Xinhua News Agency, Hong Kong, August 29 Title: Hong Kong Zeng Da House: A Century-Old Village in Guangdong and Hong Kong
Xinhua News Agency reporter Lu Min
Ascend to the two-storey tower and see the entire village.
On the left is a one-foot-thick, one-man-high dark wall, at the foot of which is a narrow stone road paved with stones one meter long and one foot wide, and on the right side of the stone road is a long roof, with patches of mottled tiles, weeds swaying in the wind.
"This slate and tile is more than 170 years old." Village chief Zeng Xianrong said.
Located in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong, Tsang Tai Uk is a walled village built by Tsang Kwan Wan, the ancestor of the village, for the Tsang clan, which was built in 1847 and took 20 years to complete, and is currently one of the most representative Hakka traditional walled villages in Hong Kong. Hakka Village inherits the culture of the Central Plains, and also records the arduous years when the Hakka people in Guangdong worked hard to work hard and sweated for the construction of Hong Kong.
(Subtitle) Going South to Fight Hard "Wuhua Ago Hard"
In the 1840s, in the early days of the opening of the port of Hong Kong, the mountain was dug into the road and the seawall was built, and the project was huge. At that time, there was no reinforced concrete, and the infrastructure needed a lot of stone, and masons were a sought-after business.
Located in Wuhua County, Meizhou, Guangdong Province, located in the Hakka region of eastern Guangdong Province, due to the abundant stone resources, many local people rely on stone for a living, exquisite craftsmanship, is a famous "stonemason's town". At the age of 16, Wuhua Hakka Boy Zeng Guanwan and his brother went south to Hong Kong to make a living by beating stones.
Lin Wenying, president of the Hong Kong Hakka Culture Research Association, said that in Meizhou Hakka circles, there is a saying that "five Chinese fight", which means that the five Chinese are good at hitting stones. Wuhua people are willing to endure hardships, have a tenacious personality, and are known as "Wuhua Brother hard to fight hard" reputation.
Catching up with the golden opportunity of Hong Kong's large-scale construction, Wuhua stonemasons became the main force of Hong Kong's stone industry. The Tsang brothers left a written record of the scene at that time: "Today's Hong Kong, west from the west end of Hollywood Road, through Sai Ying Pan to Shek Tong Tsui, Pu Fu Lin and other places, east from Queen's Road east through Happy Valley, Causeway Bay, Tai Hang, North Point, Shau Kei Wan and other places, are all places where Wuhua stonemasons come to Hong Kong to lay stones." ”
Seeing that the business opportunities were great, Zeng Guanwan took out all his part-time work savings, set up his own stone factory, contracted projects from the government, and concurrently operated freshwater business, making a lot of profits. Many of Hong Kong's most famous buildings that have survived to this day, including the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Building, Central Stone Street, And Po Fu Lin Pond, were all supplied by his family.
After developing, Zeng Guanwan decided to build a walled village for his children and grandchildren to live in. In 1867, the Zeng Mansion was built. Zeng said that "the most used in building materials is granite", which was very luxurious at that time, and ordinary villages used green bricks. He pointed to the stone pillars on both sides of the gate, about five or six meters high, "all made of a whole stone."
There are three gates at the front entrance of Zeng Dae House, the door frame and the doorpost are all made of stone, and there is a stone plaque on the door. On the stone plaque of the middle gate, several large vermilion characters inscribed by Zeng Guanwan's nephew Zeng Su are very eye-catching, implying that generations are in the same hall and feel the ancestors.
Self-sufficiency "This is a Living Village"
Standing on the watchtower and looking down, this is an independent rectangular castle-style village, covering an area of more than 6,000 square meters, using a three-step design, the upper, middle and lower halls are each one into one, with a patio separated by a patio, and the left and right horizontal houses are connected, and the layout is symmetrical, like a chessboard.
In history, in order to avoid war and chaos, the Hakka people who migrated south for a long time from the Central Plains brought the Culture and advanced technology of the Central Plains, and the hakka walled villages had a variety of architectural types. Lin Wenying said that there are hundreds of existing Hakka villages in Hong Kong, such as rectangular Hakka houses such as Zeng Dawu, which are "mostly found in northeast Guangdong, and are in the same line as the square tulou in Fujian, but more prominent in defensive self-defense."
