Mingshi Lou
Western columns and balconies.
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The best-known of Kaiping's diaolou villages, where fortified multi-storey tower houses blending Chinese and Western architecture rise among rice paddies and lotus ponds; it is one of the four areas UNESCO added to the World Heritage List in 2007 as «Kaiping Diaolou and Villages». The people of Kaiping built such towers from the Ming dynasty on as refuges from floods and bandits, but most went up between 1900 and 1931 with money sent home by emigrants in the United States and Canada, who brought back architectural ideas from the West: Greek columns, domes and arched balconies set on sturdy concrete towers with small iron-shuttered windows. There were once more than three thousand of them, and 1,833 still stand. Zili has nine towers and six villas of the Fang family, the finest being Mingshi Lou, built in 1925 by a returnee from America, with Ionic columns and a Baroque-style pediment; visitors climb through its floors to see the family's furniture and belongings as they were left. Tickets cost about CNY 78, the village is open from 8.40 am to 5.40 pm, and a combined ticket for the four Kaiping sites costs CNY 180, valid for two days, per visitor guides.
Western columns and balconies.
Around the towers.
Reflecting the towers.
Tangkou town, Kaiping, about 60 km west of Jiangmen city, Guangdong
Free shuttle buses link Zili, Li Garden and Majianglong roughly every half hour to hour and a half between 10 am and 4 pm, or you can hire a taxi for the day, per visitor guides.
Choices are few in the villages and local Cantonese cooking uses a lot of pork, so bring snacks and look in Kaiping or Jiangmen city for restaurants run by Muslims under the halal sign.