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In the village where he was born, a Chinese chicken breeder emerged from a lake of green to tell of his life beneath the waves in a homemade orange submarine.
一位中国养鸡户在他家乡碧绿的湖水中，坐着自制的橙色潜艇，冒险沉入水下。
Tan Yong bolted together his two-tonne craft, christened the "Happy Lamb" after a popular cartoon character, in just nine months and has steered it down to depths of eight metres.
谭勇将自己固定在他两吨重的潜艇里。他用了一个流行卡通人物的名字——“喜羊羊”来命名自己的潜艇。只用了9个月制作的潜艇，已经能够深入8米水下。
The 44-year-old is one of the growing ranks of rural Chinese do-it-yourself inventors whose individualism contrasts with the collective farming of past decades.
44岁的他是新兴的中国农民自创发明家中的一员，这种个性思想与过去几十年间集体务农生活形成了鲜明对比。
In his electric vessel, gauges and air pressure dials were screwed to the cabin wall above plastic piping that would look appropriate beneath a kitchen sink, while handwritten operating instructions were stuck up with sticky tape. Electric cables spewed from an array of fuseboxes, and a gas canister was positioned on the floor.
在他的电力潜艇中，用螺栓将仪表和空压计固定在舱壁上，下面是塑料管道，看上去刚好处在一个厨用水槽下方，手写的操作说明用胶带粘在上面。保险丝盒中的电线头四散开来，地面上还摆放着一个瓦斯罐。
"This is the air pump, it's used for going up and down," Tan explained, adding nonchalantly: "I haven't installed any kind of escape device."
“这是空气泵，用来控制上浮和下沉”。谭解释道，并且毫不在意补充道：“我没有安装任何逃生设备。”
Tan was born just two years after the Beatles released their 1968 hit Yellow Submarine, but he grew up in rural poverty and says he does not know any songs about coloured underwater vessels.
谭出生的前2年，正值披头士乐队发布1968年大碟黄色潜水艇，但他在贫苦的农村长大，从没听过什么关于彩色潜水器的歌曲。
At a national level China has increasing naval ambitions and Tan, who makes his living selling chickens, first hatched the idea of building a submarine two years ago, launching a prototype in March.
从国家层面，中国的发展海军的雄心日益增强。而对于依靠养鸡生活的谭，第一次萌发出制造潜艇的想法还是在两年前，今年三月才完成了船的雏形。
"I never studied this in school, I've based everything on my imagination," he said. "I can stay underwater for 45 minutes."
“上学时我从未学过这些，我只能凭借自己想象来做”，他说道，“现在我的潜艇能在水下待上45分钟。”
He scraped an extra layer of sealant around the portholes before waving cheerily as he closed the hatch, emblazoned with a red Communist-style star.
潜艇舱门上镶嵌着一枚象征共产主义的红色五角星，关上舱门前，他又在舷窗边缘涂上一层密封胶，并向人们热烈地挥了挥手。
The craft -- powered by five car batteries -- chugged away from the banks of the Danjiangkou reservoir, with a friend aboard and many more of them cheering as they looked on from beneath a grove of orange trees.
这艘船由五块车用电池驱动，轰鸣着离开丹江口水库的岸边。谭的朋友等在岸边的橘子林中，很多人翘首期盼，发出欢呼声。
The engine whirred and bubbles rippled the lake's still surface as it gently descended, leaving a barely visible outline before disappearing entirely.
发动机呼呼地喷出气泡，静静的湖面上出现一片涟漪，潜艇缓慢下沉，留下一道痕迹，之后完全消失在水中。
But his mother stayed away from the demonstration.
但谭的母亲距离人群远远的。
"He's had a habit of making things since he was small. Toys, boats, model guns and things like that," said Wang Mingfeng, 65.
“他从小就爱好做东西。做些玩具、船、枪模等，只要他喜欢就做。”65岁的王明峰说。
"I don't dare to watch, I'm too scared it's unsafe."
