Hehu Xinju
Walled Hakka fortress built by a merchant clan over five decades, now a cultural museum.
This guide to Hehu Xinju in Shenzhen begins in 1758, when Luo Ruifeng, sixteenth generation of a Hakka clan from northeastern Guangdong, arrived here with nothing more than a vendor's pack. It follows how his trading firm Ruihe grew into the fortune behind a walled fortress of concentric walls and hundreds of chambers, a project he started but would not live to see completed. The narration sets that ambition against the territorial wars between Hakka migrants and local Cantonese clans that made such walls a matter of survival, and points out the half-moon lake placed at the gate for fengshui. Look closely at the doors on your way in, where the marks in the wood have never been repaired.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.