Overseas Chinese Village in Suzhou, built in 1923, is a small Western-style buildings, but why is it called "village of robbers"
In recent years, as tourism resources gradually come to attention of people, more and more different types of tourism resources are developed, and many of them are gradually turning into scenic spots due to their unique architectural style. In south of China, especially in Suzhou area, it has always been famous for its special characteristics of Jiangnan.
Many small towns in south of Yangtze River have been developed by tourism industry, which attracts many tourists. But village I want to introduce to you today, although it is also located in Suzhou, the style of whole village is different from ordinary small towns in south of Yangtze River. It has its own unique features, and even called a robber in Jianghu.
(1) has a unique history
This is Zhengdong Village in Kunshan, Suzhou. According to distribution of villages today, existence of many villages is generally divided into two situations, one left over from history, and other redistributed for convenience of management after founding of New China.
Then existence of this village is obviously first. But unlike many ancient villages, this village has less than a century of history. Although there is no such deep historical and cultural heritage, creation of this village has a special history.
The creation of this village took place during period of Republic of China by two advisers of our master Sun Yat-sen, who were entrusted with Chinese who returned from abroad. The main goal is to attract foreign capital and direct overseas Chinese to invest in China. Therefore, this piece of land was chosen and a large amount of land was bought.
After clever planning, schools, docks, and companies, it looks like this place has turned into a small town. Subsequently, under influence of anti-Japanese war and history, it gradually fell into disrepair, many buildings were burned during war, but architectural style of that time was preserved.
(2) There are small Western-style buildings everywhere
The reason why architectural style here is completely different from Jiangnan Water City is that it was built to attract overseas Chinese and foreigners at beginning of its construction. Most of buildings are influenced by foreign architectural styles, and some buildings even combine Chinese and Western styles.
At beginning of construction, dozens of small Western-style buildings were built here. With development of history, many of them no longer exist, but some small buildings in Western style still survive. At same time, locals also inherited architectural style here, and most of houses built by residents after they got rich also inherited architectural style of small western-style buildings.
So when you enter here, don't be surprised to see little Western-style buildings everywhere, more than two stories high. This is not a foreign country, but a typical Jiangnan city. Of course, in addition to small western-style buildings, there are also many bungalows here, although bungalows may not look as good as western-style buildings.
But it is not a symbol of financial resources, but depends on needs of occupants. Some of occupants of house have elderly people and are more suitable for bungalows, but architectural style of bungalow is basically same as that of western style buildings.
(3) Known as "Bandit Village"
In this village, there has always been a legend that this village is called "Village of Robbers". Is it because village is full of robbers? In fact, this is not so, sometimes a lot of rumors are born due to fact that people have some kind of misunderstanding in terms. After interviewing local residents, we roughly divided reasons into three categories.
Firstly, village was built to attract returning Chinese from abroad. Thus, natives in area thought that reason why these overseas Chinese were so rich was because they were engaged in unsuitable trades in foreign countries, so they called these overseas Chinese returnees robbers, which gradually spread as gossip.
The second type is during anti-Japanese war. Due to consequences of war, village was empty for shelter. The robbers on mountain saw such a beautiful building, so they went down mountain and settled in this village. But these scoundrels in mountains are easy to remake, and they are still engaged in arson, murder and robbery in this village.
The third very strange misunderstanding. According to rumors, when a foreigner passed by this village, he felt thirsty and wanted to ask for water, but looked into house outside wall and found that locals here all use human heads to drink water, and on various human internal organs hang on walls. They fled village in fear, and since then rumors have spread.
The reason for this beautiful misunderstanding is that head of a person used to drinking water is rumored to be shell of a coconut. The Suzhou area is rich in coconuts, and it's no surprise that locals drink water from coconut shells.
The giblets of various people hanging on wall are actually sausage cooked by villagers and various pig giblets after slaughter. We can also see from this that many of rumors are baseless, which makes people find them extremely funny.
The current Zhengdong village, thanks to development of tourism resources, has a very peculiar architectural style that attracts many tourists who come to see. Besides admiring architecture, you can also see fish ponds, farmhouses and other unique ways to play here. At same time, it is rich in oranges, grapefruits and other fruits, tourists and friends who love food should not miss it.