WEALTHY overseas Chinese Huang Xiuzhi collects historic buildings in China. If they're
in danger of being demolished, he buys them for removal to his land near Tongli where
they are rebuilt for preservation and enlivened by his personal use. Nancy Zhang talks
to an extraordinary hoarder of heritage who has amassed more than 100 buildings.

When retired Chinese Canadian businessman Huang Xiuzhi (pictured left) read in the paper in 2001 that another piece of China's historic architecture was being pulled down he decided to act. It was the childhood home of a key Chinese poet, Xu Zhimou, and the courtyard house was over 480 years old. To save the building, Huang bought it.

Next, he heard the last remaining Qing-style street in the same town was also to be demolished to be replaced by modern Spanish villas. Without hesitation, Huang bought that too - the entire street of 68 buildings.

"What kind of urban planning pulls this down for Spanish villas?" he lamented.

These houses from Haining in Zhejiang Province are now sitting in sorted, categorized pieces in a warehouse alongside 100 plus other buildings from the Ming (1368-1644)and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

The Xu residence is one of three of Huang's most prized buildings in the collection. The other two are the luxurious villa of Du Yuesheng - Shanghai's most eminent gangster in the 1930s - and part of the original Jing'an Temple (the one now open to the public is a completely new construction).

Huang has "rescued" them from destruction in the face of development.

The understated millionaire who dresses simply without conspicuous labels and eats vegetarian, jokingly asserts that he found the money to buy the buildings by "scrimping and saving."

Huang is possibly the most famous of a handful of wealthy, private collectors who are doing their part for heritage preservation. He has bought the most high-profile buildings and spent the most money.

Now 69, he retired 15 years ago when he first came to Shanghai in 1994. Having amassed more wealth than he can spend in one lifetime, he is now preoccupied with the business of collecting and rebuilding old buildings.

He takes apart the buildings and rebuilds them in a different location. Since he started the "hobby" in 2005, he has rebuilt six structures, most of them on a 2-hectare plot of land near the canal town of Tongli. He puts them to no commercial use and makes no money from them.

The costly hobby provides two things that become important when wealth is no longer an issue: to enjoy life and give something back to society.

The philanthropic aspect of Huang's heritage collection has been well documented by the Chinese press, and when you meet him his joy of life is apparent.

Having spent his career as an entrepreneur of some sort - from textiles to real estate - Huang now finds humor in everything. The strikingly youthful retiree is never shy of springing a practical joke on unsuspecting friends.

When asked how he first made his fortune he said with a straight face, "everything, except good deeds."

The Tongli complex is open only for Huang's enjoyment. While in Shanghai he makes the one hour trip two or three times a week, taking different friends and hosting cultural gatherings and parties among the beautiful settings.

The rest of the time he flies between Shanghai and Canada where his wife lives. He visits Hong Kong six or seven times a year, and various other parts of the world for cultural events, award ceremonies, friends and family.

In Shanghai, Huang enjoys the nightlife. His son has a restaurant here, and he says "there's no time to be unhappy."

Part of Huang's exuberance in later years can be traced to the risk-taking attitude common in serial entrepreneurs. He used to fly his own private jet and was seriously into kung fu but a broken leg sustained in martial arts practice in his youth still gives trouble.

Huang was born with the entrepreneurship gene. His great grandfather was a Guangzhou native who left China for Japan to do business. His father was also an entrepreneur who used to own a fashionable picture magazine in 1930s Shanghai.

Huang himself was born in Japan but moved at four years old to Hong Kong where he grew up and started his first textiles business. It profited from the cheap labor in Asia and Huang had factories in Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and even Turkey.

His international background gave him the edge needed to be successful.

"It was a more innocent age back then," he said in a rare moment of serious reflection. "There was no global communication and because I had the chance to travel, I was exposed to opportunities to make money that others were not."

In his long career he has also worked in Europe. He emigrated to Canada in 1970 and is now a Canadian citizen.

He said his collection of heritage buildings is possible through having the right opportunity at the right time and he had the money to do something in the absence of governmental or charitable foundations.

The collection started with a 260-year-old house in Suzhou, which he bought and rebuilt in Zhujiajiao, a suburban town west of Shanghai. Thereafter Huang fell in love with the process. "Completing the project was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, it was such a great feeling," he said.

But, as with many private collectors of old buildings, their renovations are not subject to external regulation and are rarely historically accurate.

The Tongli garden is landscaped to Huang's personal tastes. Buildings from different periods, locations and styles are pieced together according to pleasing aesthetics rather than accuracy.

Huang also does not extensively participate in the rebuilding process. Instead he has set up a fund and a team of trusted workmen and traditional Chinese artisans who deal with all the details of buying, taking apart and rebuilding.

When asked what preservation experts have said about his buildings, he said:"They can say what they like, I'm doing what I can."

Huang does, however, have certain unique specifications. Instead of restoring things to their original condition he leaves the traces of history on the wooden beams from all the decades the building has existed.

In one Qing Dynasty merchant's meeting hall the beams are partly painted as the place was divided up post 1949 for the poor. Another building features beams clad in metal skin as the place was converted to a factory during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). A Ming Dynasty stone gate has chipped and eroded sculptural details.

To Huang all these are the marks of history.

"There's beauty in imperfection," he said as he sat in his private historical garden. "I like to imagine who used to walk amongst these rooms, what they wore, what they said, and their stories."

He plans to reassemble the most prized buildings, including Jing'an Temple, in due time with more care and precision. With a history of 1,600 years, part of the original temple was demolished to make way for a new construction. Huang felt he had to intervene.

Because the temple was made of wood, it had been repaired and added to over the centuries but still had more history than the new construction. It took a team of 30 men four and a half months to dismantle the three-story structure, and Huang offers tantalizing descriptions of gold painted woodwork and historic Buddha statues.

But having bought part of the temple eight years ago, he seems in no hurry to start the rebuilding. "You can't hurry these things, it's an art," he said. For now he is busy having fun.

He says he will probably not live to see most of the buildings in the warehouse rebuilt.

He often makes references to his age and wonders aloud what will happen to the buildings once he is gone.

"I won't pass any of these buildings down to my son," he said. "Just as the Forbidden Palace does not belong to the emperors who lived there, I can't take these historical buildings with me. They are for future generations."