The mission of the Taiwan Fulbright is to create a world with a “little more knowledge and a little less conflict.” My official grant period ended on June 31, and the final week of June ended with a culmination of requirements including a presentation, a video shoot, and a final review for the graduate students I was co-teaching at National Taiwan University. We are now five days from our Taipei departure. In our final month, our mission has been to take in as much culture as possible. Xiamen, China was on our list of places to visit. I was determined to see the Tulou (round houses) in Fujian Province and Leila was determined to see The Great Wall. In Fujian, the round houses made of earth construction are listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, and they date back centuries. They are an architectural marvel and China has masterfully preserved these structures. Xiamen also happens to be near where Leila’s grandmother’s father lived. He was an educator that built a school just 30 minutes outside of Xiamen in a place called Tong An.
We arrived in Xiamen by ferry which was just a short 30 minute travel distance from Kinmen, Taiwan. This was both of our first times in Mainland China and we were disembarking on water. We spent the prior weekend in Kinmen, an area filled with military history and architecture so close to Chinese vernacular that it had a unique identity beyond other parts of Taiwan. It is the geographically closest point of Taiwan and China.
Our our way to the round houses, we stopped in Tong An to see if we could locate the exact property of Leila’s paternal grandmothers roots. Leila and I (along with a guide) explored this small village that has yet to be absorbed into the metropolis of Xiamen. It had a feel of an informal settlement. My mother-in-law forwarded me photos taken a few years back when her brother visited. With this information, I was able to find the home and neighborhood. We went to the village center and they told us to speak with the elders. They would know the most about the family and the history of the family that lived there. Together we ventured out, looking for signs or evidence that matched the photo. Somehow we found it quite quickly. I saw a home that matched the architecture style of a building in the background. We turned right, and then right again and there it was, it matched the photo precisely. What remained of the homes was ruinous, just a few brick walls. As we wandered around the neighborhood taking photos, the first person we ran into was a young woman with two young daughters that were four and eight. It took Leila seconds to connect with her new friends. Their mother mentioned to us that the landlord of the area would be back shortly, and he would have more information. The oldest daughter brought out her butterfly collecting box and as I was taking photos, I could see the girls running around chasing butterflies. When the landlord returned, he introduced me to the community elders, all of whom had attended the school Leila’s great grandfather built. They mentioned that the school had been demolished and replaced with housing in recent years.
The next moment I turned around, the girls were enjoying popsicles. The elders invited us in for tea but we unfortunately didn’t have time. I told them that we would return one day. As we were walking away, Leila said to me in her inquisitive six year old voice, “I wonder when my great-grandfather was a little kid if he used to catch butterflies. She (referencing her new friend) was so good at it.” In that moment, I thought about Leila’s travel experiences, and they way we had experienced the space so differently. Travel to her is more than a new place, a heritage site, or a delicious meal. I mentally replayed our travels, and realized, Leila’s strongest bond has always been with the people. (To give you a fuller picture, all of these conversations were fully taking place in Mandarin Chinese. Other than the tour guide, no one else spoke English. So Leila is fully immersed in her communication. Her Chinese has advanced to a point where she can converse easily with her peers. Usually the first question we are asked jointly, after we see shocked faces is, “where did she learn to speak Chinese?”)
When we were on The Great Wall, she found another young companion that matched her in spirit and mischievous nature. We were on a wall, but at that time it functioned as a unifying bridge. I hope Leila maintains this desire to connect. I could learn more from her to me more open to making genuine connections with strangers.
As an African American with roots in the South, I can’t define my precise geographic ancestry outside of the United States, and my family can trace our family history back to the US 1800’s per census records. Our family reunion always places my paternal and maternal grandparents in rural counties in Mississippi. We are American with unknown African roots which for me the link of the unknown just makes firmly roots me in America. Leila can connect back to a place ancestrally with such specificity in a way that I likely will never be able to. She’s not fully aware of the reasons that this is the case. I’ve started to introduce the realities of war, the slave trade, and the children locked in cages at the US Mexico border as I write this. She is still in disbelief. It seems implausible. My parents live a 200 meters from where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The impacts of extreme racism and hate are actually terrifying to me, I can’t imagine the fear it would strike in a child. Conversations about history are so important and necessary, but so difficult. But also know that being armed with accurate information is essential. My hope is that if someone tells her to go back to where she came from, she can clearly articulate the history of Indigenous people globally, and then discuss the way her family came to be American citizens. She will know that Americans with African or Asian Ancestry are no less American than those with European ancestry.
After leaving Tong An, and traveling a little over two hours west, we arrived at the Tulou clusters. The location of the Tulou is isolated but often connected to principles of feng shui, which translates from Chinese to wind and water. Even in site selection, these families, who ventured came from Northern China for safety reasons knew they needed to select a site that had the features that connected it to nature. In my research and observations of residential spaces across culture, the central courtyard has been an architectural tool to encourage communal living. I have observed these outdoor spaces used frequently in Ghana, Italy, and most recently in the round houses in Fujian Province. One individual round house would be set up for a large extended family. The round shape produces non-hierarchical spaces in a typical four story round house. The first floor would be used as bathroom and kitchen, the second floor is storage and 3rd and 4th floor was for living and sleeping. It makes sense that then services requiring water be on the first floor, and I could envision a large group of people retiring to the first floor beginning to cook. I imagine this was a shaded and communal feeling. And the balconies connecting each floor which allow you to engage visually with the activities on either floor where a social connector. Parents could be cooking on the first floor and see kids playing on the balcony above. Viewing this space, my imagination took me to a place of how people occupied the Tulou, and I’d look into reality to see my own child peeking around corners and zooming in and out of rooms with a childlike wonder. We blew bubbles from the top floor to see how far they could fly. We took time to experience the space.
Towards the end of our trip to China and Thailand, Leila asked when we were going to Wakanda. She also later followed up by asking if she could place flowers on her grandparents graves the next time we visit Mississippi. I could sense her feeling of rootedness. Her narrative u folding in her mind. We also traveled to other cities including Bangkok, Shanghai, and Beijing where I created of hundreds of social media worthy photos, but nothing captures the feeling of what we experienced. It is not something you can photograph. I felt it in Ghana and witnessed it in Leila’s interaction with young girls throughout China. I am not sure what to call it, but it is the space between seeing a building in a photograph and walking through it, touching the materials, and smelling the air that surrounds it, sensing the history while meeting the people that occupy it daily. It’s being there, being in the moment, and experiencing a space and understanding it’s users. We have had many great experiences during our year in Taiwan, but this trip to China seemed especially different. Perhaps after being outside of our traditional comfort zone for almost a year has evolved the way we move through the world.
And finally, we could give you advice on how to catch a butterfly, but we never succeeded. These beautiful, metamorphic creatures evaded us every time. As we would come close, they would just fly beyond our reach. We will continue to admire their beauty from afar. What we learned is that we will continue to make friends, explore the beauty of nature and the built environments interactions within it, and continue to remain open minded to the ways in which all species navigate the world with kindness.
Until next time,
TheMatriArchitect
