clustered around the port of Shantou, once known in English as Swatow, those who spoke the Chaozhou dialect sailed to Siam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Kejia or Hakka from the uplands beyond Shantou, and accessible to it via the Han River, spread themselves widely. The area between Xiamen and Quanzhou, more than other areas in Fujian, fed the migrant streams throughout Southeast Asia. Jinjiang, once a county-level administrative area just to the south of the port of Quanzhou, not only looms large as the homeland of countless migrants throughout Asia, it is the ancestral home of over 90 percent of those of Chinese descent in the Philippines. Each of these distinct qiaoxiang areas is noted for its own variant forms of vernacular architecture, which explains in at least a limited sense many of the differences in the residences built by migrants in their adopted places of residence. The section below highlights some of the common features among these vernacular traditions, while later chapters will reveal some of the differences.
Old Homes Along China’s Coast
Chinese dwellings throughout the country share a range of common elements even as it is clear that there are striking regional, even sub-regional, architectural styles. Given China’s vast extent, approximately the size of the United States and twice that of Europe, it should not be surprising that there are variations to basic patterns that have arisen as practical responses to climatic, cultural, and other factors. While there is no single building form that can be called “a Chinese house,” there are shared elements in both the spatial composition and building structure of both small and grand homes throughout the country. In addition, Chinese builders have a long history of environmental awareness in selecting sites to maximize or evade sunlight, capture prevailing winds, avoid cold winds, facilitate drainage, and collect rainwater. Details of these similarities and differences are considered at length in some of my other books (Knapp, 2000; 2005).
Adjacent open and enclosed spaces are axiomatic features in Chinese architecture, whether the structure is a palace, temple, or residence. Usually referred to in English as “courtyards” and in Chinese as yuanzi, open spaces vary in form and dimension throughout China and have a history that goes back at least 3,000 years. Courtyards emerged first in northern China and then diffused in variant forms as Chinese migrants moved from region to region over the centuries. The complementarity of voids, apparent emptiness, and enclosed solids is metaphorically expressed in the Dao De Jing, the fourth-century bce work attributed to Laozi: “We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel: But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not” (Waley, 1958: 155).
While sometimes what is considered a courtyard is simply an outdoor space, a yard, at the front of a dwelling, a fully formed courtyard must be embraced by at least two buildings. Two, three, or four structures along the side of a courtyard create an L-shaped, inverted U-shaped, or quadrangular-shaped building type. Nelson Wu called such a composition a “house–yard” complex, with the encircling walls creating an “implicit paradox of a rigid boundary versus an open sky” (1963: 32). The framing of exterior space by inward-facing structures arranged at right angles to and parallel with the fronts of other buildings creates configurations that are strikingly similar to the character 井, a well or open vertical passage sunk into the confining earth. The proportion of open space to enclosed space is generally greater in northern China than in southern China, fostered by the desire to welcome sunlight in the north but to avoid its intensity in the south. As a result, courtyards found in southern homes are usually much smaller than elsewhere in the country.
Chinese in southern China use the term tianjing to describe open spaces within their dwellings, whether they are fairly large or indeed even mere shafts that punctuate the building. The term tianjing is usually translated into English as “skywell” or “airwell,” terms that are especially appropriate in multistoried structures where the verticality of the cavity exceeds the horizontal dimension. Atrium-like tianjing are found in Ming and Qing dynasty residences throughout central and southern China, including along the coastal areas. Tianjing evacuate interior heat, catch passing breezes, shade adjacent spaces as the sun moves, and lead rainwater into the dwelling where it can be collected. Adjacent to skywells, which are relatively bright compared to enclosed darker rooms, “gray” transitional spaces such as shaded verandas are common in Fujian and Guangdong. In order to reduce humidity levels that effectively lower the apparent temperature felt by the body, architectural devices such as open-faced lattice door panels, half-doors, and high-wall ventilation ports are employed in southern houses to enhance ventilation. Throughout Southeast Asia, where the sun is elevated in the sky year round and ambient temperatures are high, it is not surprising that immigrants from southern China continued to use tianjing in their new homes. Many examples will be shown in the chapters that follow.
Throughout southern Fujian and eastern Zhejiang, manors with front-to-back halls and perpendicular wing halls represent the typical fully developed residential form. This residence of the Zhuang family is located in the Jinjiang area of Fujian province.
Where building lots were restrictive and space was at a premium, Chinese builders traditionally adjusted the dimensions and shapes of their structures. In urban areas, narrow residences adjacent to each other along a street were constructed as long structures with small skywells punctuating the corridor-like receding building. Where it was possible to construct a more extensive residence, either narrow or broad parallel structures were constructed alongside a wider central unit. Over time, if wealth and family circumstances allowed, additional side-to-side wing units were added. Examples of this modularity and replication of enclosed and open spaces can still be seen throughout Fujian and Guangdong, indeed throughout China.
The Tan Tek Kee Residence, Jinjiang
Migrants who departed Fujian and Guangdong were generally poor, leaving behind family homes that were simple and unremarkable. In some cases, however, where the family already had a home and migration by a son was part of a family’s strategy to further increase its wealth, there was usually hope that improvements in the residence would take place as remittances came from abroad. In the early twentieth century, travelers in the region noted the presence of emigrant communities because of the superior quality of the dwellings. Ta Chen states that these fine homes, traditional and modern, were “the most effective way to express one’s vanity.” Moreover, “an effective display of pride does not mean only a large house, but it has to have evidences of taste and culture. This may be supplied either by modernity or, on the contrary, by an ostensible show of liking for those things which traditionally stand for refinement.... The ideal of ‘complete happiness’... is not in fact anything new the emigrants bring back with them from abroad, but embodied in the folkways of the countryside. What they do contribute is financial ability to gratify these tastes and, sometimes, innovations which produce curious contrasts between old and new in the homes and the furnishing of homes” (1940: 110–11).
While there is no “typical” home of a migrant, the residence discussed below illustrates the dynamic nature of space in a fully formed residence of a family who sent their son to the Philippines. The dwelling expresses what Chinese broadly considered a fine home for harmonious family life during the late imperial period. It exhibits well the layout and materials of a traditional Fujian dwelling, as well as reflecting aspects of family organization, ways of living, and ritual requirements in one of China’s preeminent qiaoxiang in Jinjiang county to the south of Quanzhou. Because of deterioration over the past half-century and lack of documentation, however, it is not possible to ascertain with certainty the specific changes brought about by the remittances from their successful son.
This expansive residence was built sometime during the latter half of the nineteenth century either by the father or grandfather of Tan Tek Kee, who was born in the family
