Huangshan builds future from its past

"Stepping into the hotel, I felt like I was living in the Huizhou region of ancient dynasties. It is really a retreat from busy urban life," said Tan Ziyi, a 33-year-old bank employee from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, who booked three nights in the hotel during his vacation.

Given that many old Huizhou-style houses have been recognized as part of a significant cultural heritage, their renovation can be costly. Local government in the past few years has taken steps to attract private investors like Su to renovate old houses in Huangshan.

The government has set up strict rules allowing only qualified investors to buy, rent or renovate the Huizhou-style houses to ensure structures with great cultural value are not ruined.

But the key bottleneck for development of the industry is expected to be the looming shortage of craftsmen and people with related skills to ensure work is done properly, according to Ye Shan'en, deputy head of a branch of the Huangshan Chamber of Commerce, who has spent decades building Huizhou-style houses. The branch is located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, a city that is relatively near.

"Repairing ancient Huizhou-style buildings is not easy. The joinery used in the buildings is a complex system based on mortise-and-tenon principles to connect the wooden components of the timber frame," he said.

"Since the original components were all made by hand, almost no modern machines can be used in preparing the replicas. To qualify for the work, a carpenter must have mastery of more than 100 specific types of carpentry tools," he added.

Pan, of Huijiang Ancient Architecture Design, said most of his wood carvers are around 50 years old and the most experienced craftsman is 70.

Carving done for windows and doors is one of the signatures of Huizhou-style buildings and requires experience, Pan said. The carvings span a wide range of imagery, including birds and flowers, auspicious beasts such as dragons or lions, characters from folklore and scenes from daily activities such as carrying water, farming and reading.

"However, it has been impossible to find young people who are interested in and also good at carving work, which requires not only good skills but also great patience and a good knowledge of ancient history from different times," he added.

To solve the problem, Huangshan government officials said they will accelerate the formation of a group of centers to train people to work on Huizhou-style building and restoration, integrating teaching and research, skills development, innovation and entrepreneurship.

More subsidies and other incentives will also be given to those who want to work in the industry, especially the young, to boost the availability of local craftsmen, the government said.

Despite such challenges, Huangshan Party Secretary Ling Yun said that the sector has been developing rapidly in recent decades, and many of the companies have been invited to undertake design and construction projects for important ancient buildings in other countries.

A local team restored the Chinese Garden of Heavenly Peace in Frankfurt's Bethmann Park in Germany after it was destroyed by arson in June 2017. The necessary building materials for the garden, including roof tiles and decorative wooden elements, were produced in China, and components were then shipped by sea in six containers to Frankfurt. Such efforts helped retain the style of the original building.

Yinyutang, another Huizhou-style house, was shipped more than 11,200 kilometers from its original site in Huangshan to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, in the United States in the late 1990s. Although the move cost more than $100 million, many visitors call it an invaluable addition.