The Identities of Watertown Shaoxing

By Zhang Linwei

In ancient times, the town of Shaoxing was surrounded by canals, rivers and lakes. The commercial exchange and transportation between towns all depended on water. In the town, there were systematic water-nets. The transport of goods relied on the water-nets and most streets were parallel with the canals. Pedestrians walked on the streets while the goods were transported on the water and bridges were located on the crossing of water and roads. The three of them formed a 3-D traffic system.

In Shaoxing, the commercial streets were mostly built along the canals. Shops were located between the canals and the streets. The canals were used to transport goods while the streets were used to trade. So there were no conflict between goods-transtportation and trading. Another main pattern of commercial streets were that the streets were built between the canal and shops, which made the street broad and beautiful. This pattern of commercial streets made it more convenient for farmers from the agricultural-area riding boats to the street to exchange there goods.

It is one of the most important identities in Shaoxing that the whole town is full of systematic water-nets. At the same time ,there are lots of bridges in Shaoxing. So we call it “the town of bridge”.

From the map above we know there are 229 bridges in the town in 1893. The area of the whole town is about 7.4 sq.km. That means each 0.0231 sq.km. there will be a bridge. Compared with The Venice,the density of bridge in Shaoxing is 44 times bigger than that in Venice. There are about 10610 bridges in the whole city of Shaoxing in 1993（ ）.And lots of bridges have a long history. And we know ,it is a special area.

Some of the old houses in Shaoxing were called “tai men”. They are another identity of Shaoxing.

The wall of the “tai men” in Shaoxing is white, while the roof is dark. The dooryard, aisle, black window, and the well made us know what was “tai men”. Formerly, people went outside of Shaoxing to earn money. When they were rich, they wound go home. They wound build some houses for themselves and their children. This will be the history of “tai men”. Now there are lots of them in Shaoxing which built in Ming dynasty.

There are some key words for “tai men”.

Tai men: A series of courtyards and rooms, with regular plan. Most of them consists with dooryard, mail hall, and so on.

Courtyard: A space in the open air, we can do some exercises here. Surround by walls and houses.

jin: A unit Consists by hall and courtyard. Most of “tai men” has a axis. Along the axis, there may be 3-5”jin”. Some of them are more. The width and the height of The old buildings in Shaoxing are different. All of them depend on the status of the host.

The styles of “tai men”:

Houses for businessmen: most of them can divide into two parts, the rooms in front are used for commerce, and the rooms behind are used for living.

Houses for literator: most of them are quiet. There are lots of in the courtyard, some of them have stones and small animals.

Houses for officer: most of them are bigger than the others. And more beautiful and more luxury than others.

In Shaoxing, most inhabitants prefered south orientated houses, so the main halls of houses were mostly south-orientated. The other rooms, such as bedrooms, kitchens were often east-west orientated. At that time, most houses were one or two storeyed, with 3, 4 or 5 courtyards. The number of courtyards depended on the number of family members and the richness of the family. The main halls had large span, while the others had small span. The houses were built by bricks and wood, the roof covered with tiles. The outer wall were brick-built, with rather small windows, while the inner walls were built by wood, and had large windows and doors.

If the house was along the water, there were steps connected from the house down to the water, which made boarding and landing more convenient, and washing easier. Along the river, there were spaces among houses. The spaces were used as docks for inhabitants who didn't had houses by the canal. There were also spaces called "fire lane" between lines of houses, in order to prevent the spread of fire.

In the town, there were 3 different sized and shaped hills. Temples were located on the foot of the hills and beautiful plants growed on the hills. To Shaoxing inhabitants, the hills were like parks. They always enjoyed themselves up on the hills on their spare times. Around the town there were town wall, town river, and town gates. And all the things mentioned above formed the identity of the town of Shaoxing. They were also the identities of all the other watertowns in Yantze Delta.