County in SE China's Fujian restores ancient residential complexes in pursuit of rural vitalization

Photo shows Yongtai county, Fuzhou city of southeast China's Fujian Province. (Photo/Zhang Peifen)

A county in southeast China's Fujian Province has restored its ancient residential complexes in rural areas through the joint efforts of the local government and residents, as well as developing cultural and tourism industries in recent years, making the locality brim with a renewed vitality.

Yongtai county, Fuzhou city of Fujian Province has had over 2,000 residential complexes in total in its history, with some of them dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and is now home to 152 well-preserved ones. Integrating a joint residence and defense system, the buildings inside the complexes maintain the authentic features of the original vernacular housing, defensive structures and waterways along with their unique architectural structures, wood carvings, and colored drawings.

Since many of the ancient villages have become unoccupied over the years, the county established a working group on the renovation and development of the villages in September 2015, in an attempt to protect the cultural heritage.

The county set up strict rules on the usage of government-managed funds, which helped leverage more social resources in the cause of renovation, according to Zhang Peifen, vice chairman of the Yongtai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and head of the working group.

Villagers repair an ancient house. (Photo/Zhang Peifen)

Moreover, councils for architectural protection and development based on local clan lines have been established, which has encouraged villagers in the locality to restore the ancient buildings under their own clans. By the end of February 2022, 38 councils of this sort had already been registered at the civil affairs bureau of the county.

Thanks to the joint efforts in preservation, 18 residential complexes are now listed as cultural relic sites under provincial protection and five under state protection. In March 2022, the manors of Yongtai of the Huang family stood out among 225 nominated sites around the globe and were listed on the 2022 World Monuments Watch issued by the World Monuments Fund (WMF).

The Aijing Zhuang residential complex, an ancestral home of the Bao family, is another vivid example. Bao Daowen, Party secretary of the complex, has been resolute in pursuing the restoration project as his father told him that “the culture of the residential complex should by no means be lost by this generation.” With the council he established and the funds he received from the government, villagers were able to actively participate in the architectural protection project. They donated a total of 4 million yuan (about $628,400), and items such as old furniture, tools, photos, family trees, and ancient books. The Aijing Zhuang received the Award of Merit in the 2018 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in November 2018.

Aerial photo taken on Nov 11, 2018 shows the scenery of Aijing Zhuang residential complex in Yangwei village of Yongtai county, Southeast China's Fujian province. (Photo/Xinhua)

With the locality’s cultural relics now in a better condition, the county went on to develop some new industries as a way to further advance its rural vitalization. So far, the county has developed libraries, homestay hotels, agritainment businesses, research and study bases and creative spaces, as well as a number of local tourism routes.

The Aijing Zhuang, for example, has five showrooms for all the items donated by the villagers, a memorial hall featuring information on the locality’s modern revolutionary legacy, and a library housing 13,000 books.

Yuezhou village of the county renovated the former residence of Zhang Yuangan, a poet from the Song Dynasty (960-1279), in addition to building some new tourism-related infrastructure, having turned an ancient residence into a museum for ancient weapons. Besides, it also organized additional activities such as a photography competition to boost local tourism, receiving about 100,000 visitors a year.