 The
diaolou are fortified multi-storey towers, generally
made of reinforced concrete. These towers are located
mainly in Kaiping County, Guangdong province, China.
Kaiping together with its neighbouring counties of
Enping, Taishan and Xinhui are collectively known as the
"Four counties". It was from the four counties that many
of the Chinese labourers to North America, Australia,
and Southeast Asia originated from.
Also known as the "Kaiping diaolou", the first towers
were built during the early Qing Dynasty, reaching a
peak in the 1920s and 1930s, when there were more than
three thousand of these structures. Today, approximately
1,833 diaolou remain standing in Kaiping, and
approximately 500 in Taishan. Although the diaolou
served mainly as protection against forays by bandits, a
few of them also served as living quarters.
Kaiping has traditionally been a region of major
emigration abroad, and a melting pot of ideas and trends
brought back by overseas Chinese. As a result, many
diaolou incorporate architectural features from China
and from the West.
In 2007, UNESCO named the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages
in China as a World Heritage Site. UNESCO wrote, "...the
Diaolou ... display a complex and flamboyant fusion of
Chinese and Western structural and decorative forms.
They reflect the significant role of émigré Kaiping
people in the development of several countries in South
Asia, Australasia, and North America, during the late
19th and early 20th centuries, and the close links
between overseas Kaiping and their ancestral homes. The
property inscribed here consists of four groups of
Diaolou, totaling some 1,800 tower houses in their
village settings." |
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