Kaiping #2: Li Garden

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After a couple of cups of coffee, I was off to Li Garden. It was a bout a fifty minute walk from where I was staying, but using public transport would have taken almost as long as I would have to walk about half the route and then wait around for the bus as it isn't too frequent. I enjoyed the walk although it was raining lightly. I headed along the road out of the village in a different direction passing more traditional style houses. I loved how old they looked and with the modern touches of people's laundry hanging out to show that they were lived in. The village road was pretty quiet and so was the main road I walked along. I'm glad there wasn't too much traffic as there were no real footpaths and I was walking along the edge of the road. Some of the little villages I passed along the way looked really cute, but there weren't too many signs of life. Were people indoors escaping the heat, humidity and rain or were they ancestral homes rarely used these days?

I came to the entrance to Li Garden and was surprised at how quiet it was. I had expected to see lots of people, but the road leading down to it was rather dead. There were just a couple of local woman chilling in the pavilion and the odd street sweeper. I read the information board there, which was pretty generic about the Diaolous and didn't really go into too much detail about the garden itself, only stating that it integrated many elements which included overseas Chinese culture, garden art, Chinese and Western architecture, cultural relics, Wuyi customs, intangible cultural heritage, and folk customs. So quite a mix of things. I did try to search what Wuyi customs are, but I only got results for Wuyi Mountain in Fujian, so will have to try and look that up at a later date. I headed down the long, quiet road to the ticket office. It was so quiet that it was hard to spot where the ticket office was. There were only a few other people milling around buying tickets. The ticket was 100 RMB, as usual quite pricey. First off ,there was a small museum, so I made my way around that. It let me escape the rain for a bit and I wandered around the exhibits but nothing really stood out. I headed outside to start my exploration of the garden. The first building I came to was Yunmei, which was built in 1928 and consists of five houses. The five houses are all equal to show that there was no favouritism between the owner and his sons. Also the corridors on the upper floor are all linked demonstrating closeness and unity. I wonder if it worked as well in reality. I wandered through the buildings to a grassy area in the centre. If it had been a nice day, it would have been a good place to relax, but since the weather was bit rotten it was only being used as a shortcut by staff going on their lunchbreaks.

I headed back to the main path and passed a small coffeeshop. The next point of interest that I came to was the Miniature Diaolou Village. This was a small green space that had replicas of the famous Diaolous scattered across it. I quite enjoyed my walk around it. It reminded me of Aiin's World that I had visited when I lived in Korea and all the miniature famous places I had seen there. Just past the Miniature Diaolou was the Li Garden Diaolou complex. Unlike Zili Village, where the Diaolou were more scattered about, the Diaolou here are close together in a compound. I entered through the gate and made my way to the first building, Panli Lou. I did take about a million photos of the front of the building and the statue of what I presumed to be its original owner. This building was built in 1926 and was a joint venture between father and son, Xie Weili and Xie Shengpan. It has three and a half storeys and is a mix of architectural styles. It combines the Chinese lobby style of yellow walls, green tiles outside and cornice brackets with European and American style windows and Ancient Roman posts. The interior decorations and household goods were imported, which was rare in China at that time. The building also has Lingnan and Chaozhou decorations and craftsmanship on display. I enjoyed walking around the house an seeing the different things on each floor and looking out at the views on offer outside. I was rather surprised to see a Western style toilet as even today the squat is a la mode. I loved the pink and mustard tiled fireplace, which is unusual for me as I am not a big lover of colour, but it just seemed to work. I also enjoyed the views looking out of the windows as I ascended the stairs. It was nice to see the other Diaolous in the cluster and some glimpses of the blue sky through the rain clouds. On the top floor, there was an altar for the owners and with some nice red flowers in front of their pictures.

Back down the stairs and I made my way to the place next door. This was called Jiong Villa. Thus was built in 1932 and is only two storeys. It was built using both Western and Chinese architectural styles and belongs to Xie Shengjiong, the fifth uncle of the garden owner. Only the entrance hall was open to look around and I liked the few old items on display; a grammar phone and an old style field camera. I wondered if the rest of the house was empty or just not for the viewing public. Back outside, I headed tothe next building Letian Lou. This wasn't open to the public which was a same as its description sounded pretty intriguing. It was built in 1911 and covers five floors. It was known as the 'security centre' of the Xie Family as the doors and windows are made from iron and the walls reinforced and are 30 centimetres thick. It does look quite imposing especially with the windows all shuttered. I really wish it had been open and mocked up to show all the family's treasure and wealth on display. Another building was Ming Villa, which was built in 1931 and belongs to Xie Weiqin, a cousin of the garden owner. I wandered around the garden for a little while before heading to the second row of buildings. The garden was immaculately kept. I wonder if they had employed as many people to look after it in the past as they do today.

