The Tujia's Hanging House

This is an article I wrote in July 2015, first published on reddit, and now shared with my friends. Thanks to all of you Jane friends for your care and support along the way!

As soon as you walk into a Tujia cottage, you can see everywhere the typical buildings where Tujia people live - the hanging footstools. The Tujia people's footstools are a perfect combination of Tujia people and nature.

This kind of residential architecture of the Tujia people is chic and uniquely decorated, with high artistic and aesthetic values. The custom of constructing a hammock generally includes six parts, such as reading feng shui, digging the foundation of the house, sending out trees, erecting the house, putting up the beam and inaugurating the hot fire pit. It embodies the Tujia people's unique view of cosmic space and nature as well as the apotheosis of the ubiquitous presence of gods and spirits, and forms the unique residential culture of the Tujia people. It is the concrete crystallization of the wisdom of the Tujia people in the process of adapting to the natural environment of the Wuling Mountain area and transforming this kind of nature for a long time, and it has a very rich cultural connotation. Is the spirit of traditional Chinese culture in the Tujia people in the most specific and artistic embodiment.

The form of the foot-hanging building can be roughly divided into single-head hanging, double-head hanging and four garden three: single-head hanging, which is the most common one, also known as the key head. It is at any end of the main house to do one or more horizontal house, according to the terrain out of the suspended footstool. Double-head hanging, also known as two-head hanging. It is the development of single-head hanging, that is, in both ends of the main house are based on the terrain hanging out of the suspended footstool. Single-head and double-head suspended footstools are more common in the construction of Tujia people. Another kind of quadrangle garden, also known as quadrangle water type, this form of footstool in the Tujia building is a kind of ascension of the essence of the class. This kind is generally a large family, or various members of the family **** with the construction. It is developed on the basis of the double-head hanging, which is characterized by the main house at both ends of the hanging part of the upper part of the hanging into one, and then in the double-head hanging building to repair a symmetrical double-storey hanging with the main house, so as to form a courtyard. However, the hall is still in the center of the main house, and the outside hammock is equipped with a gate and a few steps to enter the courtyard. These three kinds of hanging footstools are two-story hanging footstools and three-story hanging footstools. These footstools are built on terraced terrain, the main house of a layer, the hanging building for the second floor; the main house of two floors, the hanging building is a three-story. However, there are also hanging from the ground, but this is less and correspondingly not so beautiful.

The Tujia footstools are in various forms, the shape is also extremely beautiful, with high artistic value and aesthetic interest, can be said to be a Chinese architectural history of a strange flower. Hammock first of all bring people a chic form of beauty. From a macroscopic point of view, the footstool is a combination of rectangles, triangles and trapezoids, these geometric shapes visually give people a sense of solemnity, showing a kind of upright and robust beauty. And its internal structure, beams, columns, square, purlin intersect each other vertically, the formation of these profiles using the overhead, overhanging, staggered layer and other techniques to deal with, and visually give a person a dignified perfection, but also give a person lively, clean, staggered sense. And then from the microscopic point of view, those carvings and hollow corridors, flying eaves and wings of the roof, giving people outside the fairyland of beauty; especially the wings of the flying eaves let people have a feeling of leaping to fly. The whole of the Hanging Foot Tower embodies a distinctive sense of rhythm and flow of beauty, from the concept of creating a spiritual pursuit of the Tujia people and the natural environment of the Wuling Mountain region in an extreme harmony of beauty. The architectural concept of the unity of man and nature is the concept of the hammock building, the mingling of the landscape and the hammock, it becomes a whole landscape, so the mountain is beautiful, the water is beautiful, the room is also beautiful. The wisdom of the Tujia people with the mountains with the water fused together.

This beauty of the footstools, so that this human landscape has a high artistic value and cultural value, footstools as the material and spiritual carrier of the Tujia people, it shows the world the history of its development, the wisdom and faith of the people and the self-interpretation of beauty

Sitting in the footstools by the mountains and the water, listen to the waves of the pines, bathe in the mountain wind, look at the layers of the mountains, looking down at the small bridges and rivers, put yourself in the mountains and the water, and the mountains. The bridge and the water, put yourself in the green mountains and green water, the heart is relaxed and happy, then feel that this is the realm of the most. Or in the mountains in the forest, look at the wings flying eaves of the footbridges lying in harmony in the embrace of nature, look at the small building beams through, the pavilion overhanging, the eaves upward, green tiles, openwork balustrades, contrast with each other, reflecting each other, the ultimate elegance of thought will fly up. This kind of poetry in the Tang and Song dynasty can only be found in the "small bridges and flowing homes", "white clouds deep in the home" of the scene, so real in the Tujia cottage.

The footstools are hanging on the ground, and the brooks are gurgling. The rough Tujia man, the spicy Tujia girl will be quiet cottage decorated with vivid charm, beautiful and vulgar. The strings of red chili peppers and golden corn under the eaves are glittering in the sunlight. The Tujia brothers plant various fruit trees around the hammock, and the Tujia sisters raise flowers and plants in front of the building. Look at the fruitful scenery, flowers blossom, the house is covered in the flowers and trees, people walk in the flowers and trees, a good picture of heaven on earth. Even in the hot summer, in the footstools, cool wind blowing, the Cool Department will have subsided. Farming season, the sentimental Tujia girls dressed in bright ethnic costumes, groups of three to five, sitting together on the hammock, or do shoes, or for the lover knitting sweater, a burst of laughter with the wind ripples. If there are guests come from afar, they will also jump up the joyful hand dance, the youth and beauty of the full release, more show the building of the ethereal, the mountain of the spirit of the show. Twilight, the labor of the day Tujia men, leisurely dinner, a quick bath, and then in the hammock on the open throat singing love songs, that hot emotion, that unadorned innocence, let people feel as if into the paradise.

Returning from the city, can not help but send a little ancient feelings, although the Tujia hammock with the city's fashion, you do not have the momentum of the skyscrapers, no small buildings of the gorgeous, but you that vicissitudes of the beauty through the people are always so respectful! It is like a father's solid arm, for the children of the Tujia wind and rain; like a mother's warm embrace, for the children of the Tujia against the wind and cold. City skyscrapers if the big girl, the ancient Tujia footbridges is a small family. For thousands of years, the Tujia footstools are just like the beautiful women "kept in the bosom of the people do not know", not known to outsiders. But you are like a thousand years of fine wine, and like ink treasures, and as priceless jade. With your graceful figure, dignified temperament, rustic appearance, exquisite structure, dumped to see you countless travelers, conquer the past literati, and finally your beautiful posture and the magical landscape as fascinated people, let a person convinced. p>

Flying eaves and horns

Carved beams and painted buildings

A fascination with elegance

Thousands of years of history

Cangsang Wuling

Hanging towers in the mountains

Prosperity will last forever

Climbing up to the building

Sending geese to the clouds for thousands of miles

Headed away from the sky for a few feet

The water is so beautiful that it's hard to see the distant hills

Looking out on the white clouds and the distant mountains

The sky is so beautiful that it's hard to see the distant hills. p>

I see the white clouds and wonder where they come from

I regret that no one walks on the cliffs

I am afraid of the coldness of my heart

There is no sign of people

I am coming here

I have seen a lot of mountains

I have seen a lot of water in the streams

I have seen a lot of wonders in the mountains

I am going up to the Hanging Tower to see the wonders of the world

I have seen the wonders of the mountains

I am going up to the Hanging Tower to see the wonders of the world

I am going up to the Hanging Tower to see the wonders of the mountains