CHINA - Yunnan - Jianshui

​TuanShan

Tuanshan is a rare surviving example of an intact, neglected, traditional walled Yunnan village compound in southwestern China. Although it was founded as a mining center at the end of the fourteenth century, most of Tuanshan's well-preserved residences, gateways, temples, ancestral halls, and walls date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the village prospered as a result of expanded trade with southeast Asia, made possible by the Yunnan-Vietnam railroad. Modest exteriors mask a wealth of exquisitely carved wood latticework; intricate wood, stone, and brick reliefs; and painted decorations that survived the tumult of the Cultural Revolution due to Tuanshan's privileged political connections to the Communist Party at that time.Ironically, while Tuanshan may have survived the Cultural Revolution, it is now threatened by uncontrolled regional economic growth and development.