Watchtowers are built in all four corners of the village, and a foot-wide stone road will connect them into a roof passage, "which can be climbed high and far away, and can also patrol and observe." Zeng said that outside the city wall, there was a moat surrounding the city wall, and the main gate was connected by a suspension bridge, but now it no longer exists. The reporter noticed that there were neatly arranged gun holes and lookout holes on the city wall, and the wall root of the gate had holes for the big yellow dog to freely enter and exit the nursing home.
Enter the house through the main entrance and cross the patio to the main hall with three gilded characters written on "Zhongshu Hall". The most eye-catching thing here is the 12 wooden screens, which are carved with embossed wood with embossed characters on the top of the four or six pieces, and the red background is supplemented by gold leaf. "It's carved from a whole piece of magnolia wood, without stitching." Zeng said.
This was a congratulatory gift from relatives and friends on the occasion of Zeng Guanwan's 71st birthday, and the congratulatory message was written by Dai Hongci of the Hanlin Academy at that time, and written by the calligrapher Huang Jiaduan, whether it was writing, calligraphy or carvers, it was of great artistic value. The village chief Zeng told reporters that in 2009, Zeng Dawu was rated as a first-class historical building in Hong Kong, and the SAR government specially allocated funds for reconstruction, and this screen alone cost nearly one million.
Zeng Dawu integrates family houses, ancestral halls and castles, and is inhabited by clans of the same lineage, forming a hundred large families with the same hall for several generations. The village is fully equipped, and the wells dug in the past are still clear and rippling, like a self-sufficient small society.
After more than 170 years of ups and downs, the basic layout and appearance of the Zeng House have been preserved, and there are still more than 100 descendants of the Zeng family living here in the village. "It's a living village." Zeng said.
(Subtitle) North to find the roots "I hope to invite Wuhua folks to see"
The 86-year-old Zeng Defang old man had to go to the Bogong Shrine at the mouth of the village every morning to worship, rain or shine.
Inheriting the farming civilization of the Central Plains, the Hakka people have always feared the land, they believe in the land god "Bogong", whether it is the head of the field or the stream, where there are Hakka people, they will pray to the Uncle to bless the grain and abundance.
Mr. Zeng said that in the past, the village was surrounded by rice paddies, and during the harvest season, the villagers dried rice on the grass flat in front of the gate. Every year in the spring and autumn, the Hakka family must first worship the uncle and then the ancestral hall.
The village chief opened the iron gate and led us into the ancestral hall. Even with the change of times, it can be seen that this place is still an important place for the cohesion of the Hakka people. The shrine is dedicated to the ancestral tablets, and there are many green leaves and red candles and fresh fruits. On the beam of the house hangs a large flower lantern more than one meter high, on which hangs large and small red lanterns, affixed with blessing characters, dotted with various flowers, looking joyful.
Mr. Zeng remembers that when he was a child, there was a lighting ceremony every fifteenth day of the first month, to worship the ancestors and worship the gods, as well as lion dances, firecrackers and other activities, the scene was grand and lively.
Nowadays the ceremony has been simplified, but the custom of lighting the lamp has been preserved. The village chief zeng said that now every Lantern Festival, they will be replaced with new lanterns, if the clan in the past year to add Ding, will hang a red rope with the boy's name on it, the representative to the ancestors "report", "register" to become a member of the family.
Changing the door link every year is also a new year's view of Zeng Dawu. The main entrance is connected as "a transmission of the kingdom, through the Confucius Gate", and the entrance of the ancestral hall is inscribed with "Donglu Chuanjing Brother, Nanfeng Xiushi". Some villagers suggested that the door link should simply be carved on the doorpost, but the village chief believed that the handwritten door link was an important tradition of praying for the blessing of the clan, and he personally wrote it for more than ten years. For the first time in the spring festival of the Year of the Ox, the village was handwritten by young people who won awards in calligraphy competitions to "encourage a new generation to pass on good traditions."
Once thousands of descendants spread all over the world, now the Internet is convenient, and clan relatives have set up groups on social media to contact from time to time. In 2014, under zhang Luo of the Zeng clan association, zeng Xianrong led a team of more than 20 ethnic groups to search for roots in eastern Guangdong and found Zeng Guanwan's former residence in Shuizhai Town, Wuhua County.
"The former residence is well preserved and is still inhabited by the clan today." Mr. Zeng, who went with him, said that when he met the villagers, he was "very close and excited!" ”
This was the first time they had returned to their homeland. The roads in my hometown are wide, the buildings are new, and "everywhere is under construction and development." In the joy of the reunion of the clansmen, the mayor of Zeng Village hoped that in the future, he would find an opportunity to "invite the Wuhua villagers to come to Zeng Dawu to see." (End)