Sin Aun Village's oldest old house is 200 years old

This is an ancient village surrounded by factories. A week ago, the arrival of a few uninvited guests made the village's old residential houses start to attract people's attention again.

With red bricks as the walls, red tiles as the roof, granite as the base, supplemented by wood and stone with translucent carvings, omitted carvings, round carvings, relief carvings and other characteristic crafts, this is a typical red brick ancient residential village in Fujian, which is the old Sin Aun Village, located in Xinyang Street, Haicang District.

The reporter was informed that the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau is taking the lead in declaring "China's World Cultural Heritage Tentative List" by bundling the red-brick buildings of the Fujian system. At present, the action of bidding for the heritage has begun, and experts are now selecting points for the red-brick ancient residential complexes in Fujian, and the ancient residential complex in Sin Aun, Haicang, has become a candidate point of concern to the experts.

Experts from Beijing came to Sin Aun Village

On February 15, six experts in architecture, cultural relics and archaeology, including Zhang Guang Wei, a post-doctoral fellow at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, came to Sin Aun Village, which has the largest red-brick ancient residential complex in Haicang.

The purpose of the visit of the six experts was to select sites for the declaration of Min red-brick buildings as part of China's World Cultural Heritage Tentative List.

In Sin Aun Village, Sin Yang Street, Haicang District, there are about 70 traditional Minnan buildings, which were built by overseas Chinese in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and are typical Min red-brick buildings, which were listed by the Office of the Leading Group of the Third National Cultural Relics Census of the State Council in the list of "Important New Discoveries of the Third National Cultural Relics Census of 2009".

New

At the core of Sin Aun's ancient architectural cluster, there are still nearly 30 huge traditional compound buildings and a dozen or so ancestral temples and palaces. This is very rare in Xiamen.

It is for this reason that the experts drove to the Sin Aun Ancient Residence Compound.

"It is still just a matter of selecting the site, everything is not yet finalized, and there is still a long way to go for the inscription." The relevant staff of the Fujian Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau confirmed to the reporter of the Herald that the experts did visit Sin Aun to inspect the ancient residential complex, but the point of the Min red-brick complex has not yet been determined.

According to the report, the red-brick architectural complexes in Xiamen, Zhangquan and Putian have been distributed, and they are intended to be bundled for inscription. The current work is to first select the point, and strive to declare into the "China World Heritage Tentative List".

It is understood that will be used in a bundled way to apply for the heritage of the Min red brick building, not only Xiamen, Zhangquan, Putian red brick buildings, there will be Kinmen and other places of red brick buildings, these buildings are planned to be bundled together to declare the world cultural heritage in 2014.

Oldest Ancient House with 200 Years of History

After 200 years, when you are in the complex of ancient houses in Sin Aun, you can see various decorative patterns, or historical stories, birds and animals, or mythological spirits everywhere. These stories are either painted in grey or collaged with shells and small pieces of porcelain.

According to the old people living in the village, Sin Aun Village in the late Qing Dynasty faced the sea, and seawater could be injected into the rivers in the village with the tides, which flowed in front of and behind the houses of the villagers, allowing small boats to travel freely from the sea to the village.

The forefathers of Sin Aun Village went to the sea to make a living and start their own businesses. They brought their hard-earned money back to their hometowns and used the rivers connected to the sea to transport back various kinds of high-quality building materials from home and abroad to build their houses. As a result, Sin Aun became famous for its richness, and the houses in Sin Aun became famous all over the world.

The most famous building in Sin Aun is No. 276, Sai Piece. This is the former residence of Khoo Ming Cheong, a famous foreign buyer in Xiamen. According to the legend, Khoo Ming Cheong owned two trading houses in Xiamen, namely, Wan Kee Trading House and Wan Kee Trading House. After he made his fortune, he respectively built an adjacent red-brick house with a large four-gauge and a large six-gauge house, which were connected together and covered an area of more than 2,000 square meters with more than 70 rooms.

"More than 100 people used to live here during the Cultural Revolution." An old man living near Qiu Ming-Chang's former residence said that after the founding of the country Qiu Ming-Chang's former residence had been divided among the poor.

In addition to the former residence of Qiu Ming-Chang, there are also many former residences of merchants, such as the former residence of Qiu Yongyu of Nanyang Yongyu Line, the former residence of Qiu Xinxin of Salt and Rice King, the former residence of Yin'an of Xiangluzhuang, the former residence of Qiu Zhenxiang, who made his fortune by operating the rubber business in Vietnam, and the former residence of the navigator Qiu Chung-bo, the former residence of Qiu Han-ping, who made great efforts to enter the United Nations for our country, and so on.

According to Xinyang Street, the vast majority of these houses were built more than 100 years ago at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and some even have a history of more than 200 years.

There is still a long way to go for the inscription of ancient houses

Yesterday, at noon, the reporter went to Sin Aun Village in the rain to look for ancient houses. Through the factory buildings in Sin Aun Industrial Estate and the wide concrete road, we could see mostly reinforced concrete buildings, making it difficult for us to find any trace of ancient houses.

If there is no Xinyang Street Office staff to lead the way, the reporter really did not find this hidden in the reinforced concrete in the ancient residential complex.

An expert who is familiar with the ancient residential complexes in Xiamen told the reporter that the scale and preservation of Sin Aun's ancient residential complexes are rarely seen in Xiamen, which is the reason why Sin Aun's ancient residential complexes are included as one of the candidate sites for the inscription of Min's red-brick buildings.

However, the reporter saw in the ancient residential complex that the periphery of the complex is surrounded by reinforced concrete buildings, and even in the middle of the residential buildings, there are reinforced concrete buildings standing.

The reporter realized that as early as 2010, there were enterprises intending to carry out conservation and comprehensive development of the ancient dwellings in Sin Aun. However, it seems that the project has not made much progress.

The bidding for the heritage of Min red-brick buildings actually started in mid-December 2010, when the National Heritage Board, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China (SARC) were invited to participate. At that time, by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Taiwan's Department of Cultural Assets Protection and Taiwan Shen Chunshui Cultural Foundation jointly organized a cross-strait cultural heritage protection forum and the protection and inheritance of the Min system of red-brick architecture forum in Quanzhou. Forum, experts from both sides of the Taiwan Strait decided that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait together for the red brick buildings declared World Heritage.

An expert who participated in the inspection of the candidate sites revealed to the Herald reporter that the selection of the sites for inscription would take into account the future development and protection of the ancient buildings, and would also take into account the co-operation with the Taiwan side, so Sin Aun Village still has a long way to go before it becomes a World Heritage Site.