Occidentally Oriental

We pulled up in the car park, got out and immediately could see buildings that were so fricking cool!! They could literally have been taken straight out of a picture book! Tall with a faded white after centuries of use, bit of plaster falling down or missing, uneven limestone slabs for paving, huge limestone blocks for doorways, paintings or drawings directly on top of them, and my personal favourite the roofs. The roofs were all tiled just as I'd imagined them in my head but better because I was actually seeing it lol. Every single building was tiled with the corners of each roof curling upwards towards the sky. It was stunning. Our walk to Skywells led through what's seemed like a maze of small alleyways village dogs, children, crops and confounded villagers who either smiled at us as we said "nihao" with a knowing smile, a joke they all seemed to share, or a pure blank face completely devoid of expression.

I didn't even realise we had reached the place until I almost walked into the back of Ed and he led us in through the garden gate. Such a contrast to the village, we walked into a very spacious courtyard with an "English" style garden to our right and a sleek, modern room in front made of glass. This was the restaurant and as we were told later was the new and only addition they made to the original structure to facilitate the space they needed to feed people. To our left was Skywells proper and it was a big place! 3 storeys high with 14 rooms, this old merchants house turned boutique inn was awesome. We dumped our stuff and Ed took us in a little tour.

He told us how it had taken approx 2 years from when they bought to open for business. Everything that they could have been kept during the renovation they used which was surprisingly a lot. Ed explained this is because a lot of the material was made from very large sections of very hard wood and has stood the test of time along with limestone which is as solid as rock! Wood carvings are everywhere and all of them are original and authentic, apart from some headless men who had the faces removed during the revolution and so they had their own wood carver who uses exclusively traditional methods restore them to what he thinks they should have been as well as design and replace any sections that needed to be. The carving is so intricate it's astounding and that it has been so we'll preserved and now will continue to be is very special.

All construction used traditional methods whenever possible and so alot of beams I could see are kept in with 3 or 4 wooden legs and that's it! Walking around the place felt like stepping back in time but with modern amenities. On the wall next to the reception were fading Chinese characters written by red guards in ink during the revolution which I found fascinating proclamating this house for the party and for Mao. Ed and Selina decided to keep it rather than scrub it off as a reminder of the past, though its still very much a part of today, and because they'll be gone in a few more years anyway.

Ed showed us the main cross beam that used to be in the house, now converted into the reception counter, depicting the story of the rich family who had first built Skywells, who they were, where they'd come from and their aspirations whilst the family was in this house. Being a merchant in China meant you had money and so this family was rich but was at the bottom rung of society because of their profession. For the common people living in imperial China Mandarins were seen in the highest social standing followed by soldiers, then farmers, then the artisan class and finally businessmen. The reason for this is because business did not provide any essential services to the community and so their place in the social heirachy reflected that. Making money for yourself was contemptible when it wasn't being distributed into the community. So approx 250 years ago this family had all the money but we're shunned by society and lived out to the countryside away from the cities because they weren't allowed in "the club" and built Skywells, this giant mansion for their descendants to inherit. A way to improve ones respect in polite society is to become a government official and so the aspiration of the family was to induct as many of their children into this profession and by doing so increase the family name's reputation and respect in the process. Fast forward 200 years or so and say hello to the PRC. The communist party who deem you unworthy for not sharing your wealth around, confiscate your money kick you out onto the street and move in 5 families to share the same roof, your old roof. And so ends the ballad of the merchant's family. Not such a happy ending but that's life. Anyway Ed and Selina had their own one carved to replace the old, rotten one telling their story of love from a distant land. Very intricate and very beautiful, no doubt with a much happier ending 😁.

Of course there are there is the namesake as well. Skywells. There are 3 of them and for each one I could of looked up for hours, seeing the sky framed by such beautiful woodwork...its inspired me to have a Skywell in the future! Each Skywell as well as being pleasing to the eyes serves a deeper purpose. In China collecting and retaining water in the house is considered to be important as it symbic of collecting and retaining wealth. So each of the Skywells (and in fact all the tiled roofs in Yancun once I knew what I was looking at) were finished with tile drippers to direct the water into large pot, a gutter set into the ground or a fish pool so that when it rained no water was wasted. It rained while we were there for 2 or 3 nights and despite the weather the scene and sound was peaceful to experience. The other namesake is a Chinese poem that I can't remember the details for too well but talks about the melancholy of autumn and has numerous descriptions about wind in the trees, a big house, roaming the wilds, things like that...very apt for Skywells.

This place was incredible, literally felt like a dream come true to live in a place like this, a village like this and it was all free!!! Couldn't believe it. This was our home for the next 16 days. #winning.Read more