What kind of old house, and what kind of old family, gave birth to such a lasting family spirit which the clan's later generations so value and are so proud of?
During the afternoon of the lunar New Year's Day, some 50 or 60 descendants of the Li family return to their ancestral home, passing the oval Lotus Flower Pool, stepping through the main gate, crossing the outer courtyard and entering the central hall. Rays of light and strands of rain drift in slowly from the central courtyard. Children dressed in new clothes run and play on the walkways that lead off in all directions.
Holding his month-old son, Li Hung-chi, in his early thirties, says: "Right from when I was little my father brought me here every New Year for the annual family reunion, and now I'm bringing my son here too. Just looking at the size of this place, you can guess that by now there are more people in the Li family than you can keep count of-if we didn't come back for the reunion, we might not recognize our own relatives if we bumped into them on the street. Even though my father, myself and my son have never actually lived in the family ancestral home, for me it is a spiritual focal point." Li Jui-sheng, a generation older than Li Hung-chi, adds: "The sight of all these family descendants gathered together in one place really is something priceless!"
Facing Mt. Kuanyin
In the early days of settlement in northern Taiwan, when boats coming from the mainland across the perilous, murky waters of the Taiwan Strait entered the Tanshui River and Mt. Kuanyin came in sight, the pioneers knew they had reached their new home. Over 140 years ago Li Qingshui, son of Li Gongzheng, the founding father of the Li clan in Taiwan, chose an area of open country away from the town as the place to build the Li Family Compound-because here the house could face towards Mt. Kuanyin, and also because it was an auspicious place with "seven stars come down to earth," in the form of seven pools. Later Li Gongzheng and Li Qingshui were both laid to rest in tombs on Mt. Kuanyin. Thus one can say that Mt. Kuanyin is the Li clan's sacred mountain. From the memories of old family members and from old photographs, one can reconstruct the exquisite scene of former times: at dawn the dense mist hanging over the seven pools enshrouds the surrounding paddy fields, but as the first rays of sunshine strike through, one sees the Li Family Compound, built of bricks and stone, standing sturdy among the expanse of green. This is why the local nickname for this great house was "Beauty in the Fields."
Every day when the Li family members who lived there, bathed in the scent of the rice fields, went in or out through the main gate, they saw beautiful Mt. Kuanyin reflected upside-down in the Lotus Flower Pool. "The Li Family Compound not only blends perfectly with nature, it is also in harmony with heaven and earth, mountain and river. That is the quality which in ancient times was called 'matched with heaven,' and what people mean today when they say, 'It looks as if it had grown there.'" So says traditional architecture scholar Wang Chen-hua, explaining why this house, which at first glance does not appear all that imposing, is so highly regarded.
The Lotus Flower Pool
Some four years ago, when the architects responsible for renovating the Li Family Compound had the Lotus Flower Pool changed from its original irregular oval shape into the usual traditional half-moon shape, 77-year-old Li Yen Hsiu-feng, chairperson of the Li Family Compound management committee, insisted it be torn up and redone. For the Li clan, this pool is not only the focal point of their sense of spiritual identity and shared memories, but is also witness to the history of friendship between the clan and the locality.
Li Chu-fa, who lived in the ancestral home for nearly 30 years, says with pride that back when the house was being built, to facilitate the transport of structural timber from the mainland, a canal was specially built from the Tanshui River to the Lotus Flower Pool. When the canal, which still exists today, was being dug, out of gratitude for how Li Qingshui had treated many local people with herbal medicines, the local elders had the whole village come out to help.
Because the Lotus Flower Pool is connected with the Tanshui River, and is also at the lowest point in the surrounding land, it teems with fish, shrimps, eels and the like, making it a great source of leisure activity and of nutrition for clan members. "The shrimps from the pool are translucent, with soft shells; I've never eaten any tastier," recalls Li Chu-fa. He has even more vivid recollections of the annual "pond draining," when the grown-ups together drew all the water out of the pool with foot-operated pumps to clean the sludge from the bottom, while the children busily grabbed the fish and shrimps flapping about in the puddles and collected them into baskets. The joy of the whole family working together like that is a memory which Li Chu-fa cherishes deeply.
