A moment that matters
Basic Information:
Director: Guang Zhou Hua Shi Jian Culture Communication Co., Ltd.
Year of release: 2021
Runtime: Four episodes: 17:15+15:44+13:44+13:51
Cover of the second episode:
Introduction of storytelling:
There are four videos in this series, focusing on the history of the Tulou complex and three major buildings that are well maintained in this complex. Historical evidence, maps, current aerial maps, and birds-eye video clips are included in the beginning to introduce the historical context and physical context for the audience to place themselves. In the following three videos, the basic information such as the name, a general layout plan of the buildings with digital diagrammatic drawings, and some first-person perspective clips were used for the audience to navigate through the building layout. Interviews of the owners of those buildings were conducted and recorded to unfold the historical story and current story of the buildings and their lives. The audience could understand the story of the culture by understanding the stories of the owners of those buildings.
Theme:
The theme of the documentation in my eyes is to advocate for the attention to the preservation of historical communities like Tulou that is being the object of this series. Preservation is expensive, but it is very important and requires the attention of both the people that are bonded to the culture as well as the physical environment they live in, collectively as a whole within the culture.
History and introduction of Tulou:
Fujian Tulou, inscribed into the World Heritage List, is the home for Hakka for around a thousand years.
Descendants of Hakka (客家人) [ke jia ren], one of the minority ethnics in China, immigrated to a southern province of Fujian from the Yellow River 1000 years ago in Tang Dynasty. They live in the valleys among the mountains and ridges near the water. To protect themselves from robbers and wild animals, they built their style of buildings, called Tulou (土楼) [tu lou]. They separated different parts of the building and outdoor spaces for different cultural and religious activities, as well as casual living spaces. The layout, materials, and detailed features of this building complex are extraordinary and delicately designed for the Hakka people. This one of kind building complex enabled the descendants to reproduce and flourished till now. However, due to the fast development of China, younger generations started to leave the Tulou and move into cities, as they wanted to see a larger world and make their livings. Without maintenance, lots of Tulous have become fragile and face demolishment on their own. But a few of the descendants stayed and dedicate themselves to preserving their culture and home by developing tourism and repairing the buildings and infrastructures. They teach the tourists about their culture and how they apply the religion of Daoism into their family disciplines and architecture. They may seem separated as individuals, and live in different buildings, but they share the same cultural belief and share the same family root.
Personal connection and thoughts:
I am from Fujian Province, and I have always been interested in Tulou, but I have never been able to visit it or learn about it. So, I took this opportunity to study this culture in my home province. I am curious about how their culture is developed and interacted with other cultures in my province. The building structure they created is one of kind and the collective creation of a settlement that is both an expression of their culture and adapted to the local condition, as well as the clever application of western techniques and style as they develop. They speak a similar dialect as my dialect, and that makes me wonder what my family history is. Each building is a family that developed into a huge family tree. Because the building is a ring or square-looking structure that families live in the inner side of the walls, it is like a closed community with a shared space in the middle that brings every family close to each other, which enhances their family ties and relationship. But many of them have moved out leading to the lack of mountains of the building and the broken tie of families.
My curiosity:
It is heartbroken but it makes me wonder: in their culture, they are strongly attached to their home, besides monetary issues and want to see a new world, what makes them leave their home? How do we help them to reserve their valuable culture? What would it affect if we allocate more resources into cultural reservation as it costs a lot and could be considered as a huge shift of economic structure in China?
My a-ha moment of insight:
When they mentioned the owner of one of the buildings, one of the descendants is also part of the treasure because he is the key component linking the culture and the building and displaying the entire story to us. Without him, the treasure is not complete. He is part of the story, and he is the proof of how the culture has been developing since a thousand years ago.
One of the scripts is “Forgotten makes all the preservation pointless” which inspired me a lot. With all the descendants, who grew up in the culture, left their homes, and forget about their culture, or do not value their culture, that indicates the loss of the culture. What should we do to make them value their own culture? How can we help? What are those cultures mean to us? Why should we preserve them? Preservation should be preserving both the physical structures and the people who are attached to those.
