Cizhong Village is located near three great rivers of Asia—the Mekong (Lancang), the Salween (Nu), and the Yangtze (Jinsha) River run closely parallel, cutting deep gorges among the glaciated peaks of the eastern Himalaya to create a region renowned for its rich cultural and biological diversity.  Close to the Tibetan and Burmese borders, this “Three Parallel Rivers” region is recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site and boasts 15 protected areas, including China’s first national park.  

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 A Tibetan Catholic family named Zhang built a farmhouse near Cizhong in 1989 and lived in it until they were forced to relocate due to the construction of the Wunonglong dam in 2017. The village of Cizhong has a unique history as the home to a Catholic church, where local people of diverse Tibetan, Naxi, Yi, Lisu, Bai, and Han ethnicities join together to attend mass every Sunday. The people are subsistence farmers practicing traditional agriculture and animal husbandry, but the village is also home to a thriving wine production industry introduced by French and Swiss missionaries in the nineteenth century. Villagers were able to keep these unique traditions and local knowledge alive through the revolutionary period.  The similarity to Virginia landscape agriculture is striking: farming grain and gardening between mountain and river, raising hogs and cattle, tending orchards of walnut and fruit trees and vineyards for making wine.  

 

The house itself is a blend of Tibetan, Naxi, Bai, and Han Chinese ethnic styles, built by Bai carpenters from Jianchuan County, a place renowned for fine craftsmanship, particularly in house building and wood carving.  The house was built in a way that fits both the local environment and the cultural hybridity of the community.  Although it was built in 1989—before electricity came to Cizhong—the house follows the traditional layout, materials, methods, and ornamentation of houses in the region going back centuries.  It is a “good” house with solid fit, quality materials, and lovely carving and joinery—not unusual, but unusually well-built and well maintained.  Most importantly, the family understands the idea of moving the house that we outlined to them, and they are committed to participating in the project not for profit, but in order to share their culture and folkways with the rest of the world.