The Yin Yu Tang House (蔭餘堂)
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts
From the Peabody Essex Museum's brochure about the Yin Yu Tang House:
Why is the house called Yin Yu Tang?
The name Yin Yu Tang suggests the desire to shelter many future generations, as well as the hope that descendants will become high officials.

Where was the house located in China?
Yin Yu Tang is from a small village in southeastern China, Huang Cun, in a mountainous region in Anhui Province. It is about 250 miles southwest of Shanghai.

Who lived in the house?
Yin Yu Tang was inhabited by multiple generations of the Huang family, with 20 to 30 people living in the house at any one time. Eight generations lived here over a period of 200 years.

When was the house built?
Yin Yu Tang was built around 1800.

Are all of the objects original to the house/family?
Sixty to seventy percent of the objects are original to the house. The other objects all come from homes with similar histories in the same region.

How did the house come to the Peabody Essex Museum?
The house was part of a cultural exchange agreement with the local Chinese authorities in the Huizhou region of Anhui Province. The exchange helped promote the culture and architecture of the region to an international audience and supported architectural preservation projects in the province.

Here is some more information about the house from a plaque on the museum's wall.

We visited the house on June 17th, 2022, while we were visiting Chris and Dana and Max and Lydia in Boston. Here are a bunch of pictures from our visit.


The main courtyard upon entry into the house. Only about 10-12 people are let in every half hour.

Mei-O learned to ride a bike just like this. It was her father's bike, and though she was too small to reach the seat, she'd just stick one of her legs through the triangle the frame makes and, with one foot on each pedal, off she went.







The poster reads, "Learn From Lei Feng’s Good Example. Serve the people wholeheartedly."




A quote from Mao Zedong.
"All our working cadres, regardless of the level of position, it is the diligence of the people, everything we do is to serve the people, ......"
(The Task of 1945)

This is a 火桶. Click here (from the museum's brochure about the house) to see its surprising use.




An infant or toddler seat.




Leaaning against the wall is a bamboo bed, similar to one Mei-O and I slept in when we lived in Taiwan.

This looks like a coffin, but it could just be a storage bin.







A raincoat. Mei-O's father used to have one like this.

The kitchen. Here's another look.













On the second floor.







Here's me.

One of the bedrooms.




A baby bed or bassinet.










A pillow.



















A high chair for a toddler.







A mahjong set.

The hallway was too narrow for my walker to walk through, so we had to fold it up and have Mei-O carry it.










The main courtyard was open to the elements.

Another bedroom.

Here's another look.

Here's a closer look at the pictures. The poster reads "We must never forget the class struggle. Never forget the dictatorship of the proletariat. Never forget to highlight politics. Never forget to hold high the great red flag of Mao Zedong's Thought."










That's Chairman Mao Zedong's picture on the wall.

One of the entrances.

Click here to return to the first picture or here to return to the "A Year In Photos - June, 2022" web page.