Chen Family Temple

Guangzhou, China

The Chen Family Temple, now a museum, was built in the 1890s. Its main courtyard is seen here, in a photo from 1996. The very wealthy Chen family built this complex of buildings as an ancestral temple and Confucian school for family members, who came here from all over Guangdong province to study for the civil service examinations. It would be an interesting thesis to compare the Chen family in South China with the leading families of America's contemporaneous Gilded Age.