Li Yingqing

Zhoucheng is one of 615 traditional villages in Yunnan on the national list.

Lack of support

The lack of financial support and low awareness of protection among villagers have exacerbated the problem, said Jin Hongna, an official with the Yunnan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Authority, who is overseeing the protection of traditional villages in the province.

Every traditional village will receive financial support of 3 million yuan a year from the government. However, the money is not intended for the protection and renovation of the villagers’ houses, but for infrastructure upgrades, including roads and waste and sewage treatment facilities, Jin said, adding it’s difficult for the government to become involved in the protection of privately owned houses.

“With poor ventilation and limited access to sunshine, living conditions in traditional houses built from wood and earth cannot be compared with those in modern, concrete houses. Without financial support, it can be hard to persuade the occupants to preserve their houses just by telling them the old properties are valuable,” she said.

So far, the protection of Shaxi, an ancient township in Jianchuan county, Yunnan, has succeeded in the face of new challenges.

Shaxi was once an important hub on an ancient trade road from Yunnan to Tibet. The township fascinated members of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 2000, when they participated in an investigative tour led by local officials. In 2002, the institute, based in Zurich, and the Jianchuan county government jointly launched the Shaxi Rehabilitation Project.

Yang Huiming, head of the township’s cultural preservation department, said the Bai ethnic group has a tradition of dividing houses and passing them on to descendants, which helps to maintain the properties because no one is allowed to sell or demolish the houses without the approval of the other residents.

Initially, almost all the villagers were doubtful of the protection project because they thought poor living conditions were normal in these types of houses. “Nobody thought these houses were valuable because they didn’t benefit from living in them at all,” he said.

Zhang Jizhi, deputy director of the Jianchuan tourism commission, said sweeping changes happened after the local government bought some of the houses and brought in businesses to demonstrate how they could be put to practical use and improve livelihoods.

According to Zhang, many villagers only understood how valuable their houses were after the businesses began to attract tourists, and they have become “proactively” involved in protection efforts: “Some villagers have transformed their houses into guesthouses and transformed themselves into businessmen.”

Yang said the ancient township now faces new protection challenges because the number of tourists sometimes exceeds capacity, and some businesspeople damaged the structure or style of some ancient houses when they renovated them.

Experts said the lack of a national protection mechanism and the government’s long-term negligence of rural development also produce challenges for the preservation of traditional villages.

From 2001 to 2011, about 80 to 100 villages nationwide disappeared every day, according to Feng Jicai, a renowned writer and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, speaking at a news conference on culture at the fifth session of the 12th CPPCC National Committee in March. The 75-year-old author has spent decades researching the history of ancient traditional villages and campaigning for their protection.

Exodus

While it is encouraging that the central government has listed more than 4,000 settlements as National Traditional Villages since 2012, some are still experiencing an exodus of residents, and some have been damaged by the development of tourism, he said.

At present, there is no formal protection plan for traditional villages, while villagers are mostly unaware of the value of their villages and there- fore lack awareness of the need to protect them. In such situations, the villages are prone to damage, he said.

He urged the government to formulate a mechanism for the development of tourism in ancient villages, and said it should not be allowed unless protection is given a high priority.

According to Feng, homes in many traditional villages have been passed down through the generations for hundreds of years, and their protection is related to the inheritance and preservation of the national culture: “They shouldn’t be destroyed by the current generation of Chinese people in just a few years.”

Zhu Liangwen, a retired professor of architecture at Kunming University of Science and Technology in Yunnan province, said a lack of knowledge has led to the current situation: “For a long time, China’s construction authorities paid most atten- tion to urban development. They have limited knowledge of the rural areas, but they haven’t conducted sufficient research into rural development. Instead, they sit in offices talking about the issue.”

The 79-year-old academic, who has devoted himself to the protection of traditional residential architecture since 1981, said that lacking proper understanding of rural areas, many planning institutes in cities drew up plans for traditional villages based on their experience of urban development.

Most of the planning they conduct is impractical and the planners usually leave after drawing up their plans, but few rural residents have the ability to carry out the work, and there are few government documents to explain how to manage rural construction companies or the extent of the developers’ power.

It can be hard for architectural experts to protect tradi- tional houses because they may have to heed village heads with little or no knowledge of architecture, he said.

Zhu has found it difficult to get full cooperation from village heads to carry out his plans and said he argues with them regularly.

In Azheke village, Yuanyang county, Yunnan, the village head demolished a small house used for sacrifices to gods and ancestors — the only one in the immediate vicinity — without listening to Zhu’s suggestions about preserving it.

“Many villagers and officials are at least 15 years behind the scholars who serve as heralds in the protection of traditional architecture. Only in about 15 years will they realize what a great pity it was that they demolished these ancient houses,” he said.