In communion with nature
Around 1895, third-generation clan member Li Shuhua and his brothers brought over master builder Liao Fengshan from Shanxi Province in mainland China's Central Plains to enlarge their ancestral residence. Hence people also call the Li Family Compound "Central Plains House," and the nearby village is also called Chungyuan Village or "Central Plains Village" to this day.
Looking down on the compound from high ground, we see how in an area of around 4000 square meters, the rear part is surrounded on three sides by an orchard, called the "protective terrace," while outside the front is the Lotus Flower Pool. The buildings are laid out in a siheyuan or four-sided compound pattern, with three gates and three courtyards from front to back, enclosed between six rows of buildings to right and left, giving a total of nine halls and 60 rooms, with 120 windows and doorways. The compound occupies over 1300 square meters of land.
The many large and small courtyards provided by this layout preserve the traditional quality of "space" as the main architectural theme of Chinese compound dwellings, ensuring that the buildings, though man-made, retain a natural atmosphere. This use of space not only lets in plenty of light, but also makes for good ventilation, because the sun shining into the central courtyard makes it warmer than the surrounding rooms and covered walkways, and so creates a natural flow of air which draws in a cooling breeze. This made the courtyard the perfect place for clan members to stay in friendly contact with each other: here the women cleaned the vegetables, made glutinous rice pastries and chatted about family affairs, and here the children did their homework and played.
As well as the cool, bright central courtyard, the covered walkways stretching away from it in all directions meant that even when it rained, the children could play tag under cover, and when the adults came out of their own quarters they naturally ran into other people. "I feel that one reason why the seven branches of the Li family coexisted so harmoniously here-apart from everyone respecting the decisions of the clan leader-is because the walkways which connect all parts of the compound meant that clan members couldn't avoid each other, and this naturally led to good communication," avers Li Chu-fa.
To left and right, the buildings are connected by the walkways; and going from front to back of the compound, each of the three rows of buildings and three courtyards stands higher than the one in front of it. Birth, aging, sickness and death all had their place here, in accordance with the traditional rules of clan seniority. A month after a child was born, and again when it was a year old, clan members ate youfan (glutinous rice cooked in oil with meat and mushrooms) to wish it well; at betrothals and weddings, everyone made tangyuan (glutinous rice dumplings) in the central hall, and joined in the merriment; and there too new brides respectfully offered tangyuan to the clan elders when they formally entered the compound. And before elder clan members passed away, they would be moved to the rear hall-the hindmost, highest part of the compound-which is where the ancestral memorial tablet had-and still has-its place of honor. After they died and were buried, their names were added alongside the names of those who went before them.
The true yeoman spirit
The Li Family Compound in Luchou differs markedly from other well-known private houses in that it does not share the sumptuous decoration of the homes of the gentry and the wealthy, with their carved and painted beams. There is nothing superfluous in the design of the buildings. "Its beauty lies in its simplicity and appropriateness, which directly express the needs of a family," says Wang Chen-hua, who has taught classes there many times.
The outer wall and major buildings of the compound are built of blocks of rough-hewn stone in irregular sizes, laid with a mortar mixed from malt sugar, glutinous rice flour and lime, and topped with roofs of heavy, stable red tiles. To prevent flood damage, all the buildings are built entirely of stone up to a height of three feet from the ground. All the columns are built of bricks, and are hollow. This makes them resistant both to earthquakes and to damp. The internal dividing walls are built of interlaced local Luchou reeds (the name Luchou means "reed island") covered with a plaster of lime, lacquer and field clay, to create "woven walls." As for decorative touches, there is nothing but the slightly upturned corners of the eaves, and the ubiquitous couplets.
Within the large compound's checkerboard layout, clan members were allotted quarters along the right and left sides according to their generational seniority, and the rules of life in a large clan applied; but the many unobtrusively placed small kitchen ranges betray the fact that the clan comprised many smaller families. Water drawn from the wells on either side of the compound was stored in cisterns from which it flowed through bamboo channels directly into the kitchens. "The Li Family Compound in Luchou is very plain, but it preserves a genuine farming lifestyle. After all, when we preserve the structure of a historical monument, it is in the hope that this 'hardware' will express the intangible aspects of how life was lived, and the spiritual culture," says Hsueh Chin, who is both a member of the Li Family Compound renovation committee and a deputy chief engineer in the Taiwan Provincial Government's Bureau of Housing and Urban Development.
