Shenzhen · CN

Lingdaoyang Former Residence

Tucked into a lane of Lao Xu Cun in the Buji old-street area of Longgang, the Ling Daoyang Former Residence (凌道扬故居) is a small museum inside a hundred-year-old Hakka house. It honours Ling Daoyang (1888–1993), a native son of Buji who became one of the founding fathers of modern Chinese forestry—and, on the other side of his career, one of the architects of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. What makes this quiet site worth a stop is the contrast it holds. A modest two-storey brick-and-timber dwelling, raised by Ling's grandfather in 1902, was the childhood home of a man who helped invent China's Arbor Day, wrote into its first forest law and co-founded a world-class university. Today the restored house, a Longgang District immovable cultural relic, lays out his remarkable life—his family roots, years studying abroad and lifelong work for forests and education—through illustrated exhibition walls and artefacts.