HOME - Portraits of the Hakka
2006年から2008年の3年間、僕は中国福建省西南の山間部に点在する福建土楼と、そこに住む客家の人々を撮影した。福建土楼は2008年に世界遺産に登録されたが、僕が通い始めた頃はまだ観光客もまばらで、観光業が産業として村人の生計を支えるほどではなかった。村の多くの働き手は都市部へ出稼ぎに出ており、土楼と呼ばれる巨大な集合住宅には、数組の老夫婦のみが残され、修復される事のない多くの土楼は崩れつつあった。福建土楼に住む客家の人々はいにしえの時代、中原と呼ばれる黄河中流域から戦乱を逃れ辿り着いた豪族の末裔だと言われる。土楼に住む人々の顔の中に、いにしえの漢民族の面影を探せるのではないか。土楼のある客家の村を訪ねるきっかけの一つには、そんな想いがあった。そこに住む人々の顔にはどんなものが刻まれているのかを見てみたかった。
今では中国の山奥でもカメラ付き携帯が普及しているので、写真を撮られる事は当たり前の事になったが、当時は95歳にして初めて写真に撮られたという人もいた（表紙）。僕はまだフィルムカメラのハッセルブラッドを使っており、撮影前に試し撮りをしたポラロイドをプレゼントしていたので、どの村でも歓迎された。撮られたい人が列をなしたり、僕を行商のカメラマンだと勘違いした人からは値段を聞かれたりもした。自給自足の生活を続けて来た彼等の顔には、長年の農作業で陽に焼かれ、地層の様に重なった皺があり、変化の激しい時代を生き抜いて来た自信と、伝統的な生活様式が失われつつあることへの戸惑いが、同時に眼に宿っているように感じた。言葉に出来ない彼等の思いが、強い圧力となってカメラに向かって来るように感じた。
2019年春、10年ぶりに土楼を訪れた。土楼の保存に関しては二極化が進んでいた。政府による補助金や、土楼を出て財を成した資産家による寄付などによって、多くの土楼で修復が進んでいた。世界遺産に指定され多くの観光客が集まる土楼がある一方、修復の指定から外れ、有力な支援者を持たない土楼は更に荒廃が進んでいた。10年前に回った土楼の中には、すでに崩壊した土楼もいくつかあった。村に戻った親族の多くは土楼の周りに近代的な住宅を建て、そこに住み始めたが、老人達の多くは住み慣れた土楼を離れる事はなかった。眼が全く見えないのに一人で土楼に暮らしているお婆さんもいた。長年住んできたので、眼が見えなくても料理まで一人で出来ると言っていた。彼女の親族もまた近くのビルに住んでいた。すでに亡くなってしまった人も多かったが、何人ものお爺さんお婆さんに再会した。裕福になり農作業などをする必要の無くなった彼等の多くは皆、10年前より若返ってみえた。だが、当時感じた湧き出るような生命力は、彼等から消え失せてしまったようだった。10年前に僕が見たものは何だったのだろうか？土楼の土壁に反射した、黄色い光に包まれた魔術的にも感じた世界は、すでに扉を閉じたようであった。
2006年、現地で偶然一人の水墨画家に出会ったことから、僕の土楼の旅は始まった。30年間、福建土楼とそこにある生活を描き続けて来た彼に、色々な村に連れて行ってもらった。彼は僕に何度も言っていた。あと5年もすると、今ここで見られる風景も夢と消えるだろうと。それから10数年が経ち、確かに彼が言っていた通りになったのかもしれない。かつてあった土楼の生活は消え失せてしまったが、土楼を出て経済的に成功を収めた国内外の客家の子孫たちの献金が、客家の象徴とも言える土楼の保存に一役買っている。普段数組の老夫婦しか住人を持たない土楼も、年に一度の春節には多くの親族が集まり、賑わいを見せる。多くの土楼は一族の祭事場として、その役割を移しつつある。千年、数百年とここで暮らした客家たちが中原に想いを馳せ続けてきたように、土楼を出て行った客家の子孫達も、移住した土地で、もう決して住むことのない福建省の山間部にある土楼に想いを馳せる。人は皆、それぞれの心の故郷と共に生きている。
故郷を失うことは、自分を失うことなのだろうか。たとえ住み慣れた住居が朽ち果て、故郷の姿が変わってしまったとしても、決して消え去ることのないものがあることを土楼の旅は教えてくれた。
【 写真集解説文より 】
HOME - Portraits of the Hakka
During a period of three years from 2006 to 2008, I photographed the Fujian tulou scattered in the mountainous area of southwestern Fujian, China and the Hakka people who lived in those tulou. Fujian tulou were registered as a World Heritage Site in 2008, but at the time when I began visiting them, tourists were sparse and tourism had not developed as an industry as much as to support the villagers’ livings. Much of the village’s workforce was staying and working in cities, and the huge apartment buildings, called tulou, were each left to just a few elderly couples. Many of the tulou that had not been repaired were starting to collapse. The Hakka people living in the tulou are believed to have descended from prominent clans who came escaping from the chaos of war that erupted in a region called Zhongyuan around the Yangtze River’s midstream-area many ages ago. Couldn’t I search for shadows of the ancient Han people in the faces of the people living in the tulou? That was the thought that I had―one of the things that triggered me to visit the Hakka tulou villages. I wanted to see for myself what stories were carved into the faces of the people who lived there.
