There is no roof. What remains is a roof-shaped tangle of roots. The white Western-style building before you is Tait & Co., an office established here by a…
Multilingual AI audio guide exhibit on WOUDiO (PWA). WOUDiO pioneered the world’s first audio guide platform with built-in donation: listeners can support the cultural venue without leaving the listening experience. The text below is the localized description, details, and narration script for this audio guide stop.
There is no roof. What remains is a roof-shaped tangle of roots.
The white Western-style building before you is Tait & Co., an office established here by a British trading firm in the nineteenth century. After the Qing dynasty was forced to open its ports, camphor, tea, and sugar flowed out from this harbor to the world. It was the last era in which Anping held a place on the world map.
Behind it stood the warehouse.
Once the harbor fell out of use and the company departed, the warehouse was left abandoned. Into the emptied building, the banyan tree moved in.
A banyan sends down aerial roots from its branches. When a hanging root reaches the ground, it thickens there and becomes a new trunk. It slips into cracks in the walls, into fissures in the roof, and spreads from within. Little by little, the tree redrew the straight lines that people had built.
Try standing beside a wall. From near the ceiling, you will see many pale roots hanging down. If there is one within reach, touch it — it should feel slightly cooler than an ordinary tree trunk.
This building has not simply fallen into ruin. It is only that, once abandoned by people, it began to be used by another form of life.
What happens in a place from which human hands have withdrawn? The answer now hangs above your head.
