The House: Exterior Front Views

 The front of the house faces Shan Feng Jie.  (Click on pictures for higher resolution viewing.)

Street-level view of courtyard wall facing Shan Feng Jie.  Note the shelter for the motor bike.

Street view of front facade.  The upper story of the house is separated.

Inside view of courtyard wall, gate, and courtyard.  The bamboo poles support a corrugated sheet to shelter a motor bike.

View of courtyard from front door.  The red gate to the adjoining house's courtyard is locked.

Facade of right front portion.  The front ground floor room was once Grandfather's bedroom.

Decoration over window.

Front gate and entry way to front door.  View from Shan Feng Jie with rickshaw driver (left) and Leoi Gam Jyun (right).

Dad at the front door.

Signage beside the front door. Both say Gao (高 - Gou) Yu (寓 - Jyu) meaning "Gou Apartments" or "Gou (family) Residence".

Location: Zhongshan (中山 )

The house is located in the city of Zhongshan (中山), Guangdong (廣東 - Guangdung) province, China (中华人民共和国).  Zhongshan was named after Sun Zhongshan (孫中山 - Sun Yat-sen) just after his death in 1925.  The prior name of Zhongshan was Xiangshan (香山 - Hoeng Saan or "Fragrant Mountain") County.  Sun, a medical doctor, revolutionary, military and political leader, is widely regarded as the political father of modern China, and was born in Xiangshan in 1866.  Xiangshan was established in 1152.

Dr. & Madam Sun statues. Zhongshan Overseas Chinese Society Building, Zhongshan.

Within Zhongshan, the house is located in Shiqi¹ (石岐 - Sekkei) District in a village called Zhongshan Gongyuan (公園 - Gungjyun) which means Zhongshan "Common Garden" or "Park".  It is also the name of the Zhongshan City Park (中山公園), where the main geophysical feature is Yandunshan (烟墩山 - Jindeunsaan or "Mount Yandun"), now also called Fufeng (阜峰 - Fufung) which means "mound top".  Atop the mountain is a 1983 reconstruction of Yandunshan Ta, (烟墩山塔 - Jindeunsaan Taap or "Mount Yandun Tower"), a copy of the seven-story, brick, octagonal pagoda, 80 feet high, that was originally contructed in 1608 during the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644). The mountain and its tower stand over the entire city.

Yandunshan Ta, Zhongshan City Park.

Yandunshan Ta view from the 10th floor of the Golden Diamond Hotel on Kanghua Lu.

Yandun means "smoking brush", and legends have it that fires were started on the mountain top either to direct fisherman to port at Shiqi or to warn of invading pirates². Yandun also refers to the fishing village on the Qijian River just west of the mountain that was established during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 - 1279)³.   The bank of the Qijian River, a branch of the Pearl River, lies about a quarter mile from Yandunshan Ta, which is about the same distance from the house.

During the non-Han Chinese Manchu Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912), noon in Shiqi was marked daily for the entire area by cannon fired from Yandunshan⁴.  However, the violent decline of China during the Qing Dynasty during the 19th century lead to the dissolution of the Chinese imperial system (221 BC - 1916) that brought foreign and civil wars, ethnic violence, famine and despair throughout southern China.  Guangzhou (广州市 - Canton)  was the focal point for the Opium Wars, the First Opium War (1839 - 1842) and the Second Opium War (1856 - 1860), against the British Empire. China's defeat in the First Opium War resulted in the forced trade of opium upon China to address a huge trade imbalance involving British purchases of tea.  The military and economic setbacks as an outcome of the First Opium War, anti-Manchu sentiment, and moral and religious conflict contributed to the Tai Ping Rebellion (1850 - 1864), a civil war in which an estimated 20 million perished -- at the time, the bloodiest military conflict in human history.  Concurrently, ethic conflict in the Guangzhou region between the native Punti and less settled Hakka peoples erupted as the Punti-Hakki Clan Wars (1855 - 1867) that resulted in about 500,000 deaths.  In addition, the region was struck by an earthquake in 1881 and ice and snowstorms in 1892⁶. With so much disruption, it should not be surprising why so many Guangzhou region Chinese, particularly from the Siyi (四邑 - Seiyap or "Four County") area, immigrated throughout the world during the latter part of the 19th century, particularly with the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California in 1848.

Gongyuan park and village gate on Guangming Lu looking north into Yixianhu Park.

