Fujian Tulou: A Journey into China's Hidden Gems

Author: Shi Yilong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: In the 1980s, U.S. spy satellites flying over China daily discovered numerous buildings of unknown nature hidden in the dense forests and secluded valleys of southwestern Fujian. These structures were cylindrical, with both square and round shapes, resembling intercontinental missile launch tubes. This caused tension in the U.S. military, who believed it might be a large, unimaginable, and weapon base! Later, it was revealed that these were merely rural homes built by the local Chinese people. These towering, enclosed earthen buildings, resembling large small gyms or giant mushrooms growing from the earth and spaceships descending from the sky, exude a mysterious aura, sparking people's imagination. This book, through chapters such as "Earthen Castles," "Building Giants with Rammed Earth," "Jingwei Earth Enclosures," "Other Structures in the Earth Enclosure Villages," and "Folk Festivals," objectively and authentically introduces the distribution, construction, and usage of earth enclosures in Minnan, southwestern coastal Minnan, and river valley regions, as well as the daily folk life of the people in these earth enclosure villages. It also provides a practical correction to the socially unrealistic concepts constructed by some individuals, such as "earth enclosures" and "Hakka earth enclosures," and the erroneous knowledge and biases derived from them.