The Wei Family Courtyard is located in the Luojia Lane area on the north side of Houde Road in Ganzhou City. It is a residential building built successively from the mid-Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China. The whole building of the Wei Family Courtyard is magnificent, spanning three streets of Luojia Lane, Hebaotang and Ciguling. It has a total of 5 residential buildings, 1 kitchen, stable and utility room each, 1 ancestral hall and barn. 2 buildings, 2 old-style Montessori schools and 1 new-style school, forming a complete urban family residential system.

The past life of the Wei Family Courtyard

When talking about the history of the Wei Family Courtyard, we must start with the ancestor of the Wei family, Chief Wei. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Chief Wei moved from Weifang outside the west gate of Liancheng, Fujian, to Ganzhou City. He was a typical Hakka who "immigrated to Ganzhou backwards". The Wei family made their fortune in lumber and banking business. During the Republic of China, they were already one of the four famous families in Ganzhou. In its heyday, branches of the Wei family bank were opened in many places across the country, but they declined in the late Republic of China.

The Wei family courtyard was built by Wei Tianji, the nephew of Wei Zongzhang, during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty. In the 31st year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1905), the wife of Wei Yuanjun, the son of Wei Tianji, celebrated his 100th birthday. The Wei clan built a majestic and beautifully decorated ancestral hall to celebrate Zheng's birthday.

In the 10s of the 20th century, two additional residences were built on the west and north sides of the ancestral hall. At this point, the scale of the Wei family compound has been basically finalized, with a total of 5 residential buildings, 1 kitchen, stable, and utility room each, 1 ancestral hall, 2 barns, 2 old-style teaching halls, and 1 new school. seat.

The main building of the Wei Family Courtyard covers an area of ??3,000 square meters. Together with other ancillary buildings such as ancestral halls and schools, it covers an area of ??more than 18,000 square meters. All buildings are made of volcano-sealed walls made of water-polished blue bricks, the beams are made of exquisite materials, and the wooden buildings are carefully carved. They can be called exquisite works of Ganzhou ancient architecture.

The present life of the Wei Family Courtyard

The Wei Family Courtyard is the largest existing Hakka house of the Qing Dynasty in Ganzhou and even the entire province. It has high construction quality and has very high research value. .

Recently, reporters visited the Wei Family Courtyard to appreciate its elegance and charm. Wandering around, you can see that the entire compound is fully functional and reasonably laid out, including residences, ancestral halls, stables, barns, schools and other buildings. The complete volcano sealing wall, exquisite eaves carvings, and exquisite wooden windows reflect the exquisite craftsmanship of Ganzhou's Qing Dynasty architectural construction.

Due to various reasons, as a historical and cultural heritage, the Wei Family Courtyard has not been effectively protected in recent decades. Illegal constructions are everywhere in the courtyard. Although the main structures of most buildings are well preserved, due to disrepair over time, tiles, walls, wooden structures, carvings, etc. have been seriously damaged, and important elements such as the courtyard landscape space no longer exist. In recent years, some experts and scholars in our city have called for the Wei Family Courtyard to be repaired as soon as possible to reflect its due value and historical status.

In April 2018, the Ganzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government officially launched the Wei Family Courtyard renovation project with a total investment of 267 million yuan. The renovation work was based on the courtyard architectural layout in the Wei Family Courtyard genealogy, respecting the original history, rebuilding ancestral halls, restoring traditional courtyard units, restoring the architectural texture and laneway scale, and recreating the courtyard pattern of the Wei Family Courtyard in its heyday, with the largest Demonstrate the heritage style to a certain extent.

In March 2019, the renovation project of the core area of ??the Wei Family Courtyard passed the completion acceptance and was rated as a "Cultural Relics Protection Unit in Jiangxi Province".

In December 2019, the Wei Family Courtyard was opened to the public as the "Southern Gansu Hakka Culture Museum".

In order to better protect and inherit the Hakka culture of southern Gansu, the municipal government decided to renovate the area in the Wei Family Courtyard to build the "Southern Gansu Hakka Culture Museum". The total investment in the museum's exhibition project is 9 million yuan. The exhibition method mainly uses text, pictures, charts, cultural relics, scene reproduction, modern holographic and other technical means to show the production and life scenes of the Hakka people in southern Gansu from multiple angles and in multiple forms. The contents of the exhibition include "Love in the Cradle (The Origin of Hakkas in Southern Jiangxi)", "Living in Gatherings (Hakka Clan and Society)", "Beautiful Mountain Flowers (Hakka Folk Art)" and "Passing on the Fire (Hakka Spirit and the Hakka Culture in Southern Jiangxi)". inheritance and development)”.

Now full of traces of past prosperity and vicissitudes of life, the Wei Family Courtyard has been renovated and is once again open to welcome guests from all over the world.