The house in Tan Tia Chen

l AM CALLED Tan Shih-hua. I am Shih-hua of the family Tan which comes from the Szechuan village Tan Tsia Chen, on the River Yangtze. Hua is my personal name. Shih is the name of that generation of my family to which I belong. My sister, Shih-kuen, and the children of my aunts and uncles have this name. My father is Tan Ya-pu. Pu is the name of his generation. My elder uncle is Tan Sao-pu, and the younger is Tan Tsi-pu. I was born in our big ancestral house in the month of January, when the magnificent Yangtze, grown shallow and blue, rushes noisily between its steep Szechuan banks. Our house a chain of courts surrounded by rooms and terraces spread itself on the slope of a hill. From the upper terraces, through the tops of trees, you could see the blue body of the river. The shores of the Yangtze are of stone and clay. Clay and soft stone surround the docks where the boats of fishermen and ferrymen crowd. The Yangtze at this point is five times as wide as the Moscow River near the Kremlin. In the spring the Yangtze is magnificent. The slopes of the banks are not only green : they are red, yellow, blue with blossoms, and all these blossoms are reflected in clear, blue water. When summer nears, the Yangtze turns a rusty red, and swells with slimy, cloudy water -due to the heavy rains at its far-away sources in the the Kremlin. In the spring the Yangtze is magnificent. The slopes of the banks are not only green : they are red, yellow, blue with blossoms, and all these blossoms are reflected in clear, blue water. When summer nears, the Yangtze turns a rusty red, and swells with slimy, cloudy water -due to the heavy rains at its far-away sources in the wild mountains near Tibet. (Tretiakov 1934) page one of a Chinese Testament…