row.
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New Rural House
Xin-Guan Village
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Highspeed Rail Construction Chu-Jia Village
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New Rural Houses
Da-Tang-Wu Village
They are constructed with reinforced concrete and bricks, three-levels, same footage and same height. The only alternation the villagers can make on the exterior is the tile covering and window overhangs. Variety of patterns is generated with mosaic tiles. Hybrid styles are created by different architectural symbols, ranging from Greek columns, pediments to East European towers. It is a popular style easily seen across the developing rural villages, because of its low building cost and for them, a symbol of modernized life style. But there is a missing link which connects the traditional and modernized houses. Luckily, I found the materials for this link through observing their yet unchanged life styles.
“Standard Rural Houses Construction Mannual“ found in the Hangzhou Public Library.
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The hidden talent
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One phenomenal scene that constantly appeared during my visits to the villages is a strong intuition the villagers have with the material environment. They bundle, stack, pile up, collect and store systematically about everything. They are especially drawn to materials that require and associate to gravity. These are primitive and fundamental reactions such as to fill in, to encircle, and to layer, which are harderly seen in the urban area but visible in the rural. However, such close relationship between human and construction materials are gradually disappearing from the rural environment while the urban construction techniques and styles made their way to the rural areas. Advanced technology were blindly followed and architecture symbols were wroungly worshiped. For them, the newer the more advanced, the better. Average age of the Chinese construction workers is constantly rising. Fewer young adults are willing to work in the laborious condition even though it is comparatively highly paid. They prefer easier works in the service sectors. Craftsmen still existed among the villages and for architects it is very easy for them to forget such facts. As Hassan Fathy, an Egyptian architect promoting cooperative building in the rural area, pointed in his book Architecture for the poor, architect should be conscious of the creativity of the rural inhabitants because while repressed by circumstances, they can create some of the most genuine and intimate invention out of scarcity. There is a way to protect this disappearing primitive and intuitive nature in the rural. We have to regard and respect the local craftsmanship, providing spaces for their own inventions.
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Bamboo For Construction
Chu-Jia-Wu Village
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Rammed Earth Wall Da-Tang-Wu Village
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Handmade Stoned Path
Tsung-Hsieh Village
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Superficiality
scratching the surfaces
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Section Elevation 1:400 Liuhe Pagoda Hangzhou
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On the other hand in the urban sphere, vast developments have undergone for the past 20 years. Public transportations were planned and constructed; high-density residential complexes were planned and built; industrial, manufacture, technological and financial districts were designated and developed. As I consider myself performing a really superficial and generalized investigation of China, I realized that such superficiality exist everywhere in the urban environment. It may be a similar situation to all urban development, but for me this is especially prominent during my visit to Hangzhou and Suzhou. Liuhe Pagoda, originally constructed in 970 AD and later reconstructed in 1165 AD, is a famous tourist site in Hangzhou. By observing its exterior, one will think that it contains 13 levels, but after entering the pagoda, one will find out there is only 7 levels. The importance of superficiality dwells in us since thousands years ago. In order to retain a good proportion, the pagoda was reconstructed as an image but not as what it truly is.
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For both Hangzhou and Suzhou, peripheral land outside the old city were recollected by the government and released to real estate development. However, high rises were built with the prospect of increasing population and also profits, but rarely concerning the living quality. These commercial or residential buildings are mostly unoccupied and owned by developers or investors. For normal citizens, it is really hard to even afford one property. So now these high rises stand in clusters with dust and ashes flying around the empty and lifeless streets. The growth of the hardware is way too fast while the supporting software can barely catch up. This developing method of making the surfaces of the imagining future is problematic in anywhere of the world. However, I believe there is another way that human is naturally capable of in creating spaces. It is our ability to create events.
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Events
create space
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During my visit in China, there were full of exciting examples which support the idea that events create space. From urban environment to rural areas, there is a sense of liveliness and faith about life. Most of the time, these “events” created spaces that are neither private nor public, but in the ambiguous zone that I categorized as communal. In the rural areas, these communal spaces are often ancestral hall or important traditional houses that were preserved. They are not a famous historical site where tourists visit and take photos, but important spaces where locals held weddings, funerals, celebrations and even meetings. They were
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often gathering places for villagers to discuss, rest, gossip, and play cards. It is a center that consolidates and holds together the community in the rural areas. In the urban settings, it may be harder for communal centers to form but I had observed some great examples of utilizing the urban public spaces. In Hangzhou, there are many comfortable public spaces especially pedestrian plazas and walkways around the West Lake. In many occasions, I have seen people gather and dance, improvise music,
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play cards, or simply stand and discuss lives. They are not buskers, on the contrary, they move their daily lives outside their own house because they are willing to share theiry joy. Amazingly, they fully utilized the spaces and affected the atmosphere between the public people and the environment. Autonomy is a force I defined as the freedom people have to liberate the standardized and the normalized. No matter in the urban or rural context, people here has the ability to take liberty of altering their environment. They are not afraid of changing the original intention or function of the built environment whereas in some developing countries it is rather harder to reinvent. Here, they transform the ragged edges into their gardens and playground facilities to their drying equipment. It is a force that adapts the changes, refills the spaces with liveliness and completes the scene. It is a force that can create space.
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Repurposed Playground Da-Tang-Wu Village
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Repurposed Playground
Da-Tang-Wu Village
Repurposed Collapsed House
Da-Tang-Wu Village
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sketches
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Rhode Island School of Design Independent Study Wintersession 2013 Advisor: Peter Tagiuri