Wandering through the 600-year-old Cangdong Village in Jiangmen City, you will find vast rice fields dotted with Diaolou (watchtowers), ancestral halls, and traditional residences, creating a unique and epic landscape. The Kaiping Diaolou and Villages is the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Guangdong, embodying deep memories of overseas Chinese heritage.
Tan Jinhua, a professor at Wuyi University, plays a key role in the revitalization of these historic villages. She participated in the application for the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages UNESCO World Heritage designation, during which she identified a lack of heritage education.
Tan Jinhua introduces the ancestral hall in Cangdong Village.
In 2008, Tan was invited to direct the restoration of ancestral halls in Cangdong Village. She immediately recognized the site as living heritage, preserving the authentic natural landscape, architecture, and cultural customs. The village inspired her to launch the Cangdong Project, which explores valuable practices of heritage protection through architectural restoration, community participation, and exchange activities.
Restoring living community memory
Tan Jinhua introduces the ancestors of Xie clan.
Cangdong Village is a typical overseas Chinese village with well-preserved features of Kaiping Diaolou and Villages, founded by the Xie clan during the Yuan Dynasty. In the early 20th century, returned overseas Chinese brought Western ideas, technologies and aesthetics to their hometown, shaping the village's integrated Chinese-Western architectural style.
Houcheng Xie Ancestral Hall and Bingwen Xie Ancestral Hall
Entering the village, the Houcheng Xie Ancestral Hall and Bingwen Xie Ancestral Hall come into view. Funded by overseas Chinese and built with the joint efforts of local villagers, these two ancestral halls served not only as places to worship ancestors but also as schools for village children. To date, the restoration work under the Cangdong Project has covered 20 out of the 53 buildings in the village.
"Restoration is based on history rather than imagination," Tan said, pointing to an old photo taken in 1934 displayed on the ancestral hall wall. It's an important reference for the restoration. Throughout the project, she not only relied on historical materials, such as old photos, genealogies, and donation records, but also prioritized consultations with villagers, through which she gained deeper insights into local lifestyles and cultural beliefs.
"This is their heritage, their home," she emphasized. "We must respect the villagers and give them a voice. In this way, promoting any revitalization will not be too difficult, and these buildings can truly carry the village's emotions and memories."
"Traditional Chinese Feng Shui emphasizes the concept of 'Four Waters Returning to the Hall'. It means that water should be collected from the rooftop and directed to the courtyard so that the blessings from the God of Heaven can be secured," Tan explained, pointing to the restored courtyard of the ancestral hall.
During the restoration, she insisted on using old materials as much as possible to preserve the original appearance of everything, from the Kundian wood beams to the teak window frames. "This Kundian wood is imported from Southeast Asia, resistant to termites, and can last for over a hundred years. We cannot simply replace it. Once replaced, it will no longer be its original." When talking about the details of the ancestral hall restoration, she spoke with great familiarity.
Beyond adhering to the principle of "restoring to the original appearance" in architecture, Tan also collected a wide range of antiques, such as old train tickets and used textbooks from villagers' homes. Today, walking into these two ancestral halls feels like stepping into a small overseas Chinese museum.
The Situation in the Far East (時局圖) by Tse Tsan-tai (1872-1939)
From the couplets on the hall walls, one can discern the Xie clan's pride and remembrance of their ancestors, Xie An and Xie Xuan, in history. The Situation in the Far East (時局圖) hanging on the wall reflects the vision and sentiments of Jiangmen's overseas Chinese, who cared about global affairs and never forgot their hometown during the turbulent times.
Tan noted that many difficulties encountered during transformations stem from a lack of heritage education. Without understanding the language behind the architecture, restoration can become destruction. "Some might think old things are useless, but a Ming Dynasty stone or a Song Dynasty tile in the ancestral hall serves as a witness to cultural migration."
A heritage experiment with a sense of place
"Being a non-governmental, informal venue, we hope every visitor can gain a more intuitive understanding of how to protect traditional culture and villages," Tan elaborated on the positioning of the Cangdong Project. In her view, the ultimate goal of restoration is not to create a tourist attraction but to build a living community.
