Family lore recalls that Tan Tek Kee’s forebears themselves had migrated southward from Henan province in northern China, perhaps an explanation for the fact that descendants have been tall compared to their neighbors. Tan Tek Kee’s father is said to have gained fame and perhaps some modest wealth from his fishball business. Fishballs, made from minced fish mixed with other ingredients, are still a distinctive component of cuisine in Fujian, whether served in noodle soups or deep-fried, skewered, and served with various sauces. Raised by his elder brother and sister-inlaw, Tan Tek Kee married at the age of thirteen or fourteen before being sent to the Philippines in 1914 or 1915 with family friends surnamed Cheng, who served as his surrogate parents. Working first as a cook, then a courier, and then later a manager, he branched out on his own in the 1930s, even as he made many return trips to his family’s Jinjiang home and his birthplace. According to family custom, he retained some rights to the residence, which was sufficiently roomy so that the multigenerational families of his surviving siblings lived comfortably. The father of ten children, two of whom were adopted, Tan Tek Kee over time amassed sufficient resources to bring his wife to Manila where he died and was buried in 1966.
Resembling the typical architectural pattern seen on the previous page, the residence of Tan Tek Kee, also in Jinjiang, is much as it was during the late nineteenth century.
At one time, the home was a solitary structure surrounded by rice paddies, but as can be seen in the bird’s-eye view photograph, new-style multistoried structures have encroached upon it, diminishing to some degree not only its tranquility but also heightening its sense of being forlorn. Like other residences of this type, it was built with an overall rectangular shape, which could be considered square if one includes the walled open space in front. While its overall form remains today intact, renovation and dilapidation have altered its original appearance. In terms of the composition of its spatial elements, the three-bay central structure, with a generous square tianjing between the entry hall and the ancestral hall, has a pair of perpendicular structures that complete the quadrangular core. A second pair of parallel, perpendicular two-storied buildings was added to complete the layout. Each of the outer wings, called hucuo, is separated from the core building by a narrow longitudinal tianjing running from front to back, which could be entered directly from the outside via a doorway. Indeed, it would have been these two side entries that would have been used on a daily basis in the past, rather than the recessed central entryway, with its elegant didactic ornamentation.
From just inside a magnifi-cent entryway, which abounds in carved stone and brickwork, this view is across the first skywell looking towards the first hall.
Cut granite slabs, some of which are carved, were used throughout the residence for the foundation, steps, sills, and columns. Granite or huagangshi, a coarse-grained igneous rock known for being more durable than marble, was used in the core building. Readily available in the nearby mountains of the province, yet considered an expensive building material, granite has traditionally been employed as a building material in temples and fine residences throughout central and southern Fujian. (Today, parenthetically speaking, Fujian is a major source for polished granite countertops used in modern kitchens and bathrooms throughout the world.) The sunken entryway was created using interlocking vertical and horizontal pieces of granite of different dimensions. At the base of the entry portico, as well as inside the core structure, granite was used as flooring. After crossing the raised granite threshold, a visitor will note that the middle bay, including the full tianjing, is covered completely with granite dimension stone. Along the sides, granite slabs were used only to frame areas that were covered with kiln-fired red tile flooring. As the view from the entry hall through the tianjing to the main hall reveals, the tianjing was sunken, with drains to lead rainwater out of the home. Just beyond the tianjing and in front of the main hall, the level of the flooring was elevated to express the hierarchical importance of the hall.
Set upon carved granite bases, square granite columns with auspicious couplets carved into them, were placed around the tianjing. Atop each of these stone columns was fitted a short wooden column, linked together by mortise-and-tenon joinery, to lift the wooden framework supporting the roof. The horizontal and vertical wooden members as well as the elaborate wooden bracket sets still comprise an important ornamental aspect of the house that complements the hard stone beneath the feet. No room was designed to have more richness than the main hall, which was surrounded with solid wooden walls and sturdy hardwood columns. Sadly and tragically in recent years, the ridge beam that supported the roof rotted and fell to the floor, bringing down with it the wooden purlins, rafters, and roof tiles, and leaving the room open to the elements. What once must have been an imposing family altar with ancestral tablets atop it, has been replaced by a low table with a small collection of old photographs and votive pieces with a triple mirror above.
Throughout this region of Fujian, the exterior walls of many dwellings are constructed of either slabs of cut granite or composed only of red bricks, hongzhuan, made of local lateritic soils and fired in nearby kilns. The ancestral home of Tan Tek Ke, on the other hand, was constructed using both granite and red brick as structural and ornamental building materials. From a distance, the red brick of the façade and sidewalls appears to be laid with common bonds, yet on closer inspection it is clear that all of the red brick in the façade was used to serve ornamental purposes, with a number of different motifs. Adjacent to the entryway, the thin red bricks were decorated with a zigzag pattern of dark lines, which appear to have been painted on the bricks before they were fired. Surrounding each of the four granite windows are thin red bricks in a modified herringbone pattern with a box bond. Unlike Western bricklaying patterns, where stretchers vary to create named bonds, this Chinese pattern utilizes the wider top or face of the brick and the narrow header, which is darkened, to create the pattern. Carved bricks and tiles in geometric and floral patterns were also arrayed as a frame around the block of herringbone patterned bricks. Carved human figures were inset in five locations on each of two walls, but most are still obscured by a coating of white plaster. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, these carvings were plastered over as a precaution in order to prevent their destruction, but only several have been restored.
Granite, a widely available building material in the Quanzhou area, is used not only for flooring but also for columns and the bases of columns and is carved into ornamental panels.
Seven slender granite slabs are employed here to create one of the windows along the front wall, which is covered with thin red bricks.
Although the residence is generally in good condition, one area of serious damage resulted from the collapse of the main beam supporting the roof above the ancestral hall, which then opened the area to chronic water damage.
Along each side of the skywell, the eaves are supported by an assemblage of timbers, some of which are elaborately carved.
The gaze of a visitor approaching a residence of this type is drawn to the upswept ridgeline above the entry hall at the center of the complex, which is matched by a more impressive, and slightly higher, one on the main hall behind. This type of graceful ridgeline is called the yanwei or “swallowtail” style partly because it is upswept and tapered, but mainly because it is deeply forked at its tip. Each of the adjacent perpendicular buildings was constructed with a lower upswept ridgeline, with shed roofs that framed the sides of the central tianjing. These created a pair of flat rooftop terraces, which were accessible from below using stairs, outdoor spaces that once provided a place for quietude to enjoy the
