As a special building type, the cultural meaning of "Yang-lou"(Mansions of Chinese Diaspora) represents the social change Fujian and Guangdong underwent from 1840s-1960s. The emergence of Yang-low helps understand the lives of Chinese Diaspora. Western colonialism held a firm grip of Southeast Asia and China in the 19th century. The demand for labor enticed waves of migration to Southeast Asia from Fujian and Guangdong. Overseas remittance sent back to native places contributed to the construction of Western style houses. In the meantime, family structure started to change. Overseas Chinese identity shifted from identification with family to tat with a nation. At the same time, under the ideologies of economic nationalism and cultural nationalism, the new rising merchant-gentry moved on social mobility through investment and education to ensure their autonomy in the political arena. In China, the West colonial apparatus changed the landscape and social life of traditional Chinese cities. Social hierarchy reflected in urban planning and in architecture directly. Sanitary management aspired local gentry to apply Western sanitation to traditional Chinese dwelling. They learned from colonial modernity to improve Chinese cities and rural areas. Yang-lou is a "heterotopia" by combination and transformation of Chinese traditional spatial organization, with colonial veranda and Western decorative pediment in houses. It shows these Chinese Diaspora's family honor, new identity and cultural imagery. Yang-lou was rare before 1870s, although migrations increased after 1840s. We also saw the cases that the main buildings or part of traditional housing transformed into Yang-lou between 1870s, although migrations increased after 1840s. We also saw the cases that the main buildings or part of traditional housing transformed into Yang-lou between 1870s-1890s. Toward the end of the 1890s, many new Chinese Diaspora's communities and housing were built with profits from investment. And then, many vernacular buildings added defense facilities between the 1910s-1930s, which was the high tide of overseas remittance and the Yang-lou period. After World War Ⅱ, the original communal identity and remittance of overseas Chinese declined gradually, the number of Yang-lou also decreased. The period of Yang-lou technically ended during Mao's Cultural Revolution. There are many types of Yang-lou, according to different identities and localities. In concession of Amoy and Guangzhou, Chinese merchants transplanted the colonial architecture to build their mansion. In Chaozhou and southern Fujian, traditional houses were added with Western facade, called "Hauan-a-tsu". The most popular type was the "Five-foot Way". It originated from the regulation of shop house in the colonial cities of English Strait Settlement in the 19th century, and brought to Southeast Chian by overseas Chinese. They transformed the "Five-foot Way" to the veranda of housing, and used the same name. The new "Five-foot way" also displaced the courtyard of a traditional building. Yang-los as a heterotopia challenged the tradition, so this "other" must be located at a distance to traditional power center, such as ancestral halls. But there were a few cases that ancestral halls actually adopted the cultural form of Yang-lou. The maintenance or challenge of traditional spatial system of organization and cultural form was the process of cultural change of folk society in modern period. "Yang-lou" is hybridism, not only challenged Chinese cultural tradition, but also transferred the symbolic presentation of Western colonial architecture. Its cultural meanings represent the hybridity of Chinese Diaspora's identity, and shape a new building type and a cultural form of space in local societies.