A Round Building in Liuzhou, Resembling a Hakka Tulou and Dubbed the Guangxi Branch of Beijing's Bird's Nest

The half-month road trip through Guangxi has come to an end, visiting Liuzhou, Nanning, Qinzhou, Beihai, Yulin, Wuzhou and other places, exploring numerous attractions, tasting a variety of cuisines, admiring many buildings, and watching several performances. Among them, one building left a particularly deep impression on me: a round building in Sanjiang, Liuzhou.

Sanjiang is a Dong Autonomous County located in Liuzhou City, Guangxi, bordering Guizhou and Hunan. It is an important tourist city, known as "The Dong People of China in Sanjiang" and "A Thousand-Year-Old Dong Village, Dreaming of Sanjiang."

The area is rich in tourist resources. We visited Xianren Mountain, Chengyang Bazhai, Danzhou Ancient Water Town, Guandong Dong Village, Sanwang Palace, and more. Among these, several buildings left a good impression on us, such as the Sanjiang Drum Tower, the Chengyang Bazhai Wind and Rain Bridge, and the round building introduced in this article.

This round building is located in Yueye Dong Village in Sanjiang County. Yueye Dong Village differs from other Dong villages; it is a newly built Dong architectural complex. "Yueye" is a Dong dialect term meaning collective village-visiting and socializing, a social custom in Dong townships. It usually refers to young men and women from one Dong village making an appointment to visit another Dong village, during which activities such as Lusheng competitions and antiphonal singing are held. This village is named Yueye Dong Village, highlighting distinctive ethnic characteristics.

Yueye Dong Village is a tourism complex integrating food, accommodation, shopping, entertainment, leisure, and wellness. It features alleys named Duoxie, Feisuo, Niuwang, Linghe, Jintang, and Yan'e; major activity spaces such as the Jingniu Square, Moon Square, and Yueye Drum Tower; as well as Yueye experience areas including the Sanjiang Dong Town Bird's Nest, Zuoke Sanjiang Feast Hall, and Sanjiang Bullfighting Arena.

The two largest buildings in Yueye Dong Village are both round. The slightly smaller one is the Dong bullfighting arena, while the largest is the performance venue for "Sitting with Sisters" (Zuomei), which is the building locals call the Dong Town Bird's Nest.

It is understood that the Dong Town Bird's Nest started construction in 2009. It has a diameter of 88 meters, a height of 29 meters, and covers an area of over 5,000 square meters. On the eaves around the venue, there are models of a thousand birds standing on the ox horns, symbolizing the allusion of "a hundred birds returning to the nest," hence the nickname "Dong Town Bird's Nest."

Although it is also called a bird's nest, the Dong Town Bird's Nest is different from the novel, stylish, and high-tech Beijing Bird's Nest. It is entirely made of wooden structures, with an unpretentious appearance and a strong rural flavor, looking more like a Hakka Tulou.

Today, the Dong Town Bird's Nest, together with the Sanjiang Drum Tower, are landmark buildings of Sanjiang County. They are mainly used for local folk cultural performances. The center of the nest features a stage that highlights the local Dong culture, and the unique Dong drum tower and flower bridge are also brought onto the stage.

Some people call it the Liuzhou branch of the Beijing Bird's Nest, while others say it is a knockoff version. In my view, however, it is more of an ethnic building integrating Dong culture. As early as 2010, it received a certificate from the Shanghai World Guinness Headquarters as the "World Guinness Record — the largest wooden-structure Dong-style venue."