In this final instalment, we take a look at one particular house, the family house of the richest man in Zhouzhuang.
Zhouzhuang has about a thousand households, 60% of which were built during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and these houses are well preserved. Two buildings in particular attract a lot of visitors. One of them is the Shen’s House.
Shen’s House 沈廳
Shen’s House was originally known as Jingye Hall 敬業堂, but it was changed to Songmao Hall 松茂堂 in the late Qing Dynasty. It was built by Shen Benren 沈本仁, a descendant of Shen Wansan, in the seventh year of Qianlong (1742) in the Qing Dynasty as a two storey mansion with more than 100 rooms and occupies 2,000 sq m (half an acre). It was designed as a 七进五门楼 seven entry and five gates layout, with the main halls in front and living space at the back 「前廳後堂」.
First Entry : Water Gate 一 进 ｜ 水 墙 门
First entry is along the Nanshihe 南市河 and includes the water gate and wharf for mooring boats and washing laundry. This was also the private dock for the Shen family for loading goods and receiving guests coming from afar.
Second Entry : Wall Gate 二 进 ｜ 墙 门 楼
Second entry has a reception area where it was mainly used to decorate the facade. When there’s some special occasions with the Shen family, you didn’t have to go door-to-door to inform. You can hang an ornament on the foyer to show what’s going on. For example, if you hang a red lantern, there will be a happy event. There is also a golden treasure basin 聚宝盆 carved on beam to the entrance, which means that there is treasure at the door.
This corridors on both sides of the building hall has been converted into a mini museum of sorts, with brass embossment depicting the rise and fall of Shen Wansan.
Third Entry : Tea Hall 三 进 ｜ 茶 厅
Third entry is a tea room with relatively simple furnishing. This room was not used to entertain. The concept of caste in feudal China was very strong. When guests visit, VIPs with status would be welcomed to the main hall, while their servants and entourage can only sit in the tea room to wait for their masters. Sometimes, guests were received here because they were not welcomed.
In the courtyard is a stone buffalo set on very elaborate cobbled stones floor.
Forth Entry : Main Hall 四 进 ｜ 正 厅
This is the Main Hall that the owner will entertain the most important guests. The furniture is most elaborate and exquisite. The wall covering the back entrance is called the Taishi wall 太师壁, it was much more elaborate than this when I visited in 2007. The original wall has been removed for preservation. The “Eight Immortals” table 八仙桌 that is placed before the altar will be moved to the middle for placing the offerings for ancestral worship; it can also be moved to the edge of the hall for deity worship.
The Main Hall is in the middle of the compound, with high eaves and beams with gilded carvings of dragons (pythons), kirins, cranes and phoenixes. The plaque in the middle of the hall featured the calligraphy of late Qing Dynasty Top Scholar and Industrialist Zhang Jian 张謇 wrote in 1904.
There were two peeping windows that allowed the family to look at the proceeding in the Main Hall. The main purpose is for the daughters of Shen family to see their suitors. Being the richest family in town, the suitors had to “enter” the family 入赘, something men would not normally do in feudal time. And since they were so influential, the girls had a say to whether they wanted to marry the man coming to ask their hands. Hence this peeping window. If she liked what she saw, she would throw a small silk ball down 抛绣球.
Because this was the gate facing the Main Hall, it was the most elaborate one among the five gates in the house.
The gate is 6m tall, with the typical Suzhou-style roof curvature. The main plaque was carved with “积厚流光” which came from 《荀子·礼论》, reminding the descendants to take care of their behaviour with their accumulating wealth.
As a rare artwork, the brick gate tower is carved with lively and ingenious figures telling people historic stories like “牡丹亭”、”西厢记” and expressing good wishes. They are divided into five layers, and what is unique for this one is that each layer was done in a different carving style.
On both sides of this courtyard are side chambers, which have been converted into exhibition space and corridors for moving the huge crowds in summer peak tourist season.
