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Protection of tulou

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-09 07:26

An honor always comes with the challenge of keeping it. It is good news for the Hakka people in Fujian province that their traditional residence, tulou, was approved on Sunday to be included in the list of world cultural heritage. But the honor poses a challenge to its protection.

A tulou, which was usually built with a mixed material containing earth, sand, bamboo, glutinous rice and even sugar, can be as huge as a castle with more than a hundred or even several hundred rooms. In round or square shapes, such structures did have defensive functions, as castles in the West did, when local Hakkas lived in them against possible attacks from bandits.

Cultural elements find expression in the selection of locations, interior decorations, the different functions of different rooms and the way they were built and used.

The fact that most tulous are still resided by local Hakkas makes this cultural heritage different from most of their counterparts, which are mostly visited by tourists only rather than used as dwelling places on a daily basis.

This makes their protection much more complicated.

The rising fame of the tulou brought about by this honor will very likely attract more and more tourists from home and abroad. It is good for local prosperity, but the improving living standards for local Hakkas are likely to change the way they lead their life. And this may pose a threat to the protection of their traditional dwellings, which were not designed for today's modern living style.

So it is indeed necessary for local governments to have preemptive measures in place to ease the contradiction between modern ways of life and the protection of the tulou. This is important as changes in the interior design of the structures will affect the integrity of their cultural connotations and may even cause physical damage to their structures.

Another threat to the tulou's protection comes from visits by too many tourists.

That Nanjing county will host its first tulou cultural festival from today until Friday is a sign that some local governments are eager to exploit this title of world cultural heritage for local economic prosperity.

The lessons from the missteps some took by over-exploiting their world cultural or natural heritage sites should serve as a reminder to local governments in Fujian that immediate interest from tourism should never outweigh the tulou's protection from a long-term perspectivet.

(China Daily 07/09/2008 page8)