Covering about 300 mu (20 hectares), the Cangdong Heritage Education Base integrates farmland, three fish ponds, a village, and a hill into a complete natural ecosystem. Every plant and tree, every traditional dish, and every local folk song are elements that Tan is committed to preserving, and are also indispensable parts of the community.
Folk songs performed by a villager
How can we build a living community? Tan proposed a framework based on four key elements, people, culture, landscape, and industry. Firstly, it's essential to respect local residents and their lifestyles. Secondly, the local culture must be preserved and maintained. Thirdly, an authentic natural landscape should be protected. "For example, we should not introduce plants from the United States or Australia and claim it as a fashion," Tan explained. Last but not least, the industry must align with the above-mentioned aspects to ensure sustainability. "Only in this way can foreign tourists feel a true 'sense of place' here," she added.
A foreign delegation visits Cangdong Village.
Therefore, under the Cangdong Project, Tan and her team have carried out a variety of activities, allowing participants to walk into the fields, experience ecological and cultural heritage, and feel the significance of protection.
The base cooperates with overseas universities to offer cross-cultural learning workshops, through which participants can learn to cook Guangdong medicinal soups from villagers and gain knowledge of local wisdom. They also enter herbal shops and fields to identify hundreds of Lingnan herbal medicines and experience traditional folk customs, such as lion dancing and paper flower folding.
"The seeds of heritage are planted in their hearts," Tan said. She believes that when these participants carry the seeds to different places and apply their heritage knowledge, the seeds will germinate. "This is the true impact of education, not merely claiming that the project can be copied and pasted. Heritage protection is not a standardized project replication but about nurturing the vitality of respecting people, culture, landscape, and industry in each unique soil," she said.
Experiencing the charm of Chinese culture through heritage
In addition to restoring buildings and building communities, Tan is also promoting cultural root seeking. "For us, cultural root seeking is even more important than blood lineage root seeking," she stressed. "The scenes, diet, and customs of ancestors are far more touching than vague bloodline genealogies." To this end, the Cangdong Heritage Education Base organizes various cultural root-seeking activities every year, attracting countless overseas Chinese descendants to return from across mountains and seas.
Xie Meihua in Cangdong Village
The story of Xie Meihua, a Canadian-Chinese girl, deeply impressed Tan. Initially, Xie resisted returning to China. However, persuaded by her family and motivated by the course credits of the root-seeking program, Xie embarked on a journey to Cangdong. When she found a distant relative's home based on the vague address given by her grandmother and was warmly welcomed, even having traditional rice cakes specially made for her. At the moment, Xie was shocked and thought, "I don't know them. Why are they treating me like this?"
"This is China; this is Chinese culture." Tan's explanation turned the abstract concept of culture into the warmth of the rice cakes in her hands and the unconditional kindness they represented. She noticed that many overseas Chinese descendants would say upon returning, "My Chinese roots are coming back." In Tan's view, this is the power of cultural root seeking.
Young root-seekers were curious about the places where their ancestors had lived and the home-cooked flavors they had tasted. They touched the century-old wooden beams in the ancestral halls, identified Lingnan herbal medicines in the fields, and learned to make rice cakes by the villagers' stoves. The hometown of their ancestors, once a vague concept, gradually became tangible.
Not only overseas Chinese descendants but also many foreign visitors have experienced the warmth of Chinese culture through the base's activities. Tan gave an example, saying that an expat met a random villager one morning. The villager asked him, "Have you had breakfast?" and warmly shared his meal. This seemingly ordinary gesture deeply touched the visitor. She could not understand why the local villager would ask if a stranger had had breakfast. After she understood the cultural meaning of this kind of greeting, she exclaimed, "Chinese culture is amazing!"
Tan remarked, "The way Chinese people greet each other and their hospitality, these cultural elements flowing in daily life, are more appealing than any verbal instruction. What the Cangdong Project is doing is planting seeds, which we believe will eventually take root and sprout."
Reporter: Zhou Hongdou, Yin Juewen
Video: Luo Yuan
Poster: Yang Chenyue
Design: Chen Weihong
Proofreading: Chen Xuede