Mui has an architectural interest in the hundreds of towers of Guangdong Province in China. Built in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the prosperity brought back from hard labor at "Gold Mountain" (i.e. California), the towers both displayed wealth and guarded it against roving bandits. The returning migrants expressed their worldliness in the towers' exotic embellishments reminiscent of European castles and palaces. Survivors of war, neglect and the cultural revolution, ironically the towers may now become victims of prosperity as their sites are consigned to more profitable uses in China's new booming economy.