*Editor’s note: I bought a coffee, sat cross-legged, put on my headphones, and remembered the last time I sat down like this to write a workshop summary — writing all day, fully in flow. The sense of fullness from the camp is still feeding my daily life. A wave of joy rises from my chest — small bursts of excitement and anticipation, grounded in something solid.*
We built another bread oven —
this time with children.
I say “another” because it’s been eight years since we built our first bread oven in Langya Mountain in 2016.
*2024 Peitian bread oven vs. 2016 Langya Mountain bread oven* *© Huixin Gongjian & Low-Tech*
From 2016 to 2024, from participating in workshops to designing and running camp programmes, from being participants to becoming organisers — combined with years of frontline rural practice, our understanding of the countryside and the value of building has deepened. We now consciously weave this understanding into the camp experience for children and parents alike. This time we were invited by Tongxing Academy to design a rammed-earth bread oven parent-child camp for Peitian, Fujian.
*The Peitian Children’s Oven and its builders © Wu Wenjie*
Joining Village Social Life, Starting with Building
First, about the village where the camp was held — Peitian Ancient Village, sometimes called the “folk Forbidden City.” It holds a rich architectural heritage, with over 30 Ming and Qing dynasty dwellings. What’s more remarkable: it’s a living heritage. People still live there. You can still see how they live.
*Peitian Ancient Village aerial view (image from the web)*
Our hosts were Zhang Jing from Tongxing Academy, who has settled and started a family in Peitian, and Wenjie, who grew up in the village. They welcomed us like warm hosts inviting guests into their home. Together with the local social networks and village environment, they provided the soil for our camp. What makes a village is not just the spatial form of a settlement, but a way of relating between people, and between people and nature — radically different from modern urban life.
*Zhang Jing from Tongxing Academy & teaching assistant Wenjie up a tree © Ma Chao*
We wanted the experience of building a bread oven to serve as a vehicle — to convey to city-born children the feeling of people cooperating and winning together, of people living in harmony with nature. We hoped it would become, in their growing up, a foundation of confidence that carries them further into the world.
The Joy of Discovery: Camp Begins
The camp experience started with getting to know soil. With questions like “What can earth be used for?”, “What’s in the soil?”, “What kind of soil is good for building?”, the children collected different soil samples from the village and observed how earth is used in daily life. Through hands-on investigation, they felt, in a real way, what it means that China is an agricultural civilisation that has lived by the soil for millennia. Three soil samples were tested through experiments to explore their composition and properties, and the most suitable soil (the one with the best clay content) was chosen for making earth bricks and building the oven.
*Children, mentors, and parents collecting soil at the field’s edge © Wu Wenjie*
Here, knowledge wasn’t abstract. It was something the eyes could see and the hands could touch — firsthand experience, a way of thinking built on hypothesis, experiment, and verification.
The Joy of Labor
Sieving Soil, Cutting Straw
On the first day’s experiments, we found that removing large particles from the soil improved the bricks' cohesion. So step one was sieving. Children worked in pairs, parents each took a basket, and together they sieved — a rhythm of cooperation.
Adding straw to the raw earth is one way to prevent the bricks from cracking. Straw in earth is like rebar in concrete. The children took charge of cutting the straw to the right length.
Watermelon Break 🍉
After labor, watermelon tastes especially sweet and thirst-quenching.
Mixing the Mud
Dig a volcano-shaped crater in the earth pile. Add water. Mix the straw, mud, and water thoroughly with your feet. Feel the texture of the mud — with your own feet.
The Joy of Building
After preparing the earth bricks, the real building began. The children laid bricks, applied mud mortar, shaped the oven dome, and smoothed the surfaces. Every hand had a job. Every child found their place.
By the end of the camp, the oven was fired up for the first time. Fresh bread came out of an oven built by children’s hands — warm, crusty, smelling of earth and fire. The children saw, in the most direct way possible, that they could make something real. With their own hands. Together.
That confidence — that’s the point. That’s what we hope stays with them.