A house on the edge of Zhongshe/Huazai Ancient Residences (花宅古厝), a historic settlement on Wangan Islet (望安嶼) in the Penghu (澎湖) archipelago
One can’t help but be taken with Huazhai (花宅). I was hit with one of those whatchamacallit shudders, somewhere between frisson and ASMR, as I crept through the ruins on the south side of the village just after dawn last month.
Everything I’ve ever read (Jared Diamond, John Hemming’s Conquest of the Incas) on how civilizations make do with what’s at their disposal came flooding into my head as I studied the craggy basalt and coral walls of these fractured abodes. What kind of lives had those hardy, maritime pioneers lived here, more than three centuries ago? With the resource-poor Pescadores subject to typhoons, battering winds and perennial raids by pirates, it must have been tough.
Huazhai lies on the east coast halfway up the titchy islet of Wangan (望安) in the South Sea of the Penghu (澎湖) archipelago. When then President Chiang Ching-kuo visited in the early 1970s, he sagely noted that the village was sandwiched between a couple of others, thought long and hard, and came up with a new name: Zhongshe (中社) – the Middle Village.
The locals murmured assent, waited for Chiang-lite to do one, and then promptly went back to calling it Huazai (花宅) – the Flower Residence1 The old name comes from the village having been fringed by several hills, which locals thought resembled petals, a mound in the centre serving as the stamen.
I’ve mentioned before that trees are few and far between in Penghu. Good quality stone was also not readily available in many places. Early Han settlers here showed the impressive improvisational skills that you find in so many societies around the world where natural resources were limited.
The walls of the ruins are composed largely of coral, held together with mud and lime. The newer and more affluent-looking houses, especially the Tzeng ancestral home (see below) are conspicuous for employing more basalt and brickwork. Read more about the building techniques here. According to most sources, the ruined buildings were originally ofthe Sanheyuan style, typical of South Fujian and Taiwan – that is, a three-sided open courtyard with a central building usuathough in many cases it is not easy to grasp the original layout. The Tzeng home as it stands is certainly not in that style.
Not sure exactly what this stern looking chap marks: It looks like the characters might once have meant the outskirts of the village, but now are just a place name.
This window grate appears to be the double happiness character ‘xi’ (囍) for good luck, particularly in marriage.
The village is mentioned in Qing annals as far back as 1699 but is probably somewhat older than that (I’ve yet to come across a definitive date). Some of the ruined buildings are, then, easily more than 300 years old (though still not meritorious of the “ancient” designation that you see on the signposts and which is bandied about in Taiwan for anything approaching the 100-year mark).
The restored abodes on the main lane are what draw the tourists and the Tzeng family ancestral home is the centrepiece. After rambling through the ruins for about half an hour, I made for the main lane and met a young woman pottering about around the courtyard of the Tzeng house, setting up her souvenir stall in preparation for the hordes that would descend a couple of hours later.
The great-granddaughter of the Tzeng who had the abode built on the site in 1919, Ms. Tzeng had grown up in Kaohsiung and returned to help her mum maintain the place. From what I can determine, it was unoccupied for several years after the first serious restoration work took place in 2002.
Ms. Tzeng pointed out that the brick window grate is the character for their family name 曾.
The Tzeng family ancestral home is a magnet for tourists.
Confusingly, Ms. Tzeng told me the house was itself “three or four hundred years old.” Perhaps there was a building on the site before great-granddad took over, but she couldn’t tell me who, if anyone, had been there before that.
The building is undeniably attractive; the brick window-grates in the shape of the character for the family surname – great granddad’s design – are a standout feature. On balance, though I was far more touched by the skeletal remains that greeted me at the village edge.
The Tzengs have been at the forefront of pushing to have Huazai protected as a heritage. In 2004, the World Monuments Fund, a New York-based NPO put these ruins on its watch list, finally spurring the government into recognising them as a cultural relic the following year.
I’d come across images of this building, opposite the Tzeng home, on a friend’s blog but hadn’t realised where it was. The building, looks considerably younger than most in the village and is not in keeping with its surroundings. It appears to be an artist/craftsman’s residence and I’d wager the occupant isn’t originally from the area.
Here you can see how coral was incorporated into the buildings. As well as demonstrating great innovation, the use of coral imbues the walls with a unique beauty
Restoration work is currently afoot (though proceeding slowly) and plans are apparently in the offing to set some of the old houses up as coffee and souvenir shops and the like. I can understand it – it makes sense for the local economy, but if I had my way, the old degenerates would remain in their state of disrepair, a spine-tingling testament to an era that would otherwise be very hard for me to conjure up.
The local temple with. As the protector of all Pescadoreans Mazu often presides at places of worship in Penghu, especially those right on the sea. I’m not 100 percent as to what’s going on here but, if you look closely, the tubby little figure under the larger one in the centre (a friend has suggested this is Guanyin but it doesn’t look like her to me) appears to be Mazu, the beaded headdress being the giveaway.
Any chance Joanna took these photographs? Or new camera? Nice, off-center, many even without the atmospheric haze that appears to float around in front of your lens. And a lovely flower even. Bravo!
