Xiamei Village

Situated at the 12 km spot southeastern of Mountain Wuyi City, the ancient Xiamei Village was the key distributing center for tea industry during the glorious period of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty.

There is an artificial canal over 900 m flowing across the village, which carried 300 boats daily without cease in the Qing Dynasty (in Cong'an County Records). As a result of the booming tea trade, local residents became rich and they built-up alcoves, railings, beauty's supports, the ancient streets, wells, docks, buildings, villages, bazaars as well as the harmony folk custom made Xiamei Village a typical water-town sight-seeing site in south China. Besides, those ancient buildings combined brick-carving, stone-carving and wooden-carving together, making it primitive simple and full of local custom atmosphere.

At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Xiamei went into its peak period for development. Four brothers of Family Zhou in Xiamei Village were the richest at that time, so they built up more than 70 luxury houses. By and then, other families such as Fan, Chen, Yue and Chen also constructed their own buildings, thus creating the large building groups in the village. It is true that the main function of buildings was for living, but they also considered other functional areas for education, meeting, recreation and so on. The significant Ming & Qing Dynasties style of buildings proves that there was a developed economy in the glorious period of Kang-Qian in the Qing Dynasty.

Xiamei Village is the well-known cultural village in the history of China and one of the fifth-batch key cultural reserves in Fujian province, as well as the important part of Cultural Heritages of the World in Mountain Wuyi.

Publishes at : 07-10-15 22:55

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