Chinese Culture
——Chinese Culture * Lingnan Part
The history of gate dates back to the time when human beings started the architecture. The original house was built to prevent from wild animals. Therefore, the only requirement of gates at that time was firm enough. As times passed by, gates’ meaning become diversified. They were subdivided into city gate, palace gate, hall gate, temple gate, ancestral temple gate, courtyard gate and gate of an old-style. During the feudal times, there was a strict unwritten class system for building. There were high gate and low gate. This seems as if people are divided into two kinds: nobleman & common people.
In ancient China, the front gate is not only an entrance but also a class symbol of the family.
The family style was named as gate tradition; a noble family’s prestige was labeled as gate image; even when offspring marry, their doors should have the same height, denoting the same class they belong to. Also, if someone got honors for family, it was believed that he polished his family gate; contrarily, in case the courtier did something wrong, all family members would be punished but not only himself.
It is regarded as a gate wipe-out.
When we are standing before these gates, it seems as if we return to the ancient times; it seems as if we experience the movement of history; it seems as if we see our ancestors figures, laboring with the sunrise and resting with the sundown. We believed that all offspring are born here, no matter where they are now. When they return to hometown and see these gates with their nostalgia, they will be gratified at that moment.
Remarks: These stone gates were collected together while we reconstructed the old village in Zhuhai.
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