Zili Villagelies in Tangkou Township, Kaiping City, about 25 kilometres east of downtown Kaiping.It is situated on the west bank of the Zhenhai River, a tributary of the Tanjiang River, in the middle of a flat, irrigated plain. The village consists of three separate sub-village areas. There are 82 village houses, occupying (with their intervening areas of open space, lanes, etc) 83,224 square metres. Of these, the first Heanli has 19 houses, occupying 17,550 square metres, the second Heanli has 50 houses occupying 56,730 square metres, and Yong’anli has 13 houses occupying 8,944 square metres. The present resident population is 179, in 63 households, with 248 villagers currently living overseas, mostly in the U.S.A, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Most of today’s farming households in Zili Village have relatives living overseas. Remittances from abroad are an important economic element in the life of the residential household. The life-style of the villagers is simple, honest, dignified, optimistic, open-minded, and unsophisticated.


(1) The overall View of the Diaolou in Zili Village

The development of Zili Village follows certain important rules relating to its relationship with the water-systems of the district. The systems ensure the protection of the village from flood, and at the same time ensure easy access to and use of the water. The Zhenhai River loops across the front of the village. On all sides, and even in the centre of the village area, ponds have been dug in the middle of the paddy-fields. The villagers keep fish in these ponds, and they rear ducks there, too. In the summer and autumn, these ponds flame with the red and white flowers of the lotus. This is the time when Zili Village is at its most beautiful. Further out from the village, the paddy-fields stretch away in to the distance, providing the village with an entirely natural background of agricultural land. Season after season, as the rice changes colour in its development, so the paddy-fields provide an ever-changing but perpetually elegant frame for the lives of the villagers.


(2) Cattle and Yellow Rice around Diaolous

The buildings of the three sub-villages respecting this entirely admirable natural environment are not particularly large or dominant. The village houses are of blue-brick with tiled roofs, mostly of the three-sessions-two-gates single-storey plan. The most outstanding feature of Zili Village is the cluster of Diaolou built behind the village in among the fields, together with a group of western-style villas (note: in the local dialect, these western-style villas are called “Lu”, or “Cottage”).

The Diaolou of Zili Village are comprised of the Longshenglou [“Worthy of Dragons Tower”], the Yunhuan Lou [“Illusory Clouds Tower”], the Zhulinlou [“Bamboo Forest Tower”], the Zhenanlou [“Protecting Peace Tower”], the Mingshi Lou [“Inscribed Stone Tower”], the Anlu [“Peaceful Cottage”], the Yinonglou [“Leisurely Farming Tower”], the Qiuanjulou [“The World Lives in Peace Tower”], and the Juanlou [“Peaceful Life Tower”], that is, a total of nine Diaolou and defensible villas. In addition there are the Yaoguang [“Brilliant”] Villa, the Yeshengjulu [“Cottage of Abundant Life”], the Guanshengjulu [“Cottage of Superior Life”], Lanshengjulu [“Cottage of Vigorous Life”], and the Zhanlu [“Placid Cottage”]. Making a total of six villas.

These buildings, the low village houses and the lofty Diaolou and western-style villas are the high respecting the low. Both are built in even rows among the paddy-fields, ponds, rivers, and woods, representing the human set in the midst of this entirely natural rural environment: these are the source of Zili Village’s harmonious life.

The Yunhuan Lou was built in the 10th Year of the Republic (1921) by Fang Wenxian, a villager of Zili Village and a resident of Malaya. He returned to the village and devoted himself to the building of this residential tower. It is built of reinforced concrete. It is five storeys (18.88 metres) high and occupies 1,548 square metres of land. The built floor-area is 342.86 square metres. The tower has separate outhouses and a tall flight of stairs up to a terrace in the front of the tower. The terrace is fronted with a balustrade of fine green-glazed tile columns.


(3) The Yunhuan Lou>

The plan of this Diaolou is relatively simple. In the middle and lower part of the building, on each floor, there are painted decorations. These, with the western-style window frames, give an air of elegance and provide some variety. The interior of the tower is fitted out in such a way that it shows the traditional village life and life-style. The furniture and objects used by Fang Wenxian and his wife and children are still all preserved inside the tower as he left them.

Fang Wenxian was a cultured and well-read Overseas Chinese man. He set aside the fourth floor of the tower as a study room, where he and his descendants read and studied. On the roof-terrace there is a pavilion to catch the breeze: this has a baroque-style decoration on the arches and roof, demonstrating the understanding and love this Malaysian Overseas Chinese had for Western culture. Nonetheless, it was Chinese culture which had the chief place in his heart. There is a horizontal inscription over the main entrance “Don’t be Serious”, and a pair of inscribed couplets one on either side of the main entrance, which express his disappointment of overseas life. In a free translation this pair of couplets reads:

“Flying dragon, dashing tiger: harboring great ambitions but unfulfilled; Only a life adrift overseas, years of void like an empty mountain;

Illusory reflections, imagined flowers: living a dreamy life in abandon; Hence the joys of a sunny springtime, its merriment marked in words.”