The house abuts the northern boundary of Zhongshan City Park.  Its address is 68 Shan Feng Jie (山凤街 - Saan Fung Gaai or "Mountain Phoenix Street").  The mountain refers to Yandun, so the street is appropriately referred to as Phoenix Street or Yandun Mountain Phoenix Street.

Address on courtyard wall. All houses on Phoenix Street have a red sign that says, "culture friendly family."

Phoenix Street's name memorializes a legend about the brave villagers who once lived on the north side of Yandunshan and rid the locale of a tiger that inhabited an area centered at a pond in a nearby mango grove⁵.   A young woman weaver who had recently married the local baron came up with the idea of denying the tiger water by cutting-off access to the pond using a fence made of mango branches woven together with reeds. The baron and his wife started weaving together the fence and were soon joined by the villagers. In a about two weeks the fence was put up and the thirsty tiger left the area. The grateful villagers said the woman was like a flying Yandunshan phoenix (凰).


FOOTNOTES

1   The meaning of Shiqi's name is not clear. The Zhongshan City governmment website contains an article that argues that Shi (石) means "stone" based on an assertion that Yandunshan was initially called Stone Mountain (Shishan) before it was used as a platform for smoke signals; and that Qi (岐) means "discriminate" or "differences" based on construction of two stone dikes long ago that made one approach to the community more favorable than the other.

2   Zhou Zhenjie, Wufei Xiong, and Zheng Jianling, "Shadow of Shiqi: Yandun", Zhongshan Daily, May 23, 2006, No. 335 page B6. (Using Google translator.)

3   Ibid.

4   Ibid.

5   Ibid.

6   Kehrer, Jonathan G., "Timeline for Taishan County", August 24, 2001, accessed April 16, 2011.


LINKS

A compilation of Zhou Zhenjie's Zhongshan Daily articles is available on his blog site. (Google translation.) Unfortunately, it does not include most of his articles about Shiqi.

Prologue

This is a blog about a house that was once the home of my Dad's father...

Though no one by the name of Yin (尹 - Wan) has lived at 68 Shan Feng Jie for a long time, there still exists at least one very prominent sign of their presence -- a plaque in the parlor for Grandmother Wan and All Wans.  Sitting on any chair or on the bench there, you will face it.  Sitting on the couch, you will be beside it.  There, within a tidy, decaying, old house, is a place where the living are to return and attend to the spirits of their ancestors.

An ancient Chinese belief, one held by Daoists (Taoists), is that it is the nature of all things to return.

Returning is the movement of the Dao,
And yielding is the method the Dao.
The myriad of creatures in the world
Are born from Something,
And Something from Nothing
                                             -- Laozi, #40¹

I imagine asking the Old Master whether one can return and not be at the starting point.  I imagine he would shrug, suggesting the obvious answer.  It's as simple as a Grandchild's rhyme (孫子的韻):

There was then and here is today --
有過去與這裡今天 –
South China Sea and San Francisco Bay.
中國海海與舊金山灣.

Levied delta isles on the Pearl and the Sacramento,
堤防三角洲群島上的珠江與薩克拉門托,
The Chinese built where muddy waters flow.
在中國搭建在泥濘的河水流量.

Mango, lychee, and many fragrant teas;
芒果與荔枝與許多茶香味;
Asparagus, corn, and bartlett pear trees.
蘆筍與玉米與巴特利特梨樹.

There he left and here he came.
他離開那裡與他來到這裡.
Later, two left here and four returned again.
後來兩個離開這裡與四再次返回.

Here he left and there he died
他離開這裡與他死在那裡.
With two more wives, I'm sure they cried.
加上兩個額外的妻子, 我相信他們哭了.

Here is like there and no matter what place we stay,
這裡是相似到那裡與無論什麼地方，我們留,
We, like water, will go and find our way.
我們像水，將去尋找我們的道.

                                                                         -- 尹秀強



This web log is dedicated to Gao Lin Ya (高林雅 - Gou Lam Ngaa or "Grace Lam Gou") who, with her son-in-law, Lu Jin Yuan (呂錦源 - Leoi Gam Jyun) (and probably others), have tried to preserve and maintain the Phoenix Street House, along with the Wan Family name within it, since 1989 as a result of a promise.

Gou Lam Ngaa, Leoi Gam Jyun, and Dad.

FOOTNOTES

1   From two translations:
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by David Hinton, Counterpoint, Berkeley, CA, 2000, 97pp.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translation by D. C. Lau, Penguin Classics, May 1964, 176pp.