the other day, i went to zili village (自立村), li yuan (立园), and chikan town (赤坎镇) in kaiping city (开平市), one of guangdong’s famous 侨乡 (overseas chinese homeland). as a tourist destination, kaiping is famous for its towers, known as 碉楼, which were fortified structures designed to protect families from local bandits. according to anthropologist zhang guoxiong (张国雄):

“Before the Ming Dynasty, presentday Kaiping lay at the administrative intersection of three
counties, Enping, Xinhui and Xinxing. This situation enabled local bandits (土匪) to flourish
and hide out there. Public security was a mess. Liangjin Mountain in Kaiping was just such a
nest for local bandits, whose activities reached the towns of Chikan and Tangkou. Kaiping’s
predecessor was Kaiping Dun. During the Ming, the character “dun” refered to a military
installation. We can imagine that the central government had dispatched a garrison to Kaiping to
manage the problem of public security. They hoped this would be a place of unhindered traffic,
and that peace would be restored. Kaiping became a county during the first year of the Shunzhi
reign (1643). It was precisely to counter these social problems that the are was called Kaiping
(开平), which meant “restore peace (开同敉平)”. From this we can see, public
security problems were endemic to the area (loose translation from his book 开平碉楼)”.

these problems continued through the late qing and into the nationalist period. local architecture reflected the need to build for safety from bandits. however, the infusion of money from overseas chinese changed and intensified this kind of protective building. from the mid nineteenth century on, men from kaiping began immigrating to the united states and canada. significantly, because exclusion acts prevented them from bringing their families with them, they sent remittances home, often with the specific intent to build a safe tower, where their families could live. it is estimated that from the mid-nineteenth century over 3,000 towers were built, with intensive construction happening from 1912 until 1937, when nearly half the towers were built (1,490).

in fact, the remittances themselves became the cause of increased piracy. from 1912 until 1930, roughly the same period as the most intensive episode of tower building, there were 71 reported instances of bandit attacks in kaiping, including three attacks on the county seat and kidnapping the county magistrate.

early chinese immigrants to the united states worked for low wages in dehumanizing conditions. indeed, chinese migration satisfied american needs for low wage workers without attempting to give workers the benefits of american citizenship; in chinese, the remitances were called “血汗钱 (blood and sweat money)”. all this to say, kaiping people found themselves quite literally in a global crossfire between local bandits and north american immigration policy; there was no safe place for them and their families, together.

indeed, global politics continued to shape the possibilities of kaiping family life. the cold war brought with it u.s. attempts to undermine asian communist leaders, especially mao zedong. beginning in the early 1950s immigration restraints loosened, culminating with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. these changes allowed for the migration of kaiping family members, most of whom abandoned their towers for chinatowns and suburbs overseas, despite the fact that the communist party had actually succeeded in pacifying local bandits.

today, kaiping’s fortified homes seem disconcerting monuments. to departure. to social unrest. to history’s ironies. to ostensive luxury. the towers, the tiled floors, the defensive infrastructure, including weapons, the intricate wood carvings, the marble tables, the obvious wealth boarded up and hidden behind concrete walls and rusting metal shutters distressed me; a fortress can’t protect a dream.

on jan 31, 2002, the state administration of cultural heritage of the people’s republic of china (the awkward and official translation of 中华人民共和国国家文物局) nominated the kaiping towers for inclusion in UNESCO’s world heritage project. they have also uploaded a website that brings together tourist information, annecdotes, and historic analysis about the towers and the overseas chinese who built them. please visit.