Daily Life in China                  

Chinese Family home complexes, outside:

   South of Huangshi there is a building type which is quickly disappearing.  It's a long string of connected buildings in rows forming a family complex with common internal walkways and courtyards (tianjing).   The form is a derivative of a single long building that got replicated over time as the family grew.  

   There are many family living and work rooms inside.  The most most notably area inside the complex is the family citang.  The citang is a family honoring area with an altar.   The citang usually is usually in three sections i.e. spans all three buildings of the main complex.  The first and second rooms have various functions.  The last room housed the altar. 

   Below are several examples of the building complex type. 

  Directly below: An an example of one of these buildings.  The middle section is the old main building and would have extended two to four times longer than what's shown.  The low building to the lower left and part building on the far right are recently builds from the brick of torn down sections of the old main building.  In back of the central building are new buildings of red brick.  The bases of those buildings were also made from the brick of the old building.  There's still several families living in the old section, mostly older people.  This is a small village with about 30 buildings now and everyone has the same family name.  

   The original main section with the white on top was the main entrance door to the family complex.   That opening usually led to an internal citang with an alter at the back of the complex i.e. in the third building.  The section with the main door and it's back sections will probably stay and remain the family citang.  All the brick in the building to the right will be reused to make modern buildings.  Originally all the buildings has a skim coat of white cement so could have stood our markedly in the countryside.

(Internals and details of these buildings found under the family name group of pictures).

Below is the Shang family home near Tongshan, Hebei. This complex still has many family members still living within the complex. Slowly the younger generation is moving out to cities or building homes next to this structure (shown below). This complex is a classic example of this type of building and in use.  Thirty years ago there were 200 family members living here.  Today there are about 30.

This is the main entrance complex between Xianning and Tongshan.(right of center with double horse heads above the entrance) of the Wang   It's huge and the most impressive building of it's type I've found in the area.  In it's day 200 years ago it was a probably the nicest building in the county.  It's bigger, taller, more highly decorated inside, and has larger rooms than other complexes in the area.  

This the the side view of a huge mostly yellow mud brick complex just south of Yangxin, Hubei. It's still has quite a bit of the gray brick but as you can tell the repairs are with yellow mud brick indicating a possible lack of money for better materials.  Most of the compound is yellow brick. 

This view shows the extension of the side of the compound.  It extends quite a way's to the right made up mostly of original yellow mud brick.  Most of the family has gone and the compound only had about 10 or 15 families living here.

  Below shows a small family village.  Everyone here has the same family name of Shu. The original complex of buildings are mud brick with some gray brick structures.  There are many buildings being replaces as you can see in red brick.  This village is growing, not decaying. The old dirt streets and small alleys are being kept the same but replaced with cement.  Walking around the place is wonderful.  The walkways go through family homes and with exposed porches and open tianjing (courtyards). 

Below: an old style complex in yellow mud brick.  The view attempts to show the density and connectedness of buildings.  Between most of the buildings will be narrow walkways opening onto tianjing. 

The central feature of building complexes and sieuyuan (four sided courtyard i.e. four buildings in a square with a courtyard in the center) is the internal courtyard.  For building complexes the courtyard internal and lighted by the skylight or sky well formed by four roofs coming together as shown below. The tianjing (courtyard formed inside by the buildings) is the center of Chinese daily life. It's the place to wash vegetables, cloths, chat and play cards. 

A few hundred year old complex main entrance.  Again the main entrance would lead to the family citang (family alter) at the back of the complex.  There would be 2 to three doors on each side of the main citang for entrance into the wings of the complex through narrow walkways. 

Another complex mostly abandon except for several family groups.  

Another yellow brick complex.  Most of the original has been torn down and used for new builds.

Old complex below Yangxin, Hubei.  The side view shows the typical gray brick three building complex with horse head decorations.  Note the view above the farmer, looking through the complex.  Most of the surrounding buildings are yellow brick.  There are still several family groups living here.

Below:  Some precursors to the family complex.  The windows are fixed in place bamboo sticks.  The building material is earth unfired brick in this case with a thin layer of earth cover.  This one is two stories so fairly new.  The usual is 1 1/2 stories.

The yellow brick is inexpensive and used in many provinces in central and north central China.  It's only used now in the poorest of places.   Small kilns have sprouted up all over China making red brick from fired reddish earth widely available.   Red brick is inexpensive now and replacing unfired earth brick in most new builds or repairs.

Old complex replaced with yellow brick.  Note the gray brick at the lower levels and doorway.

Long building and probably a precursor to the large gray family complexes.  But note even though the type is old this building is probably 50 to 150 years old.   The gray brick family complexes above are older.

 If a fire happened the whole structure would probably burn from the many internal wooden building members.   Part of the reason for the decorative "long" and "horse heads" above is to act as fire stops.

Family complex being torn down and replace with a new structure.  The centerl section housing the citang will stay and become a single building.  Note the old stone doorway. That is the main entrance of the old section.  Note the new poles on the roof.

Below all of the original gray family complex has been torn down and reused in the new buildings.  Note the middle building with straight lines, modern windows, two full stories in place of 1 1/2 stories.  It was constructed from the gray brick of the original complex.