Because of the unique characteristics of the loess soil, cave houses were common in Henan Province. Some were dug straight into cliffsides, but this one is a more sophisticated design, called a patio cave house. A huge pit was dug, then rooms were carved out of the sides of the pit. In the past, entrance was gained by climbing down a ladder, but now there is a ramp in one corner of the pit. This house was originally one of a group of four. We could see the ruins of two of the others, but this is the only one still in use.

In this close up, the loess soil almost looks like concrete. Although the doorway itself has been reinforced with bricks, the loess walls do not crumble. The doorway into each room was adorned with red New Year couplets. Perhaps they put them on every door because there is no "front door". The circle in the foreground is a deep well used for drainage. There is another hole in the floor of the cave house - you can see it in the bottom right corner of the previous picture - that is a storage vault for sweet potatoes. It is quite deep, and they use handholds and footholds cut into the straight sides of the vault to climb down and retrieve the potatoes.

The kitchen of the cave house is actually two rooms. Once the first room was excavated, they dug a doorway, and proceeded to hollow out a second room beyond it. The interior wall is simply loess that was not removed. The occupants of this house have a garden on the land at the top of the pit wall. Cooking is done on a charcoal burner, and their water comes from a well.

The main body of this grindstone is also loess soil. Only the two round stones on the top are not loess.

Here is a bed carved right into the wall. You can just roll out your mat and take a nap.

To the right of the tree trunk in this picture, and just below the ledge that runs all the way around the top of the wall is a small square opening. It is covered with a wooden lattice, and is the family birdhouse. The entrance to the birdhouse is in the room next to it, where a small tunnel begins that burrows up through the soil until the other end opens into the birdhouse.

Here Deanna poses with the 93 year old grandmother who is the matriarch of this family. She walks with a cane, because she has bound feet. This is something rarely seen in China anymore, since the practice was outlawed in 1912. When all four cave houses in this complex were in use, there were 43 occupants, but now only this woman, her oldest son and his family live here. When we first came in, they offered us seats on these wooden benches and gave us snacks of soda and sunflower seeds. Hospitality to guests is very important to the Chinese.

Copyright 2005, Dr. Lee Williams

Last Modified: 6 May 2005

Images and descriptions from this site may not be used without permission. For permission to use or to make comments, send email to leewil@quietsoftware.com