In lazy winter days, when the sun is out, it is a good time to do some chitchat. Today we will have a small talk about the houses in Shengsi, Zhoushan.
Left Inside a House is People’s Life.
Housing is an everlasting topic. Chinese people attach great importance to the establishment of a home. They all expect to have their own house to shelter from the wind and cold, and to warm congee and food! So do the fishermen on the island of Shengsi! The vast East China Sea contains countless treasures. But if there is no house to live in, how can they sustain their families in a small island?
Therefore, many years ago, the first thing that the ancestors, who came to the islands of Shengsi across the ocean to catch up with the fishing season, did was to build houses, when they decided to settle down. As most of them migrated from Taizhou and Wenzhou, they built houses in the same way.
In the early years, the islands of Shengsi were short of earth and it was difficult to make bricks, so the ancestors used local stones to build walls which keep warm in winter and cool in summer, and then put up wooden beams and laid black tiles to keep off rain and wind year after year. Nowadays, although Huanglong Island has the most stone houses, there are still some in the islands of Huaniao, Sijiao and Bixia. They are witnessing the change of seasons, and waiting for the returning of their owners.
At first, stone houses were usually built halfway up the mountain, away from wind and waves. But as the population increased, more houses were built along the terraced slop, and over time they look like the grand Potala Palace, seen from a distance.
The Aging Marks of a House are the Pulse of the Times.
After talking about stone houses, let's move on to the second most typical houses in Shengsi, which are cement houses built in the last century. In the 1980s and 1990s, many fishermen in Shengsi earned a lot from fishing and had enough money to buy cement from outside. Many families in the villages and islands started to build new houses.
At that time, those who could build new houses were relatively rich. They built their houses with cement instead of stones. With good quality, these cement buildings are very firm and solid. The trendy houses seen nowadays in fishing villages such as Bianjiao Village, Huicheng Village and Sizhoutang Village are actually based on the old cement houses back then.
Apart from them, there are many cement houses that have retained their original look in Shengsi’s many islands, for example, Dongzuitou, Houtouwan and Bixia...As the fishing industry is declining, many fishermen have moved away, leaving the old houses uninhabited. These houses that haven’t been renovated are a true record of the traces of the passing time.
A House Full of Life Is a Beautiful Sight.
The stone houses recorded the hardships of the fishermen's ancestors at the beginning of their settlement in the islands and stood by them when they conquered the oceans and islands, while the cement buildings witnessed the prosperity of the fishermen and watched them developing their villages. But time is changing, and the two types of houses that recorded the two eras of Shengsi have become old!
These old houses are monuments of the fishermen's culture. They inherit the splendor of the fishing era in Shengsi and are integrated into the subsequent new buildings, adding charm to the cultural tourism era in Shengsi. They are hidden in the bays. Each old house is a book waiting for people to walk in and translate the mottled traces into the language of time to read a story of a fishing family.
Come to Shengsi to walk by islands and fishing villages and take a look at the old or new fishing houses in different shapes and sizes. They are waiting for you!