Daily Life in China                  

Wang Family Complex:

The incredible and massive Wang family complex.  The most magnificent complex in the area.

This is the main entrance of the Wang complex between Xianning and Tongshan.  It's huge and the most impressive building of it's type 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 complex in the area.  

The complex still has many families living inside and outside in seperate buildings surrounding this main complex making a small village of Wang family members.

Tough to the dragon decorations in the distance but seeing it off in the distance makes an quite an impression.

The live view is a rolling sea of dragon backs that looks spectacular in real life.

The family citang upper section.  The altar area was in good condition but the altar was not much.  Possibly it is being moved to a stand alone citang but I did not see one in the village.  

Very large tianjing currently used for crop storage.

Looking across the building hallways.  Large doors and big rooms. Even the stops between doors was larger than at any other complex in the area.  Massive but like the rest of the structure still sturdily in place.

Row of internal tianjing in the back area.  Not the washer to the right.  A very rare item for a country home.

Some of the elders hard at work. Note the huge tianjing area.  This is not outside the whole picture is inside the buiding.

Apartment. Probably drafty in the winter.

Large tianjing off the main entrance.  The citang is a through the open area to the right two buildings away.  

Side entrance.

Cooking fumes wafting up to the ceiling.  Note this is a 1 1/2 story building so no apartments on the upper floor.  It mostly for storage.

Mother of the girl I had met at the Wang complex.  This place is out in the country in an area that is fairly poor.  The girl was sharp so did well in school, IT.  She worked in Guangzhou in CAD so making lots of money compared to those in the village.  Her English was good enough so we could communicate a bit.

Looking out of the citang back to the main entrance.  Note: citang are built in the last building directly in line with the main complex door (which should face south..

Looking left and below this looking right through the compplex's unusually large doors and tianjings.

Outside side entrance. To left an old extension, to the right a new building with base bricks from the old building.

For some reason this complex has unusually tall door stops. 

Some of the decorations on the uppers sections of the complex.