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1、96Reader BHakka Civilian Dwellings:Yongding Earthen HousesThe earthen houses of Yongding,Fujian,found in the southern part of the Longyan region,have avery long history.They are unique in character they are also very large in scale and well crafted.This style of building has been called“a skill uniq
2、ue to China.”Yongding earthen houses are found in two types,square and round.There are 360 round buildingsand over 4,000 square ones in Yongding County Fujian.The round buildings,also Known as roundstockaded villages,are typical among Hakka residents,and usually consist of two to threeconcentric cir
3、cles.The outer circle is usually three or four stories tall,contains 100-200 rooms andis over ten meters in height.The first floor is the cooking and dining area,the second floor is forstorage and the third and fourth for the bedrooms.The two-story second circle contains 30-50rooms,usually used for
4、guestrooms.In between is the ancestral hall,a common area used by theseveral hundred residents for marriages,funerals,and parties.Also included in the compounds arewater wells,public baths,and flour mills.The buildings are made from tamped earth obtainedlocally and.Do not require reinforced concrete
5、.The walls are 3 meters thick at the base,wideenough to drive a car on,and the lower level walls are 1.5 meters thick,wide enough that a per-soncould lie across it.The wall narrows from bottom to top,but it is usually at least 0.9 meters thick atthe top.Wooden planks are used following the inside cu
6、rve of the walls to form a great number ofrooms,and the inner side of the planks form a corridor.The earthen houses of Yongding,Fujian were mostly built during the Ming(1368-1644)and Qingdynasties(1644-1911),but their origin goes all the way back to the Western Jin Dynasty(265-316).About that time t
7、he Hakka people moved into the area to escape poor agricultural conditions andtransformed simple mud brick dwellings into strong and beautiful earthen homes,gradually addingmore stories to the structure.Beginning in the middle of the Ming Dynasty,the houses were builtbigger and bigger in scale.This
8、kind of structure can not only resist natural disasters such astyphoons and earthquakes,but man-made disasters such as bandit raids as well.Moreover,itallowed the dispersed Hakka people to live together in one place.The people spent most of theirdays together and got along well,so when threatened by
9、 an emergency from the outside they unitedas one to face the threat.From ancient times to 1940s,the earthen houses served as a sturdy bunker for the self-protection ofthe Hakka people.The main gate or the compound is 20-30cm thick and made of trees with nocommercial value plated with iron on the out
10、side and some even have water channels for fireprotection above them.The first and second floors of round houses have no windows to preventenemies from entering.The corridor between the inner and outer walls is sometimes as narrow asone meter wide and runs all the way around the wall.The windows on
11、the outside wall not onlyprovide ventilation and natural light,but also make it convenient to combat outside enemies andprotect themselves.Some earthen houses have lookout platforms at the front and two sides of thehighest points so they could maintain a lookout for any trouble coming in the distanc
12、e.In additionto being good for protection and keeping out enemies,the Yongding earthen houses resistearthquakes and fires,keep out wild animals,and allow good ventilation and natural lighting.Forgood fire protection,the outer walls of some earthen houses are divided into 6,8,or 10 sectionsseparated
13、by firewalls to prevent a fire from spreading to the whole village.Since the rooms are97distributed along the curve of the wall in round houses,there are no dead corners as there are inconventional apartment buildings,making them superior in terms of light and ventilation.The thickwalls provide good
14、 insulation,so the inside of the rooms is warm in the winter and cool in thesummer.The Zhencheng building,located in Hongkeng Village of Hukeng Township,was built in 1912 andcovers an area of 5,000 square meters.It is perched on mountain-like beams and consists of twoconcentric circles.The outer cir
15、cle is four stories tall with 48 rooms in each story arrangedaccording to the Eight Trigrams of the Yi Ching.Each section contains 6 rooms and has its ownstairway.The ancestral hall of the Zhencheng building is in the form of a stage in front of whichstands four stone pillars each nearly 2 meters in
16、 circumference and nearly 7 meters in height.Thecast iron lattice guardrail on the second floor walkway was shipped to Hukeng Village fromShanghai.Over the door to the main hall are the words of an early Nationalist president,LiYuanhong(1864-1928).The Zhencheng building was displayed along with the YonghegongLamasery and Great Wall at the Worlds Fair of Architectural Models held in Los Angeles in April1986.