Ancient Roman Castles of the Orient: Enclosed houses in China's Jiangxi (3)

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(China Daily)

Home sweet home

Around 20 households still live within these walls. It is not uncommon to see a resident making the local Hakka snack tang pi, a kind of cracker made with milled rice and Chinese chives.

Li Manyu, 95, sits in the yard and enjoys the sunshine. She has been living in this enclosed house since 1949, after marrying into the Xu family.

Li says the house was not big enough for the whole family so her children moved out. But she refused.

"I have gotten used to the comfort of living here," says the elderly woman. "Although it rains a lot in Guanxi, the house never floods."

"The enclosed houses in the Qing Dynasty were well designed before construction," says Lai Jianqing, a local Hakka culture expert. "But in earlier periods there were houses first, then the fence wall."

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