The Mingshi Lou was built in the 14th Year of the Republic (1925) by Fang Runwen, a villager living in Chicago in the U.S.A. He came back to the village and built this residential tower. It is built of reinforced concrete and is six storeys (22.61 metres) high. It stands by itself in a courtyard. It occupies 600 metres, and its floor-area is 628.64 square metres (of this area the main tower occupies 561.25 square metres and the subordinate building 67.39 square metres). As you enter the courtyard, the subordinate building is on the right. It was used to store farm equipment and also housed the kitchen used by the servants. The main building is on the left, built on top of a platform. It faces southeast.


(4) The Mingshi Lou


(5) The hall in the 1st floor of Mingshi Lou, Zili Village

The uppermost floor was arranged as an ancestral hall, representing the deep beliefs of the builder of the Mingshi Lou. The Ancestral Shrine is made of carved wood, and gilded, the carvings showing auspicious animals (including the dragon, phoenix, unicorn and magpies), animals representing long life (including the crane, deer, and elephant), plants representing dedication to learning (including the plum-blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum), and images of the traditional scholarly life (including playing the Qin [the Chinese zither], playing chess, reading, and admiring paintings). All these demonstrate the owner’s devotion to the traditional culture.

The Mingshi Lou is both bigger and taller than the Yunhuan Lou. The central and lower parts are built to a simple plan, but the upper part is comparatively complex and richly decorated. The fifth storey has a verandah in front, the columns of which are Roman in style (Ionic order). There are half-enclosed turrets jutting out at the four corners. The sixth storey has a terrace decorated in baroque style. In the centre of this terrace there is a hexagonal Chinese-style pavilion, placed to catch the breeze, with green-glazed glass and western-style columns. It is a most telling example of inter-cultural fusion.

The original furniture and fittings of the Mingshi Lou are exceptionally well-preserved. They include things used in everyday life, in business, and things used to make life more comfortable – all preserved as the original builder left them. They include letters received from overseas, books, overseas newspapers and magazines, household papers, land-deeds, booklets of village rules, student diaries, account-books, incoming bills, old photographs, and other similar items. These articles give an immediate feel for past village life and for the village culture of that period. It is a rich source of study for the Overseas Chinese. The Mingshi Lou could be called, in its entirety, a Museum of Overseas Chinese Life.

There are more Diaolou and villas in Zili village. Most of them were built in the same time and for the same reason, they are similar in concept but with different decorations.

The Fang Clan Watch Tower is built about 1.5 kilometres south of Zili Villageon top of a hill. It was built communally by Zili Village and several other Fang clan villages in the vicinity of Zili Village in the 9th Year of the Republic (1920). These various villages all donated money to the construction.


(6) The Distant view of The Fang Clan Watch Tower

Being located on top of the hill, the tower has open country on all sides and thus, has superb sight-lines. It could raise an alarm for even the most distant of the Fang clan villages. Each village contributed men to a militia group which garrisoned the tower, acting as a watch in rotation. They controlled anyone coming into the Fang clan village area along the major routes. The hill on which it stands is also used as the burial ground for the Fang clan villages. This has ensured its preservation since, as the saying goes: “the living fear to be near the dead”. Furthermore, it was believed that the dead ancestors would assist in preserving the peace and security of the area.

The tower faces north-east. It is built of concrete, and is five storeys (18.92 metres) high. It occupies 20.25 square metres, and the built-over area is 110.77 square metres. There are few windows in the lower floors, with stout lockable shutters. It is built to a slender square plan with twelve buttresses and rises to an arched verandah, supported on columns at the roof-terrace with a domed pavilion on top. The whole tower has a noble, classic beauty as if carved from jade, and it forms a most elegant feature of the landscape when viewed from any of the neighbouring villages.

In the tower there are guns bought by members of the Fang clan living overseas, an electric generator, a searchlight, and a siren. Whenever bandits came the searchlight on the top floor would be turned on to show where the bandits were and from which direction they were coming, while the siren sounded, the villagers could gather to close with the bandits and drive them off or force them to surrender.

The Fang Clan Watch Tower tells of a period in history when members of the Fang clan greatly feared bandits coming into the area from the north. They hoped to prepare themselves to resist them and so built this tower as part of their defences.