Together with a dozen colleagues, Yang Yuzhu, senior engineer with the China Relics Research Institute, moved into what is locally called "Tu Lou," or earthwork building in English, to keep the centuries-old Fuzhou residence of local farmers from decaying further.

In about two years, Yang's group is expected to clean up the building, recover the wall paintings on it, repair the broken parts, harness the surrounding environment, and at the same time keep the residing population under strict control, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Chinese government has allocated about 100 million yuan(US$12 million) to preserve this distinct style of building, indigenous only to the hilly regions in the southern Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces.

Most of the Tu Lou were built about 200 to 300 years ago and named after the building material used DD earth.

Either in the shape of a square or a circle with three-to-five-story walls surrounding a large open-air ground in the center, all of the Tu Lou unanimously feature only one entrance, which local farmers said was effective in defending against bandits who were rampant in the old days.

Even today most of those buildings play host to local farmers who worship the same ancestors in the same temple inside the building and drink water from the same well.

However, an increasing number of young people are refusing to be confined to such buildings as the walls peel off. Some have even collapsed.

The local government in Fujian is trying to put the Tu Lou on the world cultural heritage list.

(Eastday.com 02/12/2001)