Xiamei Village

The ancient Xiamei Village, 13 km east of Wuyishan City, is a minor tourist site compared to others in the Wuyishan region, but it shows some very interesting aspects of old China and the still existing rural life in modern China.
A 900 meter long river winds across the village from east to west, splitting it into two parts. Ancient wooden houses were built along both sides of the river. The walkways in front of the houses are two main streets in the village. On both the riverbanks, a long bench with backrest is fixed, providing excellent venues for the locals to socialize.
Around 30 ancient buildings are still intact now in Xiamei village. Most of the houses are vernacular Ming and Qing dwellings featuring exquisite brick, stone and wood carvings. There is always a certain good wish behind each pattern, such as passing imperial exams and getting promoted, or having longevity and lots of kids. Some designs were taken from traditional operas with auspicious meaning.
The ancestral temple of Zou family is a building that examples the architectural achievement of the area in Ming and Qing Dynasties. An ancestral temple is a sacred place for a Chinese clan. It is a site for ancestral worship in Chinese culture, closely linked to Confucian culture with the emphasis placing on filial piety. Generally, the halls are used for collective rituals and festivals to honor ancestors, but also for other family and community related functions such as weddings and funerals. Sometimes, they serve wider community functions such as meetings and local elections. Normally, enshrined in the hall are ancestral tablets that embody the ancestral spirits. In the ancestral temple of Zou family in Xiamei Village, steles with inscriptions of family rules and temple annals are also enshrined.
The prosperity of this village back then could be attributed to the thriving tea business. Xiamei Village became a tea distributing centre, a starting point of the 20 thousand kilometers long Ancient Tea Road in the 17th century. Many merchants from Shanxi Province thronged here to buy tea leaves. The eight docks along the river were busy all day long. Each day three hundred rafts came to and left Xiamei Village, transporting tea leaves to the north, finally reaching Saint Petersburg in Russia.