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A media outcry has prompted officials in East China's Anhui Province to prevent a 200-year-old Huizhou architecture-style house from being shipped overseas, it was announced yesterday.

"The deal is aborted," said Wu Xixiang, deputy magistrate of Shitai County. "We cannot allow cultural relics to leave China."

Owner Li Yikun, 63, is the ninth generation of his family to live in the house, called Cuiping Pavilion. It is a typical Huizhou dwelling of a courtyard surrounded by two-storey brick and wood structures with carved decorations.

However, Li said that the old house costs about 3,000 yuan (US$375) to maintain each year, too much for a family with an annual income of about 6,000 yuan (US$750) from growing tea and grain.

A few months ago Li decided to sell the house to a local tea merchant for 25,000 yuan (US$3,125). The businessman wanted to give it as a present to his business partner in Sweden, who had shown a great interest in Huizhou architecture.

"Everything in the house from floor to ceiling, including windows, pillars, doors and furniture, will be dismantled and shipped to Sweden," said Li's wife.

The family has already built a new house.

After local media reported the story, the local government began an investigation and found it to be in violation of China's laws prohibiting the export of cultural relics.

It is not the first time this sort of case has aroused controversy.

In 2003, Yin Yu Tang, a typical Huizhou building also built two centuries ago, was transferred from Anhui Province to the Peabody Essex Museum near Boston in the United States, as part of a cultural exchange program that helped promote Huizhou culture in the United States.

Two well-preserved villages in Huizhou were listed as world heritage sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2000.

(China Daily July 13, 2006)