Cellphones equipped with cameras have now come into wide use even in deep mountains of China, so it has become normal for people there to be photographed. This was different in 2006. A person at the age of ninety-five was photographed for the first time ever when I went there. At that time, I was still using a Hasselblad film camera, and I used to give the Polaroid films of the test shots to the people I photographed, so I was welcomed at every village. Some people who wanted to have their photos taken formed a queue, and others who guessed I was traveling around taking and selling photo-portraits asked me how much the price was. The faces of these people who had continued a self-sufficient lifestyle until then were burned by many years of farm work under the sun and had layers of wrinkles resembling geologic strata. Their eyes seemed to simultaneously harbor both confidence and bewilderment―confidence drawn from the fact that they have survived through times of dramatic change and bewilderment towards the fact that the traditional lifestyle was disappearing. Their ineffable thoughts seemed to become a strong, pressing force that came to the camera.
I visited the tulou for the first time in ten years in the spring of 2019. In terms of preservation of tulou, a polarization was taking place. Many tulou were being repaired by financial aid from the government and donations from people who had left their tulou and become wealthy. On the one hand, the tulou that were designated as the World Heritage Site attracted many tourists. On the other hand, the states of dilapidation of the tulou that were not selected for restoration and did not have any powerful supporters were worse than before. Among the tulou I visited ten years ago, there were even several that had collapsed already. Although many relatives that had returned to the village had built modern housing around the tulou and began to live there, many of the elders had not left the tulou they were used to living in. There was an elderly woman who still lived alone in her tulou, even though her eyes could not see at all. She had lived there many years, long enough that she could cook on her own even if she could not see, she said. Her relatives too were living in a building nearby. I was able to meet many of the elderly men and women I met before, although many others had already left this world. Many of those living had become wealthy and were now free from the necessity of labor such as farm work. These people looked like they had become younger than they were ten years ago. However, the life that seemed to flow out from them formerly seemed to have vanished. What was it that I saw ten years ago? The world covered in yellow light reflecting from the earthen walls of tulou―the world that seemed even magical to me―seemed to have already closed its doors.
My tulou journey began when I met one local ink-wash painter in 2006, at the time when I was beginning to take these photographs. This man had depicted Fujian tulou and life inside them for thirty years, and he took me to the various villages. “In five years from now, the scenery we see will disappear like it had been just a dream,” he said to me many times. Ten and a few years since then, perhaps what he had said had become a reality. The tulou life that was there formerly had disappeared. Nevertheless, monetary contributions from financially successful Hakka descendants living in and out of the country are playing a role in preserving the tulou where their ancestors lived and which symbolize Hakka culture.
Once a year, during the Spring Festival, the tulou that typically house just a few elderly couples become lively places where relatives gather to from near and far. Many of the tulou standing today are shifting their roles to become places for the kindred to perform rituals. As the Hakka people who lived here for a millennium and a few centuries longed for the Zhongyuan, so do the descendants of Hakka people who left the tulou and migrated long for the tulou in the mountains of Fujian―a place they will never live again. Everybody lives with each of their hearts’ homes.
Does losing one’s old home mean losing one’s identity? Some things are never lost, even if the familiar abode falls to ruins and the scenery around it changes. That is what my tulou journey taught me.