Congratulations, don't get rich
The clan members arriving for the New Year reunion continue to flood in. In the central hall the members of the oldest generation, who share the character you ("friend") as the first character of their given names, stand in a single row with Ms. Li Yen Hsiu-feng, chairperson of the Li Family Compound management committee, at their center, and bow to their ancestors together. "Our ancestor Li Gongzheng came to Taiwan 220 years ago, and he contributed greatly to the development of northern Taiwan. Our ancestors used to live by farming, and even when the clan grew rich, they all continued to work hard, as well as diligently studying poetry and literature. This kind of 'farming' spirit is something which should be maintained. That's why today we all just say 'congratulations' [rather than 'congratulations and may you grow rich,' the usual New Year's greeting]. We don't want to get rich, because having new goals and ideals is more important." Li Yen Hsiu-feng takes the opportunity to stress the clan spirit of the Lis of Luchou to the younger generations. On either side of the central hall, behind the senior generation, hang a pair of time-worn scrolls handed down since the Qing dynasty. The couplet written on them reads: "Treat your brothers in one way: with respect/Teach your children both these things: to farm, and study."
Farming and scholarship
The origins of the Luchou Lis' tradition as scholarly farmers go back to third-generation ancestor Li Shuhua, who studied assiduously and passed the imperial civil service examinations during the Guangxu reign (1875-1908) of the Qing dynasty. The economic basis of the Li clan's livelihood had been laid down by Li Qingshui's gradually buying up a huge area of farmland, but because the family suffered harassment from local tyrants, the seven brothers of the third generation decided to support the naturally gifted Li Shuhua, to allow him to devote himself completely to study. Shuhua really did pass the imperial examinations, and later became chief examining officer for the initial xiucai grade civil service exams for the whole of Taiwan. This was the beginning of the Li family tradition of attaching equal importance to farming and to scholarship.
In former times, buildings stood on the east and west sides of the Li Family Compound's front courtyard, to right and left of the main gate. The eastern building was known as Scholars' Hall, and as well as being used to receive visiting intellectuals and as a library housing countless books, it also served as a schoolroom. Not only were the children and grandchildren of the seven brothers taught here, but free schooling was also given to other local children. Because of this, Li Shuhua was also known as "Teacher Li." In all the main temples in Luchou one can still see couplets in the calligraphy of Teacher Li.
In the early years after Taiwan returned to Chinese rule in 1945, Li You-pang's wife Yen Hsiu-feng, and his cousins Li Hsin-che and Li Tsu-wu, also put on free classes in the Mandarin dialect, to help their Taiwanese compatriots master China's standard language. But sadly both Scholars' Hall, and Martial Hall which stood opposite it across the compound, were destroyed by a flood in 1921.
Do as you would be done by
"A historical monument which is only preserved as a structure is a sham. It is later generations' spirit of cherishing and protecting an old house which makes it a 'living monument,'" says architecture scholar Wang Chen-hua, who is currently involved in planning the future use of the Li Family Compound. The clan spirit of providing free medical care and education to the community, and of pursuing both agriculture and scholarship, which was nurtured and upheld within the Li Family Compound, is one which makes the compound appear all the more precious in today's ever more materialistic industrial society.
If given the opportunity, Li Chu-fa can relate tales about his ancestors till the cows come home, and the plain old house is full of their traces. In its Buddha Hall there is a pair of vases given by a neighbor in thanks for the free medical treatment he once received from a late member of the clan; and Li Chu-fa remembers his father telling him how a greengrocer who also sold oysters would give his unsold oysters to the Li family at the end of each day, again out of gratitude for being treated by them.
Back in the Qing dynasty, second-generation ancestor Li Qingshui began giving medical treatment and herbal medicines to local people free of charge. When he died, his funeral procession was over a kilometer long. "How to behave towards other people is that simple-if you remember others, they will remember you," says Wang Chen-hua.
