With its provincial capital Taiyuan located only a few hours' drive west to Beijing, Shanxi Province boasts three tourism charms: the diversified religious culture in the north, the legendary Shanxi merchants in the center and the time-honored historic relics in the south.

The train ride from Beijing to Taiyuan takes 6 hours, and then another 2.5 hours from Taiyuan to Jiexiu, a small city close to my destination - the Wang Family's Grand Courtyard. It's also known as the "Grassroots Forbidden City", referring to the more popular ancient Chinese imperial palace in Beijing.

"Da yuan", or grand courtyard, was the special name for the residential complex of wealthy "jin shang", or merchants from Shanxi.

The history of Shanxi merchants dates back to over 2000 year ago, but their heydays came during the Ming and Qing dynasties from the 17th to 19th century. Back then, Shanxi merchants were so powerful that they controlled nearly all the trade and capital flows in North China. They also extended their business overseas as far as to Europe. They established "piao hao", the rudiments of banks in China.

Although they were pioneers in business, when it comes to family life, Shanxi merchants preferred traditional big families and built up very large "da yuan" to hold together all their family. These grand courtyards are named after the family's surname, such as the most famous Qiao Family's Grand Courtyard, and the largest Wang Family's Grand Courtyard.

It's said that the Wang Family's Grand Courtyard is as large as a third of the Forbidden City, and was home to over 1,000 male Wang offspring and their wives and children during its most prosperous days. I can't wait to see it.

In front of Jiexiu Railway Station, I took Bus No.11 heading for Wang Family's Grand Courtyard. After a 40 minutes' ride along a dusty and bumpy road lined up with coal piles, I finally arrived at this wonder of Chinese civilian residence. The two huge red lanterns hanging over the entrance immediately reminded me of Chinese film director Zhang Yimou's 1991 classic - Raise the Red Lantern, a story about love and rancor happening in a Shanxi merchant's family.

In my imagination, Wang Family's Grand Courtyard is one castle-like enclosed architectural complex. But in fact it is way larger than I expected. It has five separated castles, or forts more exactly because of their defensive layouts, and occupies nearly the whole Jingsheng Village.

The traditional Chinese theory of "feng shui" is a practice of the placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment, and it is another factor that the Wang family had seriously considered when the grand courtyard was constructed.

It is backed with a hill slope, facing a spacious plain in the south. To its west is the Yellow River, its east the Mianshan Mountain. Its location has the classic favorable pattern according to the "feng shui" theory.

There are five castles. The number is a deliberate choice. On the one hand, five represents "wu xing", or the Five Elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth. Ancient Chinese people believed these five basic elements made up the whole world. On the other hand, five refers to the five holy creatures from old Chinese legends: dragon, phoenix, tortoise, kylin and tiger. They all bear good auspiciousness.

I knew these things because I had a talk with Mr. Qiu Xiaofeng, a local folk culture researcher who has been working here since the grand courtyard opened to the public over a decade ago.

He also explained to me why the castles were constructed in a defensive manner.

"The houses were constructed into forts for defensive purposes, especially against local bandits. During the reigns of Qianlong and Jiaqing emperors of the Qing Dynasty, the country was enjoying a comparatively peaceful period. But some areas like Shanxi were still plagued by brigands. That's why rich families here built their residences into forts."

Meanwhile, only two forts are open for sightseeing, the Gaojiaya in the east and the Hongmenbu in the middle. My recommendation would be to visit the Gaojiaya, built about 150 years ago. It consists of two joint mansions and a shared recreational area, occupying about 20,000 square meters, as large as two and a half football fields.

Gaojiaya adopts China's time-honored architectural style of "siheyuan", in which houses surround square courtyard in four horizontal directions. Each mansion in Gaojiaya has two inner courtyards, and the buildings around the backyards all have two stories. Among the rooms on the second floor, those facing the sunny south are devoted to memorial services for the family's ancestors; and the rooms facing east or west are called "gui fang", or "the young lady's sanctum". In ancient times, a young girl in big families moved to such a "gui fang" at the age of 13, and was not allowed to leave her room until her wedding day when she was at least 15. Of course, her marriage was decided by her parents, and a girl still single over the age 20 was considered a shame of the family. How lucky I am not born at that time!