Fifth Entry : Grand Hall 五 进 ｜ 大 堂 楼
Fifth Entry is the Grand Hall where girls of the house can interact and socialise with the rest for the family. The furniture are smaller and more delicate. The round tables in the middle showed that the womenfolk in the family were living together harmoniously. There are couches on the side, and we can only assume they were day beds. They were also referred to as Beauty Beds “美人榻”.
The layout of Shen’s House is the first four front halls were for meeting outside guests and the back halls were for family only. Girls can only live and socialise in the back halls. If there are male guests visiting, they can only go to the main hall at most because girls do not walk beyond the second gate. In feudal society, men and women were not supposed to socialise informally.
The whole structure was rather grand and flowing. All the carvings were Ming-style round patterns. It was very rare to see different styles of architecture and decorations were used in a Jiangnan building.
Sixth Entry : Small Hall 六 进 ｜ 小 堂 楼
in the Sixth Entry hall was placed Shen Wansan’s statue. In front of the statue was the shiny golden treasure basin 聚宝盆 that he was synonymous with. Everyone tried their luck by throwing coins at the gold nugget, which was supposed to be prosperous if you hit the golden nugget with your coin.
Seventh Entry : Back Hall 七 进 ｜ 后 厅 屋
The Seventh Entry is my favourite part of the house, the dining room and kitchen. On display was the Shen’s Family Menu 万三家宴. Legend has it that Shen Wansan has a mistress that made a fantastic stewed pork trotter. The Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang came one day and tasted the dish and asked to bring back the cook to the palace. Shen Wansan offered the emperor to make the dish whenever he wanted. So since then, the pork trotter was always served in their meal time.
The pork trotter dish was called Wansan Trotter 万三蹄, it has the texture of “fatty but not greasy, soft but not fork tender” “肥而不腻，酥而不烂”. Why wasn’t it called pork trotter. Because the emperor’s surname was Zhu 朱, which is homonym with Pig 猪, one cannot be “eating” the emperor. Also, because the emperor was at the dinner table, no knife can be used to cut the trotter. So the ingenious cook left one of the leg bone that was shaped like a blade in the trotter which one would pull out and cut the soft, tender meat.
The stove in the kitchen was the biggest at that time. The stove top had four large cauldrons and two smaller cauldrons. It had built-in chimney and smart design allowed the smoke to be drawn out of the kitchen, acting like a cooker hood.
Next to the stove was a red stool. It was not a stool, but a Ming Dynasty juicer. This particular one went on CCTV for a demonstration.
Carousel Floor 走马楼
The Carousel Floor 走马楼 is the second floor of the compound and needs a supplementary fee to visit. The architecture is very uniques as it was built on top of the corridors and halls of the compound, creating a loop on the second floor for more privacy.
Living Quarters 寝室
While I doubt the layout of the rooms are correct, the furniture on display are real. Every piece of furniture on display are originals from that period, restored to replicate the authentic layout of the difference uses of the rooms. On display here is the Young Master’s bedroom, with stationery and study table. The desire for the children to excel academically runs deep in the DNA of Chinese people.
As girls were forbidden to go out of the house, the Embroidery Room became the place where they would spend their time. It was said that the daughter of Shen Benren was an excellent embroider and helped the family gained fame from her embroidery works.
The Wedding Room depicts the common bedroom decorations in a typical wedding. Everything has to be bright, auspicious red. The intricate embroidery blankets and covers adorned the bed.
The Maid’s Room was, in comparison, very spartan and functional. And this was no ordinary maid. Only the personal maids of the mistresses of the house can have rooms in the same abode. Sometime during certain periods of inconvenience, these maids have to perform “duties” on behalf of their mistresses to serve the master of the house.
The Master Bedroom 老爺臥室 and “Billion Yuan” Bed 千工床
The highlight of the second floor exhibitions was the Master Bedroom and his bed. The official name of this type of bed is 甬式千工朱金拔步床 Cocoon-style “thousand workers” gilded carving eight-step bed. These beds were to be found in the Southern part of China mainly, as the weather is often warm and humid, and one has to suffer the mosquitoes in the night. These beds are like an enclosed area on their own, blocking out the mozzies.
