Hakka is a subgroup Chinese regionally originates in migration. Round shapes architectures present the embodiment of Hakka culture's worship of community living and reincarnation. The structure of a Hakka walled house is made with materials from the region, they are defensive forts but also community buildings, the form allows to unite dozens of families within one building, or a whole clan. The outer walls are made of clay, earth, lime and stone, and the inner structure is made of bamboo arranged vertically as a bone structure. The conflicts between different clans and later the Sino-Japanese wars influenced the architecture of the house, strengthening their defensive function. The buildings are divided vertically, each family having two or three rooms per floor depending on the structure of the transverse walls.
In 2020, I visited a Hakka village called Mantin (which means “full-field” in Chinese) in which my grandpa was born and raised to grave my ancestors; this journey embodied the cycle of nightmares and fears that building my practice on.
With the development of urbanization, people pursued more convenient living environments and better economic conditions, so the rural population gradually shifted to cities. While walking around and talking with local people, I noticed different abandoned buildings had been left behind for different reasons: historical, political, and cultural. Compared to the first visit which was in my childhood, in this time, additional amount of buildings has turned into ruins in the village. Some "fresh" ruins had not even been covered with thick dust; the voices I could hear from people in the village were far less in number than the first time.
I was deeply impressed by the village because it was the first time, I felt I found the origin of my interests in ruins, monsters, and nightmares. That interest lasts until now, and it is also a part of my self-mediation in the present. Anxiety triggers my nightmares, in which I visit the ruins and get to know other monstrous spirits living in remote territories.
A short documentary of this experience in the Hakka Village is positioned as the beginning of my long-term artistic practice and exploration of space, emotion, nostalgia, dreams and monsters.
Memories from the first visit
The ancestral house in the village is a traditional Hakka roundhouse. Hakka people pursue "more children, more blessings". That’s why my great-grandfather had two wives and eleven kids. That's a big family.
My fingertips rubbed against the rusty copper on the door lock, my feet skimmed over the sagging threshold.
The air in the yard was humid, steamy moss grew on the ground, on the posts, and on the handrails.
Space upstairs was cramped, the smell was different in the dark. It was a musty smell of wood.
I could hear the dripping water sound passing from the other end of the corridor. Rain leaks from the layered black tiles down to the wooden railing, making the wood soft and brittle. I broke a small piece of wood and hid it in my pocket. The damp wood gradually soaked my pocket.
The family sits in a circle, in the halo of an old chandelier, whose dusty shade lightly swaying in the wind.
“When we were little”, grandpa said, “We used to play hide-and-seek in the house. This house used to have more than fifty rooms, that’s why it was hard to find people. Sometimes, we hid, we waited, we fell asleep, and still, nobody found us. When we woke up in the dusk, we could smell the dinner from the wind”.
When I looked back at the house, I noticed we were separated by a layer of glass. Suddenly, I sensed an old house is actually a person. The thick black tiles are the hairs he never washes; the uneven rammed earth wall is his face that has been weather-beaten; the abyss-like broken windows are his sad eyes. The old bush at the gate waves me goodbye.
It's time to leave the village behind and get back to my real life, I told myself. But then I felt it - the wood inside my pocket. It still keeps the warmth of the old house.
