5 Years in China
About five years ago I stepped on an airplane for the very first time since I was two years old and moved to China. A Chinese phrase 回家 huíjiā came to my mind. In Chinese you can’t go home, you can only return to your home. And in a sense I was doing just that, returning back home where I had been in the safety of my mother’s belly when she was expecting me in the late 80’s in Beijing. Recently I realized that Guangzhou has been my home the longest, if you don’t count my hometown, small city in the Southern Finland. I went to high school in an…
Our First Anniversary
One year ago in 14th February 2014 it was no ordinary Valentine’s Day. On that year the Chinese Lantern Festival fell on the exact same day, being held on the 15th of the first month of the lunar calendar. As Lantern Festival is also considered a Chinese Valentine’s Day, it was a double lucky day, the perfect day to register our marriage. Even though we had our Wedding later in May both with Chinese and Finnish characteristics, we still consider the Valentine’s Day as our anniversary. Easy to remember too! After our wedding we finally moved to our own house, the old family house, and started our life together surrounded…
Visiting Meizhou: Traditional weilongwu architecture
When I hear the word Hakka (Han Chinese that speak Hakka Chinese) I always think of the famous tulous (土楼) I’ve always wanted to visit. But little did I know, that the Hakka people has other traditional architecture as well. January 2015 I finally had the chance to visit Meizhou, Guangdong Province, and found out that the weilongwu (围龙屋) is the traditional building for the locals. Where as in the Fujian province more tulous can be found. The name 围龙屋 literally means to encircle dragons house. Above is a miniature of a three tier weilongwu. At the China Hakka Museum we were told that Hakka people pay a lot of…