A platform of history
The tradition of helping others as a matter of duty was passed down from generation to generation in the Li family. But when it reached Yen Hsiu-feng's husband, Li You-pang of the fifth generation, it ran up against unprecedented challenges, for the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki had made Taiwan a Japanese dependency. The Li clan, upholders of the traditional moral character of the Chinese literati, were also deeply imbued with Chinese ethnic consciousness. When Li You-pang was studying at the Taipei Teacher Training College, he joined the Taiwan Culture Association. Thus the steps of the highest, rearmost courtyard of the Li Family Compound became a patriotic speaking platform for the association's leading figures Jiang Weishui and Lai He, and the Japanese police stood outside the courtyard gate monitoring their every word and action. Later, after Li You-pang took part with other students in an attack on a Japanese police station, he was expelled from college and a warrant issued for his arrest. He then fled to mainland China, where he joined in China's struggle against Japan.
First he entered the Whampoa Military Academy, as one of its second intake of students. There he absorbed concepts of democracy and human rights, and, on the special recommendation of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, went to learn Mandarin in the home of veteran Republican revolutionary Liao Zhongkai. Later, Li proposed the slogan "Defend the Motherland, Recover Taiwan," and organized Taiwanese scattered all over the mainland into a Taiwanese volunteer force. He gave free medical treatment to poor civilians, soldiers and their families, and while doing so got to know a young woman from Hangzhou who had also joined the struggle against the Japanese-Yen Hsiu-feng. Li was a lad who had sworn not to marry until Taiwan was returned to China, and Yen was a lass who had vowed never to wed until the Japanese were defeated. But in the end they decided to get married and together go to the aid of their country.
The house which could hide
In the latter part of the period of Japanese rule, as the fighting came closer to Taiwan, many members of the Li clan sought shelter in their ancestral home to escape the air raids. At one point more than 200 were staying there. At the time, the following rumor went the rounds: The reason the Li Family Compound never suffered the slightest damage during the war was that one of the clan elders, who was well versed in divination, had placed an amulet, in the form of a spell inscribed on paper, under a black tile on the roof, so that when the bombers flew over they could see no sign of the compound from the air. This strange legend is also indicative of the sense of mystery and respect clan members felt for the house.
After the defeat of Japan, the long-absent Li You-pang first sent subordinates to Taiwan on American planes. On the building which is now the Taipei Guest House, they hoisted the ROC national flag in Taiwan for the first time. Soon afterwards Li himself returned to his native land, bringing his wife with him, to become head of the Three Principles of the People Youth Corps in Taiwan. The Li clan held a large ancestor worship ceremony to celebrate their return. Yen Hsiu-feng, who had never set foot in a Taiwanese clan residence before, remembers how when she first saw the Li Family Compound from a distance, it imparted a sense of great stability and security. After passing through gate after gate, like other brides before her this Hangzhou bride respectfully offered tangyuan to each of the senior clan members in turn. But because Li You-pang had official quarters in the city, the couple stayed in the compound only briefly.
Yen's family in Hangzhou had comprised just her parents and herself, so life in a farming clan compound with over 200 people living together made an impression on her which she remembers to this day. "In those days many of the clan still worked the land, and early every morning the men would go out into the fields. The women, on the other hand, would carefully dress and make up, and put a red flower in their hair. But when they went out through the door of their quarters, they too would diligently join in the busy work of the household. Although there were so many people, everything was very ordered."
Stormy times for the Li Family Compound
When the February 28 Incident occurred in 1947, Li Pang-you's great popularity and prestige prompted Taiwan governor Chen Yi to personally ask him to broadcast a message to his fellow Taiwanese to calm public anger. But Li refused, telling Chen: "You've made such a mess of things already, it's not something I can smooth over with a few words. What's more, I don't want to lie to my Taiwanese compatriots."
Not long afterwards Li, who in mainland China had already been arrested as a political prisoner by the right wing faction of the Kuomintang during a party purge, was detained on charges of being a member of a communist rebel organization, and escorted to Nanjing where he was held in prison. Despite being pregnant, Yen Hsiu-feng immediately traveled by land and sea all the way to Nanjing, where she met Chiang Ching-kuo and explained the government's responsibility for the February 28 Incident. Only then was Li You-pang safely released.
