Meizhou Hakka Enclosed Houses

Hakka Enclosed Dragon Houses Of Eastern Guangdong · Meizhou, Guangdong

The heartland of Hakka Guangdong, where hundreds of enclosed clan houses stand among terraced hills and pomelo groves east of the Pearl River delta. The Hakka - literally the guest families - migrated south over centuries from the central plains, and in Meizhou they built weilongwu, dragon-encircling houses: a rectangular hall block for the ancestors, wrapped by curving arcs of rooms that enclose a half-moon courtyard in front and a raised bank of earth behind, the whole plan read as a coiled dragon. The best known are Huae Lou at Dadong in Dabu county, a circular rammed-earth building about four hundred years old with three storeys of rooms around a single well-lit courtyard, and Nanhua Youlu in Qiaoxiang village near Nankou, a mansion of 1904 with more than a hundred rooms built by an overseas Chinese family who made their money in Southeast Asia and came home to build. Meizhou is also the heartland of Hakka food - salt-baked chicken, stuffed tofu, preserved vegetable pork - and of the Hakka dialect and hill songs.

Qiaoxiang village, Nankou, Meixian District, Meizhou, Meizhou, Guangdong, China

Houses keep daytime hours, roughly 8:00-17:30, with some collecting a nominal fee on the door; many are private homes (check locally).

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