The Tulou, currently under the process of being listed in World Heritage by the UNESCO, are known for their unique shape, large scale and ingenious structure. Those unique building can be seen in Yongding, Nanjing and Huaan counties in southwestern Fujian Province and that’s were we went! On Sunday afternoon, after a rather long and not most comfortable trip in a minivan, we arrived near Yonding. Once there we started to visit those building rich of Hakka culture.

Actually the Tulou were built by a minority called the Hakka and are traditional communal residence in the Fujian province. Usually of circular configuration the dwelling will host many families (sometimes up to 100 families). The name Tulou mean earthen building and is so called because its outer walls are made out of clay but not only: the walls are made using a mix of raw earth, sand, lime, glutinous rice, and brown sugar, and reinforced with ‘bones’ of bamboo and wood.

There are mainly three types of Tulou, the Wufeng (also know as five phoenix), the rectangular, and the round ones. While Wufeng can only be found near Yonding the others can be found in many other places. The Hakka, at the origin of Tulou, migrated to the south from the north and were originally Han. When they moved they gradually changed the local architecture by incorporating Han architecture into the local on and that produced the Tulou. For example, the Wufeng, with there three halls and two side rooms are said to be the result of a redesign of the Han courtyard. Not only the high walls were built for defence reasons but they are also the result of traditional Han architecture form.

While the oldest Tulou are the rectangle ones, the most emblematic ones are the round ones.  The biggest round one can have up to five storeys with three interior rings. The basic architecture is always the same and thus family kitchens are always located on the ground floor. If there are only two storeys, the first floor becomes the bed-room. However, most round Tulous are three or four storeys and thus the first floor becomes a storage room for food and furniture (with no windows), the second floor and above are then the bedrooms. On the bedroom floors there usually are pots in front of each rooms, those are used as pee pot during the night which give a very “refreshing smell” to those floors… Nowadays, only 360 round Tulou are still standing but more the 4000 square one still exist. Out of the 360 I guess we must have visited about 10 of them which is not too bad.

The Hakka, as mentioned previously were Hans who fled south to escape war and famine during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC). The industrious Hakka, who emphasized agriculture, self-sufficiency, and education, hang in Fujian Province ever since.

Funnily enough, during the cold war, the Pentagon considered the Tulou as a threat as they looked like missile silos from satellite pictures.

So anyway, we had a first day of visit then went to the hotel in a Wufeng Tulou were we enjoyed a great dinner with some local beer and some awesome Mi Jiu, or Rice wine that can only be found in the region. After a few round of playing card, taking picture at night and getting some more Mi Jiu into our system we went to bed and got ready for the second day of Tulou visits.

That second day was rather wet but the pouring rain did not stop us from visiting some more and enjoy the architecture of the Tulou and the beautiful landscape sprinkled with coal mines. Armed with our waterproof ponchos we had a great day visiting some of the region finest Tulou. It is that same day that we had the eccentric idea of buying of those round earthen building and transforms it into a luxurious hotel… I guess we will keep on dreaming about it for a long time until one day we’ll hear about someone who’ve done that and who’s making plenty of money out of it…

The following day the sun was back and so we decided to go for a last walk in the countryside before heading back to Xiamen .