The Abandoned Fishing Village of Houtouwan

Houtouwan

These vividly overgrown walls look as if they were abandoned to the elements centuries ago. In fact, it has taken nature fewer than thirty years for plants to reclaim the tiny Chinese fishing village of Houtouwan.1 The island of Shengshan is on the furthermost curling edge of an archipelago of islands in the East China Sea, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) from the mainland coastal city of Shanghai. It is tethered to its neighbour, the equally small island of Gouqi, by a bridge, but the only way to get to either is by private boat, or by bus and then ferry. Each is an arduous, hours-long journey from the mainland. It's no wonder, then, that its isolation was one of the prime factors leading to the abandonment of the village in the 1990s. Now, its walls and streets are viridescent with overgrowth; where once there were bricks and mortar, walls are adorned with climbing vines. Soon, the stepped dwellings will be entirely subsumed by nature – as if they had never been there at all.