Hi,
Great photos and details! I find the small details of construction so interesting, and it makes me so curious to know why they chose this or that technique, or why did things in a particular way. It also makes me wish I could watch houses like that being built by people who actually know how to do the work in the traditional way.
I am curious about your first photo, because I don’t recall seeing houses quite like that when I was in PengHu. How common is it? The stones appear to have been sawed or chiseled flat on the outward-facing side. Is it coral?
I wonder– was there coral all over, and people just had to go down to the beach and fetch it? Or was it collected from far away and transported to villages as building material? Did it accumulate around harbors because it was used as ballast in cross-stait trade?
–Scott
Detail of mixed coral and brick construction and fired ceramic ornamentation, PengHu
Coral walls near AnPing Harbor, Tainan
Scott´s last [type] ..(Penghu) MaGong city, from Snake Head point
Sorry! I am just a beginner at typing html… I’ll try it once more.
Some up-close photos (all of the same house) of mixed coral and brick construction and fired ceramic ornamentation, PengHu
Coral construction 1 of 4
Coral construction 2 of 4
Coral construction 3 of 4
Coral construction 4 of 4
@Scott: Mate, your pics are fantastic! As Bill Lakes observed above, my photographic abilities leave a lot to be desired. I don’t even have a proper camera (funnily enough I lost my point and shoot on one of my last libationary nights out with Mr Lakes). These are with a dodgy video cam which I take stills with – my technique is, admittedly, pretty sophisticated and had involved since Old Bill’s day, consisting – as it does – of taking hundreds and hundreds of shots and finding 10-20 passable ones.
That first one is, as I say in the caption, away from the cluster of the main ruins at Huazhai, near the (southern) entrance to the village. It does appear that they have planed/smoothed the surfaces. I thinks it’s pretty much a dry-stack construction, likes many of the walls around old villages in Penghu, though perhaps they used lime/mud/some kind of binding to hold it together (the edges look like that). It looks like there is some coral in there. Not sure how common – I think I snapped it because it looked different.
From what I’ve read, the coral used was what washed up, which meant it wasn’t that easy to come by. The link I provided to the building techniques info. goes into that. As I mention, there’s a coral beach at the seafront, though it’s all tiny, white, bone-like pieces that don’t look the same as what’s used in the houses. As for ballast … would they have used coral? Where did you get that idea? Have you heard of that before?
Here’s some extra info on 3-D mapping of the area which goes into the buildings a bit: http://books.google.com.tw/books?id=8WeNJD2RW3YC&pg=PA382&lpg=PA382&dq=zhongshe+village+coral&source=bl&ots=7o6kKkgLjS&sig=-DTi9XCWJF3eEgFbqIfWsgWYje0&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=zhongshe%20village%20coral&f=false
As for the html … dude, I am clueless, so no need for apologies. Anyway, cheers for stopping by. Always good to hear from other interested parties.
I read or heard many years ago (can’t recall when or where) that near harbors, and areas that have been centers of shipping and trade for centuries, you will often find large amounts of stones (or slag, etc.) which do not occur natually in that area, and the reason is that these stones were carried as ballast, and dumped when they were no longer needed.
In the older houses near An Ping, you can still see walls built primarily of basketball-sized clumps of coral. I’m curious about where the coral came from, and how far it was transported. It appears to have been as good as any stone for building walls.
The mortar and cement was produced locally with oyster shell ash and sticky rice.
There’s another thing I wonder about, regarding how this type of contruction was originally done. In your first photo, for example, is a type of wall in which you can see each individual stone. Were the stones mortared or plastered over smoothly when the house was new, and whitewashed, and the mortar just fell away over the last century or so? I wonder, because some (but not all) of the houses which appear to have been constantly maintained have smoothly mortared walls.
Some of the oldest houses in An Ping have walls which are made of rough and irregular coral clumps, but you can see that the sides of the walls were mortared smooth, as if to hide the fact that they were made of coral. In some houses, you can see where the coral walls were mortared smooth, and the mortar was grooved in a pattern to make it look like bricks.
Scott´s last [type] ..(Penghu) MaGong city, from Snake Head point
Here’s one reference that describes how “coral stone” (along with bricks and other stone building materials) that was carried as ballast by Dutch VOC trading ships in the south Pacific was commonly also used as building material
Ships that arrived at a port without cargo (or ships that were importing relatively light-weight cargo such as tea or cloth, etc.), had to be stabilzed en-route with ballast. When that lighter cargo was sold and unloaded (and before they loaded a heavier cargo such as salt, sugar or camphor), the ballast was either dumped, or sold (if it had some value, for example as building material).
Dutch ships in tropical waters
So I am guessing that much of the coral in the walls of old Tainan probably came from other parts of the Pacific. Java? Philippines? Malaysia?
Parthesius, R. (2010). Dutch ships in tropical waters: The development of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) shipping network in Asia 1595-1660. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Scott´s last [type] ..(Penghu) MaGong city, from Snake Head point
Great info, Scott. Fascinating. Ta!