10 years ago, Kan Dong and her husband Qin Jianfeng
In a hidden mountain village at the foot of the Mutianyu Great Wall in Beijing,
Made a home.
Every household in the village, look up and see the Great Wall,
Kan Dong's home is two stories high,
Out of the door is a small forest,
Live with the 24 solar terms.
The couple also took out the savings of the first half of their lives,
Spent 100 million yuan in the village to build roads, build homestays, open restaurants...
Helped 200 Indigenous people find new jobs.
During the reconstruction of the village,
Attracted a lot of "big come" people settled,
At most,
There are 30 families of invisible rich people from all over the world,
These people don't want to leave when they move here, and they live for 6 or 7 years.
Recently, they also built a homestay,
Invite young designers from 4 different countries to design together,
He has won many international architectural awards.
Kan Dong said: "A rural area in northern China
Can make people around the world have a sense of belonging,
We can stay here,
Even if you spend all your savings, you feel that it is worth it. ”
Editor Tango is responsible for editing Kailei Deng
Beigou Village, located in Bohai Town, Huairou District, Beijing, is a small village at the foot of the Mutianyu Great Wall, with more than 130 households living all year round, and every household goes out every day to look up and see the most famous section of the Great Wall in Beijing: the Jiankou Great Wall.
10 years ago, Kan Dong came here for the first time with her husband Qin Jianfeng, who was engaged in rural construction work. She remembers that it was March, and as soon as she entered the village, she was surprised to find that the villagers were in the trees.
It turns out that in the spring, the people in the village will climb the trees to prune the branches, and even the 80-year-old lady will sit cross-legged on the trees and work, looking interesting, but can't help but worry about them.
At that time, the village was very dilapidated, living by growing chestnuts, relying on donkeys for daily transportation, and the roof of the house was covered with cheap colored steel tiles.
But the spectacular sight of the Great Wall was in front of them, and the couple was fascinated by the unique natural scenery and immediately decided to build their own home in the village.
The quality of the villagers is higher, and they are more contractual. Outsiders can safely build houses in the village without worrying about breaking the contract. These beautiful buildings, in fact, will eventually be left to the villagers free of charge.
Traditional houses in Beigou Village
Move into a dilapidated village outside Beijing's fifth ring road and watch the Great Wall while eating
Kan Dong and her husband's home was built on a homestead covering an area of more than 1,000 square meters, they kept a long row of old houses, and built a new house opposite it, spending a total of more than 5 million yuan.
At that time, Kan Dong's requirements for designers were that the newly built house "looks like it must be from Beigou Village". So the materials were made of local red brick, walnut wood, and some glazed tiles produced in the village were selected for decoration.
The newly built house has a two-storey, hollow loft structure and is the main living area for a family of four. The living room can accommodate a dozen people to chat and roast the fire together. At the restaurant, you can eat while watching the scenery of the mountain village.
The old house that was preserved, the exterior of the building remained unchanged, and the interior was simply painted and renovated, turned into 4 bedrooms for friends to stay overnight when they came to play.
The old house of Beigou Village that was preserved
Husband Qin Jianfeng, a native of old Beijing, has a kind of "Great Wall complex", specially designed an observation deck on the second floor of the home, where you can see the panoramic view of the Great Wall at the top of the mountain.
Every time a neighbor or friend comes to play at home, they will go upstairs to take a look at the Great Wall from that angle, and the couple will tirelessly introduce the history and culture related to the Great Wall.
"The Great Wall symbolizes a kind of unity, just like our village, where everyone works together." Since living in Beigou Village, every time he encountered difficulties, Qin Jianfeng felt that the Great Wall gave him a kind of spiritual strength.
For more than half of the year, the couple spends time in Beigou Village. On weekends, the children return from boarding school and live with their parents in the village.
At the same time, a bigger, stronger thought came to their minds: to take out the savings of the first half of their lives and make the village clean, beautiful, and livable.
In order to make the village "alive", unconsciously spend a hundred million
In the early years, there was a glazed tile factory in the village, which smoked every day, causing serious air pollution problems, and after being discovered by a foreigner who loved the Great Wall, he invested in the transformation into China's first rural heritage hotel: the Brickyard Hotel.
Kan Dong likes the renovation of the tile factory, but at the same time feels that he can come out from the perspective of foreigners and integrate more local culture and contemporary Chinese aesthetics, rather than just building a place where foreigners like to come for vacation.
