Words and Light

© 2017. Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

As we explored the «tulou» on our first morning, we encountered the man whom my Uncle Doug called “the Proprietor” — the eldest in our branch of the family, and therefore the head of the household and the «tulou». He led us to levels and rooms not accessible to tourists, including this iconic view from the fourth level.

© 2017. The ancestral hall and inner ring of Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

“The Zhengchang tulou spans 260 feet and has two concentric circles of different heights that contain 250 rooms. In its center is a white and pink ancestral-worship hall. Red lanterns wave from the eaves, and several rooms have become souvenir shops.” — The New York Times, 2008.

© 2017. Tea at Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

A “gorgeous complex” (UNESCO), Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) is prominent in the Chinese tourism industry, likely due to the size, grandeur, and well-preserved condition of the «tulou», and in 2001 was designated as a historic site with additional protections. Also known as “The Prince of Tulou” because it’s the second-largest «tulou» in Fujian, Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) became one of 46 «tulou» designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.

All that said — and amid the souvenir shops, the red lanterns, the constant tours — Zhencheng Lou (振成樓), like several other «tulou», remains inhabited. We were told, in 2017, that full-time residents numbered around 80, or 10 family units — a fraction of the potential capacity.

© 2017. Lanterns and laundry are suspended over an open-air kitchen sink in Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

The New York Times, in 2011: “[T]he thousands of ‘earthen buildings’ here, built by the ethnic Hakka and Minnan people of rural Fujian Province, are the ultimate architectural expression of clan existence in China.

“But as the clan traditions of China dwindle today, more and more people are moving out of the tulou to live in modern apartment buildings with conveniences absent from the earthen buildings — indoor toilets, for example.”

© 2017. Ground-level kitchen at Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

© 2017. A mop and clothes on the third level of Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

As “the Proprietor” guided us to levels and rooms not accessible to tourists, we were led to what had been my great-great-grandparents’ bedroom on the fourth floor, above the only entrance into the «tulou». Swinging the window open, we could enjoy views of both the distant mountains and the wide stone-covered area where my grandmother said fruit trees used to grow.

© 2017. View from the front of Zhencheng Lou (振成樓) in Hongkeng Village, Yongding County, Fujian, China. Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. Portra 400, Canon EOS A2.

This «homelandcoming» series features film I shot when I traveled with my grandmother in 2017 to her ancestral home in China, which she had not seen in 74 years.

Some frames show the postcard-perfect scenery of «tulou» (“earthen buildings”) practically untouched by time; others reveal the everyday details that fascinated or amused us, and served to remind us that modern-day life continues for the residents who remain.

As a whole, this series is not a comprehensive visual diary of our trip — rather, it is a selection of a selection, showing the intersections of history and modernity, of authenticity and tourism, and of foreign and familiar.