MADE outcast by an emperor centuries ago, a community of fishermen and their families have lived a literal life aquatic. Xu Wenwen hears more about their distinct history, customs and how one seasoned water dweller is adjusting to life on land.

Chen Genyou's house is very ordinary, and it took him half a year to get used to that "non-shaky" feeling. It may sound weird, but ordinary life is weird to Chen, a fisherman who had never lived ashore until last year.

Chen lived on a wooden boat for an astonishing 73 years. Along with him were his wife and four children, as well as other fishermen's families.

Their vessels, which are used for living and working, are traditional Chinese wooden boats which, far from "luxuriant yachts" or "pleasure boats," are simple and even shabby.

The small ones for fishing are about 3-4 meters long, while the larger ones for living are around 8 meters long.

The "living" boat is divided in half, with one part used for storage, and the other as the bedroom. The beds are comprised of planks which are put away when not being used to make room for daily work.

The so-called "bedroom" can generally accommodate four to five people, but at the most extent, eight, and the space is separated by curtains.

The boat doesn't have a kitchen, so the residents cook over a small oven at the stern.

The Chens are one household among the Nine Fishing Families, who used to reside on the Xin'an River sourcing from Anhui Province and running through northwest Zhejiang Province, the Fuchun River flowing through Zhejiang and the Lan River flowing from central Zhejiang to the east, namely waters crossing Jiande, Tonglu in Hangzhou and Lanxi in west Zhejiang.

As far back as the 19th century, up to 2,000 boats were drifting on these rivers. And according to a census in 1958, there were more than 1,300 people in 366 households inhabiting this unique community at Jiande, on both land and water.

Even today, there remain four or five boats on the waters, accommodating some old dwellers who are reluctant to leave their vessels.

It is said that the Nine Fishing Families are descendants of Chen Youliang and his followers. Chen was the founder of the rebel Dahan regime in the late Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) in China.

Chen Youliang was born to a fishermen family in Mianyang (now in Hubei Province). He once worked as a district official and later became a leader in the Red Turban Rebellion, an uprising that targeted the ruling Yuan Dynasty.

In 1357, he proclaimed himself the King of Han. Three years later, Chen's fleet and army began a long war against the Wu, another rebel army that was later renamed Ming in 1368. Chen was killed in a battle on Poyang Lake during the war, and hence the remaining troops kept floating around on nearby waters.

After the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was established, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang exacted revenge on his enemy by demoting them to outcast fisher folk.

They were forbidden from living anywhere other than their boats, participating in local and imperial examinations, and marrying people living on land.

As a result, the nine families drifted to adjacent rivers to settle. They are the families of Chen, Qian, Lin, Yuan, Sun, Ye, Xu, Li and He. They made a living from fishing or water transport. Men took charge of fishing and other labor, while women took the helm and housework.

The life of the nine families was extremely poor, demonstrated by the fact that even though they made a living from fishing, they only ate the inferior fish because the good ones were kept to be sold.

"Fish was cheap in old times as everybody could catch a fish in the river," Chen Genyou explains. "One kilo of fish could barter two kilos of rice."

And those fishermen cooked fish in only two ways, boiling and preserving, because "oil was expensive."

The path of their miserable life didn't alter even when the Ming Dynasty was succeeded by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). And the pressure of poverty drove women on the boats to prostitution.

"The prostitution stirred a baneful social influence," says Chen Yinsheng, an expert at Jiande Cultural Center who has spent years studying and protecting the customs of the Nine Fishing Families.

Only after the Qing Dynasty was over did the fisher folk begin to make their home on land. Most of them settled ashore after the establishment of New China in 1949.

Chen Genyou is one of the few who preferred to seclude himself on the Xin'an River, due to the illiterate fisherman's only survival skill being fishing.

Although his wife and their four children have spent much of their life on land, the 74-year-old didn't settle ashore until last year when his fishing vessel was too decrepit to work. Now he lives in a small apartment on the bank of Xin'an River in Jiande, Hangzhou, where he can clearly observe the water he used to call home.

Not unexpectedly, many "new things," such as TV, cell phones and water heaters, seem alien to the old fisherman. He has seen people using them, but never tried them before. On his boat, the only object demonstrating any hint of "modernization" was a kerosene lamp.

"For more than half a year, I couldn't fall asleep on my new bed, which, unlike a bed on a boat, does not swing at all!" he says.

Today, he is more comfortable. A couple of months ago, Chen, who lives on pension, bought a television, which keeps him company during the day.

Unique Customs

Despite the poverty of the Nine Fishing Families, the unique community on water developed their own distinctive and systematical customs.

However, as most of them have now settled on land, the customs are disappearing. As a result, the local authority is recording these customs, and today many of them are included on the country's intangible cultural heritage list.

One highlight is the marriage custom, which features an eye-catching wedding ceremony known as "throwing the bride."

To collect the bride from her home and take her to the groom's home typically starts the wedding tradition of China's Han nationality. Generally, the groom carries the bride on his back.

But this was dangerous for fishermen who lived on boats, so they came up with a unique way - to throw the bride from the bride's boat to the groom's boat.

This action is made more exciting as the boats have to be some distance from each other, otherwise it is believed that misfortune will follow the couple.

The male relatives of the bride, usually four of them, carry and throw the bride, while their counterparts in the groom's family, standing on the other boat catch her. The groom's boat will turn around when the bride is caught, and then the couple has the wedding ceremony on the boat, which is similar to that of the Han custom.

Today, the wedding custom is adapted into a folk performance shown on the Xin'an River passing through Jiande to attract tourists.

The fishing families boast many other interesting traditions, such as the "cormorant tune" commanding cormorant to catch fish, which features many odd instruction sounds. For example, "hwai hwai" in a high tone is to call cormorants back, while "hahaha" in a low tone orders the birds to release the fish from their mouths.

Another custom of the Nine Fishing Families is making aquatic lanterns, which originated as a celebration when they were allowed to be considered commoners again by Emperor Tongzhi.

The aquatic lanterns - in forms resembling shrimp, fish, clams, turtles and crabs - are shown in the local lantern carnival during every year's Lantern Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the first month on the Chinese lunar calendar.

The fishing families also choreographed dances to mimic those animals, and the show remains popular today.

"The Nine Fishing Families made good lanterns because they, having been looked down upon for hundreds of years, were eager to share the same life as that of people on the banks, and so they took every opportunity to show people on the banks that they could do equally as good as them," says Chen Yinsheng.

"Also, they raised pigs and poultry on the boats, like people living ashore do," he adds. "The difference was that they bathed the pigs every day, and kept poultry caged."