This is a moment when the granddaughter-in-law of the owner of one of the buildings is asking him what a word means in Hakka culture, they were arguing the difference between what it means in Hakka culture and modern Mandarin. It is crucial because it is related to the theme of cultural preservation of Tulou and the community attached. The way the younger generation learns from the older generation is the key to inheriting the culture and story of the community. A one or two-hour film is far away from enough to record the culture, only people who live there and experience it could serve as the medium and bond to pass down the story. So yes, the key to cultural preservation is the people within.
A moment that matters:
Circles for engagement
What makes the culture centralized, mesmerized, and last for such a long time? The layouts of the community may explain it. Looking at the overall layout of the building, the community gathering/ event space is located at the center of the complex, then the school/classrooms buildings follow, then the guest room buildings, and the residential building at the outermost ring, rising to 4 floors, protecting the inner structures as a wall, and providing viewing opportunities for the residents to keep an eye on things happening on both sides of the building complex. The residents are protected and united.
Microcultures (People)
Public space – where the people hang out, cook, clean dishes, and clothes, and move within the community, are sharing the same small space that is about 12 – 14 ft between the two ring-shaped buildings. They live so close to each other and share spaces frequently, rules have to be made and followed and they have to respect each other. With the culture and beliefs they share, they always think in other people’s shoes and contribute to the common good. They constantly interact, communicate with, and support each other. Collectively, the intimacy created by this layout and the respectful beliefs brought people together in this space. This only works out here, with these people and the structure. This is something that is greatly missing in current society. People value more their privacy and lacking face to face, physical engagement. We also do not share the same beliefs. When the pandemic hits, we started to realize how important it is to interact with people face to face. The application of circles in a public design could be a great tool to encourage interaction between people, but with proper scale so it does not discomfort users due to beliefs or physical interaction conflicts.
Picture Anthropology
Rights in Tulou’s Public Space
Access:
The non-residential spaces within the boundary of Tulou are open to all of the people within the Tulou community. The space is both visually and physically accessible to the residents within the complex. In a centralized geometry layout, the shared spaces are located in the center of the complex and surrounded by the residential ring-shaped building that is multi-story so that the central areas are visible to the residents. Simple pathways connecting the residential building and the central area lead to easy access for residents.
However, these spaces are solely for the residents or guests living in the building complex. Everything but the outside of the earthen building wall is visible to non-Tulou residents. It was in fact built to protect the community from the outside world, which coincides with the centralized, enclosed layout. It is also safe to be in those open spaces because the whole complex is enclosed and protected.
Freedom of action:
Religion and belief serve as regulations that restrict people’s actions within the space. The more towards the center, the less freedom the Tulou residents have. It is relatively freer near the residential building, the living zone of the residents. They get to organize small spaces according to their needs and preference. However, the lack of choice and privacy due to the limited space also restricts the activities that could happen on site. The historical infrastructure also restricts residents’ usage of the space, such as the very old-style drainage system restricts residents to use water near it and be cautious about the open drainage trench.
Change:
Since 2000, some infrastructures of Tulou have been renovated to attract tourists to generate income for Tulou to repair their aging infrastructure. Some of these changes are permanent such as the changes of interior rooms for a better living experience, and some are temporary, such as outdoor infrastructures that are removable and leave the minimum marks to the space. They are conscious about the preservation of the space, they pay extra attention to changes, if changes lead to the permanent alteration of significant features within the space, they will avoid the changes.
Ownership & disposition:
The ownership of Tulou is inherent. The person who owns the building complex has the right to decide who to admit to the building. Nowadays, due to their preference to develop tourism, they are welcoming all the tourists, which makes the space accessible to a relatively broader range of users. But they still have a strong sense of ownership, and they take care of all the features within the complex and keep them maintained and protected.
Claim:
In the middle of ridges and mountains, the Hakka family traveled barefoot all the way from the north and settled to begin their new life. In this undiscovered land, they found the best spots near the water on highland, removed soil, and used those soil with other materials they found in the area to build their new territory.