In 1949, the ROC government relocated to Taiwan. After earnest entreaties from Taiwan Provincial Governor Chen Cheng, Li You-pang accepted the important post of vice-chairman of the KMT's Taiwan Province party committee. At that time Li's political prestige reached its peak. But then things turned against him, for although he had ultimately emerged unscathed from the February 28 Incident, he did not escape the new persecution which arrived with the paranoia and political power struggles of the White Terror. Yen Hsiu-feng was arrested for "membership in a rebel organization" and sentenced to 15 years in prison. At the same time Li You-pang was arrested for "membership in a rebel organization" and "subversion," and was executed the next year by shooting.
Old in fabric but unbowed in spirit
When their father was executed and their mother imprisoned, the youngest of Li You-pang's five children was still in swaddling clothes. But fortunately Li's sister-in-law Chang Lin-liang supported and cared for them, and despite the difficult circumstances they all returned to the old family home in Luchou, where they grew up safe and sound.
Li Yuan-chun (Patrick Lee), the third of the five, who lived in the Li ancestral home from the age of six to the age of 21, remembers that at that time only 60 to 70 people were still living in the old house, and with changing social structures the old communal clan life had become a thing of the past, with everyone pursuing their individual livelihoods. But clan members held Li You-pang's memory in great respect, and were firmly convinced that he had been killed unjustly. Occasionally the children would hear older relatives express sadness at their father's undeserved fate, but in general their life was quiet and settled.
In 1965 Yen Hsiu-feng was released from prison and she returned, penniless, to the Li ancestral home. By then three of her children were at college, while the two youngest were in senior and junior high school. Since no-one dared to employ her, Yen could only live by raising chickens, ducks and rabbits and making zongzi (pyramid-shaped dumplings of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) in the old house, to take out and sell. When her children were jeered at by schoolmates as "the commie spy's kids," Yen would sternly tell them: "Hold your heads up high. We haven't let down our country or people in any way. Quite the opposite: we've done our duty."
"No-one doubts Li You-pang's love for his country and people, and in his resistance against political injustice he had the straightforwardness of a farmer. This indomitable humanist spirit was his own and his family's, but also belongs to the nation and the world," says Wang Chen-hua, who has a deep respect for the strength of character, founded in the Chinese literati tradition, fostered in the Li Family Compound.
Hsueh Chin also feels that whether in terms of the history of Taiwan's settlement and development, or of the island's difficult path to democracy, or yet of the preservation of historical monuments, the stories and characters associated with the Li Family Compound in Luchou represent important milestones in Taiwan's modernization. The same view is cherished by the younger generations of the Li clan. This is what made them willing to make a gift of their ancestral home, in order to maintain their clan spirit.
Faded glory?
It has now been over a decade since the Li ancestral home was at last designated a historical monument in 1985, and the renovation of the structure is now complete. But the pace of social change has never relented, and with rapid property development in Luchou, "Beauty in the Fields" now has the perimeter wall of a junior high school in front of it, and to both sides and behind stand blocks of flats over 10 storeys high.
Getting their ancestral home listed as a monument was the first step, allowing its physical structure and appearance to be preserved. Though no-one lives in the old house any more, the generations of the Li clan alive today hope that it can be put to new uses, and so revive the clan spirit of former days.
In late 1996, an event entitled "Good Neighbors Meet in Luchou" was held in the Li Family Compound. On four consecutive weekends, amid the cool breezes of the central hall, architect Wang Chen-hua spoke at length about "reviving the spirit of yixue" (the ancient tradition of using one's own or donated resources to provide free education). Luchou residents old and new heard how Fan Zhongyan of the Song dynasty was too poor to afford schooling as a child, but after passing the imperial exams and attaining high office, provided a free school for the benefit of his locality, and this is still commemorated today by the name of Yixue Lane in Suzhou. In Taiwan, Luchou's Li Family Compound also upholds this tradition, for its layout provides a Farming Hall (where farm implements were stored) on the left hand side of the compound and a schoolroom on the right, giving later generations the clearest possible reminder of the exhortation to "pass down the tradition of farming and scholarship." Further, in line with the Confucian precept of "treating others' children as you would your own," the Lis also provided free schooling for the children of nearby villages. While Wang spoke about reviving the yixue spirit, some Li clan members who are physicians were also invited back to give local residents free consultations.
