Remembering the roots

In the morning, sunlight cast a warm glow over the busy river Elbe. Hamburg, Germany's second-largest city known for its port, was woken up by the symphony-like ship's horns.

In the Hamburg-Altona station not far away, trains were entering and leaving the station, and passengers were in a hurry. The hustle and bustle woke up Lu-Ping Tan-Storjohann, who lived next to the station.

A calligraphy and painting class was scheduled for this day. 77-year-old Lu-Ping Tan-Storjohann, hale and hearty, freshened up and put on the cheongsam dress customized in Beijing. She prepared the books and painting tools before leaving home to take the subway.

In Hamburg, almost all Chinese painting and calligraphy enthusiasts know this extraordinary lady.

Tan, who went to Germany alone in 1984, has become a famous German-Chinese artist known for her achievements in painting and writing.

"Chinese people believe that bamboo carries a rich symbolism of open-mindedness and integrity. Everyone, hold your breath and concentrate your mind. This is the key to practicing. If you use your breath, the stroke will look firm, otherwise it will look weak." Tan taught her German students "Beginning Chinese Calligraphy: The Skills for Painting Bamboo". During the class, she used both Chinese and German, explaining the rich culture behind calligraphy and painting by citing the Chinese classics and demonstrating with forceful strokes.

"We've known each other for 40 years, from middle-age to gray-haired, but she has always been energized in class," said Hans-Wilhelm Schate, one of Tan's loyal German students.

For the poise and confidence in teaching Chinese painting and calligraphy and promoting Chinese culture, Tan attributed it to her family. "Both my father Tan Yong and my mother Hua Caizhen were the disciples of Chinese master painter Xu Beihong. They once taught at the Fine Arts Department of Nanjing Normal University." Under the influence of her parents, she aspired to be a painter at a very young age.

Tan resigned from her secure job in Nanjing and came to Germany alone four decades ago, with the dream of combining Chinese and Western painting techniques to promote Chinese culture. At that time, "I was penniless; I didn't know anyone here; I couldn't speak German," she recalled. She could only earn a living by washing dishes and glasses, carrying liquor bottles, and distributing advertisements.

Such a difficult life helped Tan develop a vigorous and bold painting style. The horses she painted featured forceful strokes and a fusion of the East and the West, which attracted a great deal of attention at her solo exhibition in Hamburg. She also painted a large mural, "Beijing Garden", for a local shopping mall, and her reputation was on the rise. Since then, she has held various positions, such as a painting and calligraphy teacher and the president of the China & Germany Cultural Exchange Association, and has also organized the exchange and cooperation between Chinese and German artists and many painting exhibitions.

However, Tan confessed that she did these partly out of some "self-interest." Ink painting is not only her life-long career but also the medium through which she develops time-space dialogue with her parents and expresses her homesickness.

After class, we went to Tan's home. The first floor was renovated into her studio, filled with books and paintings. The verdant yellow groove bamboo outside the window grew into a forest.

"Bamboo can relieve me from nostalgia and empower me to overcome difficulties confidently," she said. She planted the Chinese bamboo in her garden and depicted it in her paintings and articles as if it would make her get closer to her hometown.

"My hometown is Dugang Village in Sihui, Zhaoqing, Guangdong. Although I grew up in Nanjing, I often heard my father talk about his life in that village," Tan said.

"Hometown is my roots. Without my hometown, I'm nothing." In her studio, Tan picked out the old photos, recalling her father's Cantonese accent and the family gathering on her grandmother's 80th birthday….

Over the years, Tan has visited her family in Dugang Village whenever she could. In particular, after Tan Yong Art Hall opened in 2016 in Sihui, she went back many times to donate her father's paintings and collections.

In the summer of 2024, at the invitation of her relatives, Tan decided to make another trip back to her hometown. "I still want to see the banyan tree at the entrance of the village and meet my white-headed relatives," she said.

After a more-than-ten-hour flight, Tan returned to Dugang Village again after five years.

The banyan tree planted by her grandfather was lush and shady. Tan stepped into the ancestral house by following the village road. She bowed to her ancestors with incense and caressed her grandmother's photo. Kids around her wondered why this old lady came here.

"As soon as the time when our cousin would come home was finalized, we have been looking forward to a reunion dinner," Tan's cousin, Tan Zhihua, said.

"Dew turns into frost since tonight; the moon viewed at home is brighter."

The relatives who had not met for years embraced each other affectionately. In a lively atmosphere, the reunion dinner aroused many of their memories, and their eyes were filled with tears.

Tan basked in the joy of reunion as if she traveled back to that night nearly 60 years ago when the young and excited Lu-Ping took a wooden boat to visit her grandmother in Sihui. That night, the Milky Way hung over the river, and the bright moon shone her way home.