A Trip to Discover the Face of Hakka Earth Buildings

I have always been interested in see the different, strange and interesting buildings in China, from the ancient imperil palaces, modern skyscrapers to ordinary residential dwellings. They always can attraction my attentions. Because in addition to their amazing design and appealing appearance, from the buildings I see, I always can learn something from them, the historical story, the folk custom, the local culture, etc. I have see a lot of impressive buildings in the beautiful county, such as, Forbidden City in Beijing, the Bund in Shanghai, the Potala Palace in Lhasa.

This time, I decided to explore something different, something more countryside. So I chose to pay a trip to Hakka Earth Buildings in Fujian Province. Hakka Earth Buildings is one of the highlights of Fujian Province in China
Before I went there, I did a lot of research. As the birthplace of Fujian Hakka earth buildings, Yongding County has 23,000 Hakka earth buildings, of which over 8,000 were built before the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Therefore, Yongding is honored as the "Capital of Fujian Earth Buildings." Compared to other ancient kinds of architecture,Yongding Hakka earth buildings have unique advantages in quantity, group design, quality, cultural connotation and historical origin.
Yongding Hakka earth buildings account for three compounds, two buildings, and 23 unattached buildings, including the Chuxi Hakka earth building compounds, the Hongkeng Hakka earth building compounds, the Yanxiang and Zhenfu buildings and the Gaobei Hakka earth building compounds. I found it out that the Hongkeng Hakka earth building compounds are the essence of Yongding Hakka earth buildings. Hence, I made it as my destination for my exploration. Hongkeng Hakka earth building compounds is located at Hukeng Town, Yongding County, Longyan City in Fujian Province. My friends and I rent a car to drive there. The drive through the countryside is very interesting, climbing up into the hillside. Lots of Chinese rural life, rice paddy fields, water fields and then the main attraction. There are many other interesting things we never see before.
As the essence of earth buildings in Yongding, Hongkeng is also the place which owns the most mature tourism development. It's still a working village; many of the inhabitants turn their hand to selling tea, making cigarettes etc. It is a village building by a small stream. For the village here has gone through different dynasties, so the buildings here are different in all shape and sizes. The buildings include ancestral temple, temples, schools, residential dwellings, etc. Different earth buildings are owned by different clans or surnames. It was certainly like nothing i have ever seen before. It has an inner and an outer ring, shaped like the Eight Trigrams on 5000 sq meters of land. The 4-storey outer ring is 16 meters high, and has 184 rooms; the 2-storey inner ring has 32 rooms. The outer ring is separated into 8 sections just like the Eight Trigrams. A staircase for each section goes from the first to the fourth storey.
The different buildings here have their own names, like Zhencheng Building, Rusheng Building, Fuyu Building, Qingcheng Building, Yucheng Building, etc. Zhencheng Building is said to be the main architecture. It was building in 1912 and covers an area of 5000 square meters. It has and inner ring and a outer ring too. The outer ring has 4 storey and there are 48 rooms in each storey.

There are also many other thing there. You’d better go and explore by yourself to witness the wonder in this place, and also experience the local like of Hakka people.