The cave dwellers of 21st-century China

BBC ^ | October 4, 2010 | Daniel McCrohan

[decimon]

China’s high-tech building industry may have been flexing its ample construction muscles for the past decade in places like Beijing and Shanghai, but a few hundred miles away in Shanxi province, an estimated three million people still live in caves.

These simple homes often dot the countryside in small, hard-to-find clusters, but in places like Lijiashan, where hundreds of caves scale nine different levels of a hillside, it is possible to find whole communities made up entirely of cave dwellers.

People have been living in caves in Shanxi for around 5,000 years, and it is believed that at one stage a quarter of the population lived underground. These days around one-twelfth of Shanxi-ers live in caves - still a remarkable number - and for many of them, life is almost as it was for their ancestors.

Lijiashan, a 550-year-old cave village, hugging a hillside set back from the Yellow River, is typical. Like most cave communities, it was hooked up to the national grid some time ago, but there is still no running water or sewage system, meaning locals are as reliant as ever on the raging muddy waters of the nearby Yellow River. The village's nine terraced levels are linked by stone stairways that date back to the Ming Dynasty, and most homes still have paper windows rather than glass panes. Inside, their owners sleep on large stone beds, known as kang; cool in the summer, but with cavities underneath so that fires can be lit inside them during the winter months.

[decimon]

The cave houses of Lijiashan village are carved out of the hillside. (Daniel McCrohan)

[decimon]

Shadows ping.

[Paladin2]

Those look like modern earth bermed houses, not caves.

[ASOC]

If you ever wondered how the Greenies *really* want you to live - look no further.....

[El Sordo]

Hobbiton Heights.

[decimon]

Those look like modern earth bermed houses, not caves.

The facades look fine. The interiors, apparently, are just caves.

[Daffynition]

Hobbiton is now. The LOTR set is being inhabited by *bbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas*!!!

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
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[afraidfortherepublic]

Hey! I have a friend in Minnesota whose house is 2/3 underground with goats on his roof. Saves a lot of energy that way, while keeping the roof mowed. They sell the milk.

[SunkenCiv]

The goats? How do they count out change, with no thumbs?

[afraidfortherepublic]

My fault. The people sell the goats’ milk for cheese, etc.

[SunkenCiv]

Sorry, I was just funnin’ ya.