I visited Zili Village! Look at these details! The lion carrying a coin in his mouth is from Mingshilou (铭石楼). The stained glass in the bottom middle and the bed decoration on the bottom right are also from Mingshilou. The bed decoration is interesting! I’m not exactly sure what’s going on but it looks like some people are on horses and there’s some construction going on and there’s a pavilion… The stained glass on the left is from the Lanshengjulu mansion (澜生局庐).
Here are some of the references to streamliners in the decoration throughout different buildings in the village.
When I got to the rooftops, I finally got to snap the online Kaiping tourist guide photos of the Diaolou. They really do integrate well into this landscape, don’t they? As the rivulets of sweat stung the skin on my neck in the staircases up and down the Diaolou, I thought about my paltry research question on when the first western inspired Diaolou was and why. I’m glad that I found the Cangdong project, and that they’ve let me tag along their operations… without them, I would not have had such a quick and thorough orientation into southern Chinese village life. And southern Chinese village life is so full, so rich! By rich I certainly don’t mean moneywise… but I mean it is so rich in terms of human connections and traditions and sustainable living. Southern Chinese villagers know how to live with nature. Life revolves around the earth. It’s kind of like The Good Earth except like, I actually like it.
So I wonder if to build architecture that isn’t out of touch with the landscape, you yourself have to first be in touch with the land. I had read in the UNESCO report that the Diaolou were mostly built by local builders that looked off photos or drawings. What do I mean by “in touch with the land”? Well, I’m not so sure. But everyone around here is giving me a pretty good idea: the way everyone has a garden that overflows, the way everyone knows all the plants, the way everyone thinks about their health and how they can be healed by food.
I kind of ran out of time at the end, but I was getting tired of being cooked alive in the subtropical atmosphere anyways, and these kinds of museum-like experiences always take it all out of me.
Zili Cun had a really good documentary that I have to hunt for in their WeChat archives. The girl locking up the exhibit explanation panels kindly let me in to snap a ton of really helpful information panels!
I’ll finish off with this close up of a lotus flower from their pretty lotus lake. Overall, Zili Village is extremely picturesque. But I think they changed a pretty large amount of things to set up the village to be so pretty and tourist-friendly. People still live in Zili Village. Real villagers from before this place was a tourist site. The villagers own “Peasant Family Restaurants” catered to the tourists in Zili Village. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m actually not sure how I feel about all of this. As in, my whole being here, experiencing all of this… it’s hard to think straight.
As I was leaving Zili Village along with some other straggler visitors after closing time, some aunties called out to me, selling drinks for 4 RMB and I’m like hecks WHY when I could get a drink for 1 RMB in Tangkou?! But then I felt a sour, distressed feeling and I backtracked and ended up buying some grass jelly from a granny because I felt bad. 4 RMB is actually already so cheap and they work so hard, and they had their village invaded by us. I doubt they had much of a choice. I’ll ask CJ or Professor Tan about it when I can. I wonder if the villagers in Zili Village get paid for this change in their lifestyle. If they are unhappy with the way things are, I wish I could make things slightly less deceitful by buying some grass jelly from them. In any case, I need as much grass jelly as possible. I am breaking out so badly. It’s so damned hot.
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On one hand, I feel like I have every right to visit where I was born, but at the same time I feel like this world is so removed from me, and we are all so inextricable from our current socioeconomic realities that every move I make feels a bit sour in some way. I have more than everybody here, and yet everybody is still sharing with me. I’m not yet sure how to deal with this. How do I give back? What is the right way to be in this space?
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The Bodhisattva sits in a lotus flower.
A summer in Guangdong 