It was very popular during the late Ming Dynasty among the rich families in Jiangnan. It takes three man-years to complete one bed. It was said that the family and the craftsmen had to offer prayers to the gods of the bedroom before starting work on these beds. After entering the Republic of China, this kind of bed is still very common in rich families around the south of the Yangtze River.
The bed was manufactured en masse in the late Ming Dynasty and had certain social and historical roots. At that time, the bureaucratic and upper class was very corrupt, and spent their ill-gotten wealth on these excesses. Due to its large size, exquisite structure and complicated carving, the cost was quite high to buy one. In ancient times, almost only rich people could afford this bed, and the bed gradually evolved into a symbol of social status and family wealth.
This was a sitting/living room reserved for the master of the house with his No.1 wife, the mistress of the house. It was normal in feudal China to have many wives and mistresses, but there’s only one Main Wife 正室.
The Master Study was where all the accounts were kept and can only be accessed by the Master himself. Maybe perhaps the cleaning lady too. That’s why many stories always involved the master and maid.
Recreational Rooms 琴棋书画
Entertainment in the past would be playing some kind of instruments, doing some painting or smoking some crap in the house to pass time. The learned type would have a music room, where they would play some elegant instrument like the guzhen.
Some would practice painting or calligraphy in their painting room. I seriously doubt this was a painting room as the decor was typical of one. There wasn’t any collection of other paintings or shelfs for keeping the paint materials.
You might think the next room I would describe would be the library but there was none in the house. Typically, traditional Chinese houses would build libraries specifically for buddhist scriptures only. Other books went into the study room. And those who are more strategic thinking engaged in a game of chess – either go or Chinese chess – in the tea room. Checkers in not Chinese invention.
While I called this the smoking room, it was actually where the owners would indulge in opium smoking. This type of bed is called the Arhat bed 罗汉床, because you would lay sideways like an arhat. It became the preferred position of smoking opium.
“Silver Tael Canal” 银子浜
Shen Wansan’s secret to riches was global trade. He took silk, tea, wine and other things that the foreigners thought to be precious and sold them overseas. Thanks to the connectivity and proximity to seafaring harbours, Zhouzhuang became a the base of his trading network. So the sleepy village became a township because of the bustling trade, and he simply became wealthy.
At the end of Yuan Dynasty and founding of Ming Dynasty, his wealth became a threat to the new regime because Shen was doing public projects that the new emperor could not afford. So he was banished to Yunnan. After his death, his sons paid off the officials and got his body back to Zhouzhuang and buried him in an underwater tomb in Yinzibang Canal 银子浜.
The canal was so named because the water glistened like silver taels and the canal mysteriously never went dry. It was said that the wealth of Shen was buried under the canal and therefore constantly displaced the water. Site survey showed an underground spring that bubbled up, most likely because of the construction of the tomb.
Shen’s House suffered serious damage during the Cultural Revolution. Since 1983, the restoration project of Shen’s House started. Songmao Hall, Tea hall and Grand Hall, including the Carousel Floor, were all restored to their former glory. The Back Hall has also been connected with the glistening Yinzibang. The restored Shen’s House became a showcase of the Qing Dynasty and is the most recognised water town in the world and a popular tourist attraction.
About Zhouzhuang
Zhouzhuang 周庄 is a water town known for its canals in Jiangsu Province 江苏省, China. It is located within the administrative area of Kunshan 昆山, 30 km southeast of the city centre of Suzhou 苏州. The population is roughly 2,000 and non-residents must pay a fee to enter.
In its heyday Zhouzhuang was a trading center for silk, food and many handicrafts. Nowadays it relies on tourism and is one of the top ten visited destinations in China. CNN placed it on its list of the Top 10 most beautiful towns in the world.
You can go there as a day trip from Shanghai. Entrance fees apply, and you can go in 24 hours a day as there are bed and breakfast abodes in the town.
Visited July 2021
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