Kan Dong at the Brickyard Hotel
With little hesitation, she and her husband took over the brickyard hotel with a large amount of savings, and began to build roads for the village, build community cultural centers, homestays, restaurants... Unconsciously, the two spent 100 million yuan in Beigou Village.
Her husband, Qin Jianfeng, who has many years of experience in rural reconstruction, told Kan Dong that burning money alone cannot really revive a village, but must make the villagers change from the depths of their hearts.
So together with the village secretary, they organized various education and training activities, built a new community cultural center, set up a library, and changed their tricks to encourage villagers to punch in the clock to take classes and develop the habit of reading books and newspapers.
The Great Wall DrumMing Team in Beigou Village
Build a homestay, 30% of the proceeds to the local villagers
In 2015, Kan Dong wanted to build a new homestay so that people who came to the village could have more reasons to stay and provide more job opportunities for the villagers.
She saw the work of architect Liu Hanxiao on the Internet, liked it very much, and after a simple communication on the phone, the other party came to Beigou Village from Shanghai.
Architect Liu Hanxiao
Liu Hanxiao, a native of Nanjing, has studied and worked abroad for many years, and he is not familiar with the countryside in the north, so he has studied the history, geography and original architectural form of Beigou Village in particular.
After entering the village, he first went to find the experience: "I forgot that I was an architect, to feel the village from a very small point of view." ”
Liu Hanxiao and his team are building a homestay
Liu Hanxiao lived in different houses and rooms in the village, understanding the traditional way of life and how the families interacted with each other.
The team also has three architects from Portugal, Canada and Japan. Four young people eat and live together in the village, designing and mingling with the villagers.
It took nearly 5 years from the design to the completion of the house, and the construction of bricks and tiles was completed by the local construction team of Beigou Village.
The villagers questioned the architect's choice from the beginning, and later gave the architect some advice, and even took the initiative to ask: "Can we build this brick better?" ”
The materials used in the building are the same as those of Kan Dongjia, and local natural materials are used as much as possible. After repeated experiments in the room, the choice of diatom mud is not only quiet and soft, but also retains a little rural primitive "roughness", which makes people feel very kind.
There are 16 rooms with different shapes
There are many homestays that pay special attention to privacy, but Liu Hanxiao has broken this point. Each house has its own yard, but it is not enclosed. Sitting in the yard, you can make eye contact with the neighbors.
Such a design, on the one hand, allows residents to see the Great Wall more comfortably in all corners, on the other hand, Kan Dong and the architect hope that people who come here can go out more and feel the whole village.
Overlooking the rooftops of Sanshi Homestay
After the opening of the homestay, no guests reflected privacy problems, but felt that the design of the open courtyard was very interesting, which made Liu Hanxiao particularly happy.
Most people came here to the Great Wall, and how to represent the element of the Great Wall was also a test for architects, and in the end, Liu Hanxiao chose a surprise way.
Standing at the back of the homestay, looking in the direction of the Great Wall, the eaves of each house are connected in tandem to form a curve, just like the lines outlined by the Great Wall for the ridge - the lines of the roof pay tribute to the Great Wall, a design that is cleverly hidden in the eaves.
After the completion of the homestay, it was named "Three Thirty", and has won 5 awards in the architectural industry. This is the meaning of the Chinese number thirty-three, which represents the determination of Kan Dong and her husband: 33% of the proceeds are given to local villagers, 33% to enterprises and employees, and 33% to give back to the society.
"Indigenous peoples and outsiders want to benefit each other. No one can selfishly make quick money, and each step should consider the interests and feelings of all parties in a longer-term way, so that the village can develop benignly. ”
Villagers work on site
The invisible rich continue to move in and hug the pension together
Nowadays, more and more foreigners and urban people come to Beigou Village, who were initially attracted by the Great Wall, but eventually stayed because of Beigou Village itself. They were more amazed at the quality and vision of the locals than the high-end facilities.
At the time of the largest number of outsiders, there were more than 30 foreigners living in the village. The neighbors are very promising, most of them are the elite of their industries, and there are several hidden rich people abroad.
For example, Canada's top three richest people, the heirs of the oil family business, the founders of the medical industry... Beigou Village was therefore referred to by the media as "China's Beverly Hills".
So many Westerners have found a sense of belonging in the rural areas of northern China and huddled together here for the elderly, which the Kan Dong family had never imagined before.