New life for an old home
Though the old house has lost the Li clan as residents, it has gained new users from the Luchou Junior High School opposite and from the local community. The wall between the junior high and the Lotus Flower Pool is to be demolished. The cultural spirit of the Li Family Compound and the buildings themselves are excellent teaching materials for the school, and the school's activity center will be available as a spillover venue for large-scale events in the Li Family Compound. Thus culture and education will be naturally welded together.
Last year, Luchou Junior High School planned to put up a new building directly in front of the Lotus Flower Pool, but this would have obstructed the reflected view of Mt. Kuanyin which is so important to the Li Family Compound. After being approached several times by the Li clan, scholars and the Taipei County Government, the school finally agreed to locate the new building in a different position. For both the staff and the pupils at the school, this was an object lesson in monument preservation.
Amid heaven, earth and ancestors
Today in Luchou's Li Family Compound we no longer see the genuine lifestyle of a large farming clan, nor is the cycle of birth, ageing and death played out here any more. But it is still the clan's ancestral temple, and the place where they gather for clan reunions and for ceremonies in honor of their ancestors. An archive and study center on the Li clan philosophy is also to be set up, to tell those who come after how an ordinary family survived unbowed through the trials and tribulations of various periods of history.
Times and attitudes are changing, but the examples people set in the way they live their lives are lasting and fresh. Unrepentant and undaunted despite 15 years of unjust imprisonment, Yen Hsiu-feng selflessly devotes herself to the preservation of historical monuments. She says with feeling: "I'm no historian, but I've lived through part of history, and I believe history will finally pass fair judgement. That's why we should cherish our cultural assets from every era-they are steeped in history, and are part of every one of us."
If you have a chance to go to Luchou, don't forget to stroll into the Li Family Compound at dusk, walking up from the front courtyard to the rear hall. Sitting in the central hall, with the Lotus Flower Pool and Mt. Kuanyin in front of you and the rear courtyard and the ancestral memorial tablet behind, nestled between sky and earth, mountain and river, amid the deepening twilight, a sense of the eternity of the ancestors and yourself will flood through your body, as myriad thoughts of extraordinary people and times past well up into your mind.
p.109
Scholarly farmers with a tradition of loyalty to country and family-what has been passed down from generation to generation in Luchou's Li Family Compound is not only the outward appearance of traditional architecture, but also the strength of character esteemed by the Chinese literati.
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"Congratulations, don't get rich." Though the Li clan no longer live in their ancestral home, at every lunar new year and tomb sweeping day they still come back to this spiritual focal point, to burn incense to their ancestors and to be reminded of the family's traditional values.
p.113
Interconnecting walkways, and courtyards open to both sun and rain, kept people close to each other and to nature.
(facing page) With walls of rough-hewn stone rather than carved and painted beams, the Li Family Compound expresses the straightforward, unadorned character of a farming family.
p.115
(top) In mainland China, Li You-pang of the Li clan's fifth generation organized a Taiwanese volunteer force to join in the nation's War of Resistance Against Japan. His own story was also an important page in Taiwan's history. (courtesy of Yen Hsiu-feng)
(bottom) In the central hall of the Li Family Compound, traditional architecture scholar Wang Chen-hua gives lectures for the people of Luchou, reviving the spirit by which in former days the Li clan provided free schooling for local children. (courtesy of Yen Hsiu-feng)
p.117
Stepping through the gateway, Li clan members return to the embrace of their ancestral home, which is also a valuable part of Taiwan's cultural heritage.
（top） In mainland China, Li You-pang of the Li clan's fifth generation organized a Taiwanese volunteer force to join in the nation's War of Resistance Against Japan. His own story was also an important page in Taiwan's history. （courtesy of Yen Hsiu-feng）
（bottom） In the central hall of the Li Family Compound, traditional architecture scholar Wang Chen-hua gives lectures for the people of Luchou, reviving the spirit by which in former days the Li clan provided free schooling for local children. （courtesy of Yen Hsiu-feng）
Stepping through the gateway, Li clan members return to the embrace of t heir ancestral home, which is also a valuable part of Taiwan's cultural heritage.
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