An Old Village in Putian China

When I was visiting Putian China, it was a business trip for my wife and also a family visit for her too. This was my first time seeing her family in China, and it was exciting as well as a nervous moment.

I had met her old brother and mother before, so that wasn't a big issue. There were no issues other than the language differences. They spoke no English, and I spoke no Chinese. As you can imagine, it was an interesting time spent with her family when you can't really communicate.

But we did find ways to chat. WeChat has a feature that you can interpret things. Not great, but at the most, it was able to get things across from time to time.

There was one day that I had time alone with her family while my wife was working. Her younger brother and I started to use WeChat and were able to get some conversations going.

He offered to walk me around the village that they had grown up in. He no longer lives there, but his older brother, his family and their mother are still living in the area.

The new and old parts of the village are interesting. The new being more together and in how I would describe it, apartment slash townhome-ish. Now the older part that they live very close to is different.

The difference is in the structure and homes themselves. I have also found this in many other areas I had visited.

The old style of living was almost what I would call poverty level. Clay strucures, close together on narrow walking street or paths.

One thing that got me was the emotion that struck me as I walked around my wife's old home village. I got choked up. Choked up in happiness for her and sadness that there were still people living in some of the run down shacks.

As I walked the street slash paths, from time to time, I would run into a local. Being with my wife's brother, I felt that if need he could talk to them and explain what I was doing taking photos. But I got interesting looks, looks of who is this and I never seen a white man in person.

So over this next phase of photos, I will share these images and my feeling while taking them

This is a random house that is no longer being occupied but still standing, and the feelings of poverty start around seeing this early on in our walk, through a village in Putian China.

This one is of her families street that they currently live on that I took with my phone. The more normal way of life that I have found in old villages before the government or developers come in. More on that in another post.