The China Journal - Day 7

If there is a single thread that links Chinese culture from the earliest dynasties to the present, it's a love of concrete. From the Forbidden City to the Olympic Park in Beijing, Chinese architects throughout time have placed a value on these kinds of developed spaces based on the amount of concrete that can be laid down. In other words, the more, the better.

Take the Wang Family Courtyard, for instance, a sprawling subdivision before subdivisions were even part of the common vernacular. Ascending up the hillside of a vast, smog-filled valley, the Wang Family Courtyard, whose name suggests something quaint and homely, stretches out for roughly a kilometre in both directions and walled like a military fortress. Most importantly, however, is the visible absence of any form of greenery, with the exception of the occasional potted plant or tree, which makes the place appear foreboding, while at the same time oddly majestic. Inside the fortress walls are clusters of homes and former places of business, presumably inhabited entirely by the Wang family. If that's the case, ol' Wang was a busy man.

On a side note, we travel there with a Swedish couple, who unfortunately cannot understand any of the words that I picked up from the Swedish Chef.