In the Hakka villages of Huichang county, in eastern China's Jiangxi province, a family's identity is declared not with a nameplate, but with an ornate door plaque.
Mounted like a proud brow above the home's entrance, the bian'e is a rectangular wooden board carved with two to four elegant Chinese characters traditionally hung above doorways or in ancestral halls.
It is not only for decoration but also the family creed — a statement of history, and a declaration of values hanging in plain sight.
Driving through the Hakka villages, you'll see them everywhere: centuries-old ancestral halls and modern concrete homes share this silent language.
Originally, the Hakka ethnic group was North Chinese who migrated to South China during the fall of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). They are considered to be a branch of the Han ethnic group.
The tradition of bian'e speaks first, as the characters on the plaque whisper of an ancestral home a thousand miles and a millennium away, declaring a household's creed of diligence and virtue or hopes for future prosperity.
"You can think of Huichang county as an open-air museum, where every doorway is an artifact," explains Huang Zhenlong, director of the Huichang county cultural hall.
"The Hakka bian'e tells our story of migration, scholarly ambition, and moral accountability."
There is no better place to appreciate the profound history behind those wooden boards than the Hundred Plaques Hall, a quiet sanctuary that preserves over 130 bian'e from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) onward.
