A Bridge to Chinese

Just another weblog about China and Chinese

Good everning, Mr. Toastmaster and my dear toastmasters fellows!

The Tiramisu meeting on that Sunday is a wonderful time in my life, even though the dessert tasted a little bit weird at the moment I put into my mouth. But when I stepped out to the balcony, the scenery I saw in my camera made that Sunday afternoon a forgettable time in my life. And it was  at that minute I decided the topic for my C2 speech.

Here are some pictures I took in that afternoon. You can have a look.

The old bulidings do not match up with the current envirnment and catch up with the modernzational pace, the only result is removing and replacing with the new bulidings. It might be a pity, if remove the typical traditional ones and rebuild with untypical modern ones. But actually, protecting old chinese architecture is easier said than done.

There are three points I would like to put forward to show why I say so. No comparison, no power of persuasion. Here, I will illustrate and present my viewpoint in comparing with old chinsese architecture and old western architecture.

First, the materials. Wood was mostly used in old Chinese architecture, whereas stone was the main material in old western architecture. These two different materials have the different characteristics. Stone will prevent the fire from burning down the whole building, but wood is easier to burn down if there is a fire. In the old chinese architecture, there are 80% or more buildings were built by wood. Do you know how many of them were ruined because of the fire? The figure is also around 80%. After hundrends and thousands years of exposing to wind and rain, the pine, fir and nanmu used in old traditional buildings might be eroded, weakedned or earier to burn. In Jan, 2003, the main building  of Wudang Shan mountain, Yuzhen Gong was destroyed in a fire. I cloudn’t believe when I heart the news from TV, so did the chinese people and the whole world. The pictures here I show you are like they were taken yesterday. The gorgeous taoist temple for memorizing Zhang Sanfeng built by Emperor Zhuli in Ming Dynasty disppeared in the history river.

Second, structure and layout. The structures of the old chinese architecture are not the same as the old western architecture. Oweing to “dougong”, the unique chinese interlinking wooden structure, the walls do not bear the weight. Normally, the hall of the old chinese buildings are very tall and huge. And to refurniture or reconstruct the building is not as easy as what does in the old western architecture. The layout of the old chinese architecture is influenced a lot from chinese painting, being in harmony with the enviroment and againt in full view. So not like western architecture, chinese architecture is always in a group of buildings, which makes the experts or government difficult to protect.

Third, and the most important point is people’s awareness on preservation of buildings of architectureal and historic interest. Without the awareness, the tragedies will happen again and again. The cause of the fire on Wudang shan Yuzhen Gong was not the natural factor, but man-made. The removing of some typical buildings, like Beijing Hutong, was not for the ordinary people’s better lives, but for few people’s the profits and interests. One day, I accompanied one of my students to Huqin Yutang Herbal Medicine Museum. When I explained the beautiful wall window to him, he couldn’t help asking me that why you Chinese don’t keep the origial out-looking of the buildings. In Italy, there is a law that the exterior of all the old buildings should be remained as what it was before. I kept silence, not because in china we don’t have this law, but because I don’t know how to answer the question.

Those are my viewpiont of protecting old chinese architecture is easier said than done.   

Thanks for your time, everybody. And thanks Mr. Toastmaster!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Chinese, Culture, Toastmasters Club. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.