Image · Vision · Kaiping Diaolou

Author: Yu Peilian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: This is a photographic collection and cultural introduction book about ancient Chinese architecture—watchtowers. The book faithfully records the author's photographic journey and their understanding of Kaiping watchtowers. It is illustrated throughout with images and written in easy-to-understand language. After reading this book, readers who knew little about watchtowers before will surely gain a vivid and detailed understanding. I am not unfamiliar with watchtowers. During my childhood, I lived on Dihai Gongxing Road in Sanbu, and there was a watchtower nearby called "Zhongxing Tower." I often played there with my friends, where I kept my childhood dreams and beautiful aspirations. Out of my deep affection for Kaiping watchtowers, I began "obsessing" over photography in the mid-1970s. When I faced these weathered and weathered watchtowers, I couldn't help but be drawn to them, and my passion became unstoppable. From then on, my friend and I spent almost all our spare time riding bicycles along National Highway 325, searching for watchtowers in villages one by one, hoping to discover a "treasure trove of watchtowers." However, we didn't find a "treasure trove," but we left behind many beautiful memories and experiences, as well as countless rolls of film—35mm, 120mm, 4×5, black and white, color, positive, and negative—of course, along with stacks of photos.
In the past, when I photographed watchtowers, I didn't have a very clear purpose, just driven by passion. As my photography of watchtowers deepened, I gradually gained a new understanding of them. At the same time, I found that the problems I encountered became more and more numerous, and I couldn't even figure them out myself. Later, I still "dared not be ashamed to ask" and consulted the local people, who enthusiastically told me many stories about watchtowers. But unfortunately, those materials were not well recorded and organized, and the stories gradually faded away, forgotten by time. Some things became unsolvable mysteries, and now, thinking back, I truly regret it.
Over the following two decades, I worked in the county and city publicity departments, cultural centers, watchtower offices, and the Overseas Chinese Museum. Due to the nature of my work, my contact with Kaiping watchtowers became broader and deeper. Out of my attachment to my hometown's watchtowers, I began to seriously collect various materials, and this has been a pursuit for over twenty years, impossible to give up. I wrote this book not to deliberately boast, but simply to faithfully record my photographic journey and my understanding of Kaiping watchtowers, as reflected in my book title, "Heart Images × Photography × Kaiping Watchtowers."