Fortified Towers - Dialous

Our visit to Kaiping of Guangdong two years ago brought us to see a different type of buildings called Diolous or fortified towers. Lou in mandarin has the meaning of tower, Diolous are also common in other counties such as Enping, Taishan ans Xinhui. The early laboureres to North Ameriac, Australia and South East Asia wer mainly from these four counties of Guangdong.

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 diaolous remain standing in Kaiping, and approximately 500 in Taishan. Although the diaolous served mainly as protection against attacks 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 diaolous incorporate architectural features from China and from the West.

In 2007, UNESCO named the Kaiping Diaolous and Villages (开平碉楼与村落) in China as a World Heritage Site. These Diolous displayed 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, totalling some 1,800 tower houses in their village settings.

Entrance to Li Garden

Statue of Owner, Li Garden

Another corner at Li Garden



Furnishings inside Li Garden

View of Dialou

Garden inside Li Garden

Some of the more prominent Diolous are Ruishi Diolou, the Majianglong Diolou, Li Garden, Fangshi Denglou, Bianchouzhu Lou and the Tianlu Lou. Ruishi Diaolou, located behind Jinjiangli Village, Xianggang Township. Constructed in 1921, it has nine floors and is the highest diaolou at Kaiping. It features a Byzantine style roof and a Roman dome. The Majianglong diaolou cluster spread across the villages of Nan'an Li, Hedong Li, Qinglin Li, Longjiang Li and Yong'an Li. Li Garden, in Beiyi Xiang, was constructed in 1936 by Mr. Xie Weili, a Chinese emigrant to the United States. Fangshi Denglou - Built in 1920 after contributions from villagers, this Denglou is five stories high. It is referred to as the "Light Tower" because it had an enormous searchlight with a brightness much like that of the beam of a lighthouse. Bianchouzhu Lou (The Leaning Tower), located in Nanxing Village was constructed in 1903. It has seven floors and overlooks a pond. Tianlu Lou (Tower of Heavenly Success), located in Yong'an li, was built in 1922 and is seven storeys tall plus a roof top floor.

The Dialou we visited was the Li Garden which has big garden inside with man-made lake and mountains. I took a picture of the bronze statue of the owner in front of the Dialou. The furnishings inside the Dialou was a  mixture of modern and traditional style, with a lot of old Chinese wood furniture. This was typical of a combination in architectural features of the east and west. There was even one western style toilet cistern which remained in good conditions, probably not being used before. The Dialou was built with massive concrete walls to fend of attacks from bandits which were active during that periods. Another reason for such heavy fortification was to protect the buildings from natural disasters such as floods and typhoons, which were also common those days. The compound inside the Li garden was so big that visitors can easily lose sense of direction inside. Nowadays, the villagers have left the Dialous and seek better and more modern houses that the government provides. Many of the Dialous are no longer occupied and some less prominent towers do not even have care takers to carry out essential maintenance work.

A bronze statue inside Li Garden