Without trying to hide its existence, the scale of the structure is never sacrificed but fully dedicated to fulfilling the need of the group of people. The unique style and structure are a mark of their community identity. Using the local resources for the sturdiness and harmony of the structure as a way to connect themselves with the land, fitting in but claiming the space as their territory and resembles their wish of getting settled and rooted in the greater landscape. The inner side of the building is the expression and application of their culture and beliefs, such as the circular layout of buildings according to Daoism, and the event center for religious practices exhibits their way of using the space according to their needs and preference.
Relationship Matrices
Ecologies of place
Tip of the iceberg: A casual day in Tulou for the residents
Observations:
Characters and their motions, and objects:
Adult 1: A male figure on the left seems to be washing something in the sink on a platform that is built above the drain, there is another sink closely behind him. Kid 1: This kid is sitting on a plastic movable chair holding and staring at a phone, by a round wooden table with a teacup on it, with his feet on the elevated concrete porch. Adult 2: A female figure wearing slippers, holding a bowl with a spoon, trying to touch the kid’s head next to her. Kid 2 is also sitting on a chair, also holding a phone. Kid 3 is the youngest, who is still trying to learn to stand and is chilling in a baby cart. Adult 2, Kid 2, and Kid 3 are on a relatively smooth concrete pad surrounded by the round gravel path surface. The two address labels on the wall above them indicate these two doors belong to two households. Adult 3: Behind the firewall, a male figure wearing a guard suit, sitting on a chair and looking at his phone.
Physical relationships: 
This is a small place for a semi-public space. The kid 1 in the middle in the forefront is about 2-4′ from the other adults facing the adult 2 and kids 2 and 3. Adult 3 in the background is facing the people in the foreground and about 10 to 20′ away behind a brick arch.
Understanding:
This seems to be a very casual day in Tulou. Adult 1 is looking at the sink frowning and focusing on some maybe intense or boring cleaning job. Kid 1 is focusing on the phone, relaxed with his back crowed, with a neutral facial expression. Adult 2 seems to be worrying about Kid 2, holding a meal bowl with a spoon and wearing slippers indicates she is in a comfort zone where family casual activities, such as feeding a kid, happen. Kid 2 is also holding a phone, staring at it, with a fever pad on his forehead. He is leaning on something, looking tired but also focusing on the phone. Kid 3 is observing his/her feet while holding the edge of the cart with both hands, looking curious. It is reasonable to believe these five people are a direct family, parents, and three kids. Adult 3 has a very similar motion as Kid 1, sitting on a short chair, with his back not protected by any structures. He is facing the people in the foreground, he might have been people watching while now he is looking at his phone, relaxed.
Overall, this picture gives me a feeling of a peaceful sunny afternoon in the summertime. People in this space are living their casual life, with no surprise.
A limb of interpretation:
This semi-public space is serving as an indoor living space for this family of five, with all kinds of furniture outside. The removable furniture and maximization of space for different casual activities indicate their adaptability. The family is behaving casually and relaxed, even with the presence of other people nearby, showing that they are used to this situation and they feel safe doing this in the space. The potential community guard in the background is also relaxed and being boring, showing that this area is very safe, at this time period. This is a special public space where people live in it casually and safely with public eyes. The space is effective in size: too big may decrease the sense of safety and creative use of space, and the interaction between people who stay and people who pass by; too small will limit the activities that happen, also may cause conflicts. This only happens in this Tulou due to its unique layout, as well as the long history of family settlement so that everybody is in the same family tree which allows this intimacy to happen without conflicts or safety issues.
Informing Design Through Ethnography
“Legally Trespassing” – The conflicted right of access to space between tourists and residents in Tulou
Photos of scenes of living in Tulou are uploaded onto the internet by tourists, indicating their span of access in residents’ lives. The color gradient indicates the sense of privacy to the residents, tourist-taken photos overlapping the darker areas represent the heavier level of “trespassing” of residents’ lives. The less-dense photos in the more private area are the result of granted but regulated access.