They walk in the village without the slightest "rich status", Chinese also speak very well, when buying vegetables, they will learn to bargain Chinese, and the villagers affectionately call them "Lao Wang Lao Zhang".
Jewish entrepreneur Li Bijing has been living in the village for 6 or 7 years, and the pace of her medical industry is very tense, and since she has made a home in the village, she feels that she is particularly happy to go out and walk her dog every day.
Li Bijing's home in Beigou Village
There is beautiful nature everywhere, the villagers are very polite, and they are very accustomed to getting along with foreigners, everyone is very casual, which makes Li Bijing feel that life is particularly relaxed.
Li Bijing, a Jew, skillfully used her Chinese to communicate with her neighbors
Every year, Li Bijing organizes Jewish communities to come to the village to do activities, and everyone designs a treasure hunt game, where a group of people are divided into several teams and draw task cards.
Each task card has a question about the countryside: for example, beigou village has three big surnames, and foreigners need to interview the villagers to know which three surnames are, and also ask them about their history related to this to further explore the culture of the village.
Every time we held an activity, everyone had a special time, and they were more and more impressed by the small mountain village at the foot of the Great Wall.
Not only foreigners, but also Chinese who moved from downtown Beijing, such as Kan Dong's good friend, university professor and artist Zheng Xiaohong.
At first, Kan Dong only invited Zheng Xiaohong to play at home, she knew that this friend had been accustomed to the exquisite life in the city since childhood, but she did not expect that in the end, Zheng Xiaohong, like her, rented an old house and built it into her own home.
Zheng Xiaohong's home in Beigou Village
Zheng Xiaohong, who has studied in Japan and worked for many years, has visited many villages, and she feels that Beigou Village is very different, and this difference is not the first visual feeling, but from all aspects, slowly felt.
On Christmas Day 2020, Zheng Xiaohong also planned an art festival for Beigou Village. In the cold weather, she took the students to make a lot of devices from waste materials. Let the villagers go out of their homes and enjoy contemporary art.
Art installation in the village
New career circles are taking shape:
200 villagers have found new jobs here
Beigou Village was once a typical left-behind village, where most of the young and middle-aged people went out to work, leaving only the elderly and children. Now, the village's homestays and restaurants are all open to welcome indigenous people to work.
More than 200 indigenous people have found new jobs in the village, and they have formed different professional circles: construction team, gardening team, chef team, service team, logistics support team...
The villagers all have new jobs in the village
Song Cuihong, 48, was once a housewife in the village and is now a well-known Western chef in the suburbs of Beijing, and the media often come to Beigou Village to interview her. Her daily routine now is to drink coffee and eat desserts in the village with her sisters.
Song Cuihong prepares desserts at a Western restaurant
Zhao Xiujing, 40, who had been working in downtown Beijing before, is back to take charge of the management of the new homestay. Not only has the infrastructure in the village improved, but the improvement of the villagers' cultural literacy has also made her feel that the "soft environment" is particularly good.
Zhao Xiujing's daily work is to check and tidy up the homestay room
Wang Yi, the head of the civil engineering team, and Li Fengquan, the head of green horticulture, are both in their 60s, which was originally an embarrassing age, but now they can earn a good income in the village.
Civil engineering and horticulture are now the responsibility of indigenous peoples
The aborigines who returned to the village earned an average of 5,000 to 8,000 yuan a month. Everyone will also go to the Western restaurant in the village to relieve their hunger, Japanese food, Vietnamese food, French food... A variety of dishes can be eaten at your doorstep.
The elderly over 70 years old can also go to the special canteen in the village and provide two free meals a day. It has realized that the old have some support and the old have dependence.
The traditional way of life continues: pruning trees more safely in the spring; picking chestnuts together in the fall; roasting fires and enjoying the snow together in the glass houses in the center of the community in the winter...
Kan Dong's family lives here according to the 24 solar terms: "Once a month, I have to go to each house to eat, and when I have the most in the night, I will always visit the door to eat until I can't eat." ”
When he is free, Kan Dong will ask her husband, when will he spend so much money and energy, when will he return?
Qin Jianfeng always said, take your time, estimate 50 years. When people reach middle age, do what they want to do, and live in a place they like, this is already very happy.
Photo photo by Sansie Homestay / Fernando Guerra | FG+SG