In the second row of buildings I came to Panwen Lou. This was built in 1926 and was the home of Xie Weiwen, the garden owner's elder brother. It is very similar to Panwen Lou in style. I was happy to see that there were a lot of information boards inside and it was nice to read up on the wider history of the time. I learned that the Diaolous were built as a consequence of the Opium Wars, which had left the locals and Hakka settlers in a bad way, add to the mix civil strife, famine, droughts, and a weak economy working overseas was seen as the only means of survival for the local peasants and their families. The guard towers first appeared in the late Ming Dynasty and thrived until the Qing Dynasty. in around the 1930s. There were two main reasons for their popularity. First, when Kaiping became a county in 1649 the bordering counties had poor social order and bandits were rife. Second, Kaiping is in a valley surrounded by mountains and rivers so flooding was common in monsoon season. I enjoyed looking around Panwen Lou, when researching my trip, I read in someone's blog that once you've seen the inside of one Diaolou, you've seen them all as they are pretty much all the same. I totally see what that person meant, but I still liked looking around them, trying to imagine the different families living there, going about their day to day lives.

After looking around the outsides of the other buildings, I headed to the garden area at the back of the compound. I came to Wanxiang Pavilion, which is a typical and traditional style Chinese bridge pavilion. It was nice and the views of the small river that runs through the estate and the surrounding pavilions, greenery and walkways was pretty. There were some large archways, which had rhyming couplets on them, obviously lost on me due to my lack of Chinese. There were some greenhouse structures in the garden that I liked the style of as they looked different. At one end of the garden, there was a smaller building named Yupei Villa. The villa gets its name from the pet name of the garden owner. I think they meant nickname. It was built to commemorate, Tan Yuying, who was Xie Weili's second wife and died of an obstructed labour. The watchtower was pretty small, but had four floors, and I liked seeing the photographs of the owner and his wife inside it. From here I walked to a sheltered corridor that was alongside the edge of the water. It was a nice place to sit and take a rest. Looking across the water with the blue cloudy sky and all the lush green trees on the opposite bank I felt like I was in Southeast Asia. There was some great details on the corridor with paintings and small sculptures.

I left the garden and started my longish walk back to Tangkou Village. I did a few detours on the way to look at some of the smaller villages and the houses there. The first village I went to was on a road leading away from Li Garden. It was nice to walk along the road and the place was very peaceful. There were some Diaolous that were being renovated and some that were lived in. I inadvertently walked through someone's garden as I didn't realise the place was occupied until I saw an open door and some CCTV cameras mounted on the wall. I headed back to the main road and to another village, I had passed along the way. Shen Bu Cun was a cute little village, the buildings were only one or two storeys high and a real mix of different styles. They kind of clashed but kind of complimented each other too.

After a good rest, it was time for some dinner, so being a creature of habit and a lack of dining options, I headed back to the claypot rice place. I decided to order the eel and beef rice. I had enjoyed the beef one so had high expectations for this one. I sat sipping tea, while waiting for it to arrive. The restaurant was fairly busy again today, always a good sign. It didn't take too long for my food to arrive. I liked the beef and eel rice, but it wasn't as good as just the regular beef rice. I think it was because I could really taste the sauce on that one, which was why it was so much better. I really like eel and this one was nice, but just didn't have the wow factor. After dinner, I had a little bit of a wander about. I found some street art that I had missed previously and an old crumbly building, two things I love to photograph. I also had a walk around the museum in my accommodation and out into the beer garden, which also had some good murals on the walls.

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Comments

[RENanDREW]

Miniature
I love these! But I wish they'd pruned the shrubbery a bit better - that would have really messed with my sense of scale :)

[Zephyr]

Haha!
They are cute. They should have trimmed them as it does throw it off kilter.

[RENanDREW]

I can see what you mean that it felt like somewhere in SE Asia. I really enjoyed the whimsical style of some of the architecture... and I like how it tells the story of influences at a particular time in history :)