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For boat dwellers, what does it mean to acquire a house on land? Does it mean, as many researchers and government officials in modern countries have assumed, a departure from the “harsh world on the water” to salvation on the “enticing world of the land”? Through presenting an ethnographic study of the history of the lianjiachuan yumin (連家船漁⺠) living on the sea or rivers in the southern part of Fujian Province, China, this paper aims to explore the reasoning behind their way of life, which cannot be simply reduced to a one-sided move away from a nomadic life on water to settlement on land. The cases of the two families presented in this paper demonstrate that while on the one hand lianjiachuan yumin show a strong interest in acquiring houses on land, but after having acquired them, they are careful to avoid a situation where they are living solely in a residence on land, and instead seek to secure a situation where anyone, both individuals and family members, can live on the water at any time. This coexistence of the seemingly incompatible attitudes of both “the desire to acquire a house” and “the avoidance of continuous and permanent settlement” observed in the lianjiachuan yumin tells us that the world on water allows them to live a diverse way of life, and that it continues to exist as a valuable space for them to find their ways of life.

Continuing to Live on the Water: The Meaning of Land Residences for Boat Dwellers in Fujian, China