But what distinguish Gaojiaya is not the buildings, but the variety of carvings found on the brick, stone and wooden materials in them. Constructed during the most prosperous period of the Qing Dynasty, Gaojiaya exhibits colorful, exuberant and meticulous decorations. I have found vivid carvings and sculptures everywhere: on eaves, columns, walls, window frames, door heads, thresholds and even staircases.

I was particularly attracted by the wood carvings on the windows. Most of them feature natural figures, such as plants and birds. They are plenty and colorful, but didn't seem vulgar to me.

Qiu Xiaofeng, the local researcher, told me it was because the Wang family attached great importance to the education of their descendants, and they built their houses with the classic gardening theories of Li Yu, an outstanding Chinese aesthetician in the 17th Century.

"Li Yu advocated bringing natural beauty to the family windows. By creating beautiful landscape on the windowpanes, the residents can enjoy the marvelous world outside, the mountains, the waters, the plants and the animals, without leaving the room."

But different from those in South China, the wooden carvings in Gaojiaya were painted with colors. It's probably because Shanxi has long and colorless winters. Colorful house decorations would delight the residents through the depressing seasons.

And since we have mentioned South China, the architectural style of Wang Family's Grand Courtyard was mingled with significant southern elements. Besides the abundant use of carvings like the famous private gardens in the lower reaches of Yangtze River, some part of the grand courtyard actually came from the South.

My tour guide Wu Xiaoxu told me about a stone decoration on a wall in Gaojiaya.

"The carving pictures a scene from the southern areas at the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. There are mountains, lakes, ferries and pavilions. Please check out the material of the carving. It is a piece of 'roe stone', which can only be found in South China. Its surface is not smooth, but studded with small natural nubbins. The Wangs had such things because some family members used to be officials in the south, and they brought the southern specialty home."

Wow, how rich and fastidious the Wangs were to move a rock all the way across the country!

But what's more fun is they not only used carvings to beautify the residence, but to educate the people living inside. Wu Xiaoxu explained to me the story in one of them:

"This might be the most interesting stone carvings in the courtyard. It portrayed a fable from an ancient book - '24 Filial Piety Charts', meant to educate the newly-wed wives how to behave. On the chair an old lady is seated. She was toothless because of old age and couldn't eat regular food. So her daughter-in-law breast-fed her. By her side was a baby boy. But his attention was drawn to a servant with a toy, so that his mother could save the breast milk for his grandmother. Plants with auspicious meanings were blooming all around them. It indicated that a family could prosper only when the housewife was virtuous and pious."

When we were touring in Gaojiaya, I found quite a few tourists from other countries. I sighed: could the Wangs have ever pictured their house packed with foreigners? Wu Xiaoxu smiled and led me to a doorway. She pointed at a pair of exotic threshold decorations there and told me the Wang family was long involved in overseas business.

"The figures carved on the lower sides were Western laborers, because they had distinctive high nose bridges and deep eye sockets. It shows that the Wang family had already met the outside world and joined in the cultural and trade exchange between East and West."

On the city wall I came across an American girl named Kathy Swanson. She also seemed pretty impressed by this wonder of Chinese civilian residence.

"It's very impressive. It's huge. It's much bigger than I expected. Really, really, beautifully designed and I think the little gardens inside are really impressive too."

Three hours had passed before I realized that it was time to say goodbye to the grand courtyard. I wished I could stay longer; it must be fabulous to view sunset on the Loess Plateau on these high walls. Fortunately I was told old-styled hostels are available in Chongningbu, the other fort located in the west end. Maybe next time I will spend a night here to find out what it'll be like to wake up in a "Grassroots Forbidden City".

Author: Manling      Date: Feb 26, 2008

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