“我不敢看，我害怕太危险。”
'Peasant Da Vincis'
农民达芬奇
Launching himself into the life aquatic, Tan is one of a number of amateur inventors -- dubbed "Peasant Da Vincis" -- who have in recent years bashed together home made planes, helicopters and even tanks, apparently with little consideration of practical value.
投入到自己水上事业，谭成为众多的业余发明家中的一员，他自诩为“农民达芬奇”。最近几年，这些业余发明家遭遇到广泛批评，因为他们自己制作飞机、直升机甚至是坦克，明显缺乏实用性考虑。
They include a hairdresser from Zhejiang province, who built a one-seater aeroplane with wheels from a motorised wheelchair and a seat scavenged from a go-kart.
他们中包括浙江的一名理发师，制作了单座飞机，飞机轮子是从残疾轮椅上拆卸下来，而座位则来自卡丁车。
In late 2012 a farmer in Hebei province grabbed worldwide headlines ahead of the supposed Mayan apocalypse with a range of "survival pods" hewn from fiberglass.
2012年底，一位河北农民登上世界各国媒体头条，设想用玻璃纤维切削成的一组“生存舱”来实现玛雅启示录。
This year, the creations took a military turn when Jian Lin, a 31-year-old farmer, drove a homemade tank through a village in Sichuan province.
今年，有些创意甚至引发军方注意，31岁的农民林建驾驶自制坦克行驶在四川省的一个农村。
Tao Xiangli, a young man from a remote spot in eastern Anhui province who now lives in the capital, blazed a trail into the depths in 2010 with a home-made submarine featured in a Shanghai exhibition on the work of eight rural tinkerers.
陶相礼——一位安徽省东部偏僻地区的年轻人，在2010年进一步深化了这种尝试，将八个乡村修理工自制的潜水艇搬上了上海展览会的展台。目前他已经到省会生活。
"They are determined and fearless, in that they are not afraid of mockery from others," the show's curator, artist Cai Guo-qiang told AFP.
“他们执着并且无畏，实施过程中也不在乎别人的嘲笑。”此次表演的组织者，艺术家蔡国强对AFP的记者说。
"People in the countryside under the Communist regime used to collectively work and live together, and there was no room for individualism," he added.
“共产党体制下，乡村的人们习惯于进行集体工作和生活，而个人主义没有发展空间。”他补充道。
"The emergence of peasant Da Vincis also implies that the creativity of peasants in China is slowly taking shape and gaining traction."
农民达芬奇的出现也预示着中国农民的创造力正在慢慢彰显，并且吸引力在不断增加。
'Crushed like plastic'
就像挤压塑料
A silence hung over the lake in Hubei province as Tan lingered undetectable to those on the shore.
湖北的这片湖面一片宁静，谭在岸上徘徊时根本无法感觉到。
Tan's underwater journeys have not always been smooth, and he told earlier of a scary moment eight metres down.
谭 的水下之旅并非一帆风顺，他说 距离水下8米那个危险的时刻还早。
"There's a lot of water pressure on the steel panels, they were crushed like a plastic bottle," he said. "I was very nervous. And then there was a large banging sound.
“潜艇钢板承载了强大的水压，就像被压的塑料瓶子一样”。他说，“我非常紧张，随后产生了巨大的撞击声。”
"I can guarantee its safe down to 10 metres. After that, it's uncertain."
“我能保证它可以安全的下潜到10米。更深的地方，我不敢保证。”
But minutes after diving, the submarine's red star broke surface again, and Tan reemerged. "No problem!" he said with a grin.
但只过了几分钟，潜水艇上的红色五角星再次露出水面，谭也随着潜水艇浮出来。“没有任何问题！”他微笑着说。
He has commandeered a shed outside his parents' ramshackle farmhouse as a personal workshop, where scrap metal litters the dirt floors.
他强占了他父母快要倒塌的农屋外的一间小棚子作为加工车间，脏乱的地上四处丢着废金属板。
Tan claims materials for the submarine cost him just 30,000 yuan ($5,000), though admits the time spent on its construction put strains on his marriage.
谭称制作潜水艇的原材料大约花了他3万元，但坦诚将时间用在制作潜水艇上，也导致他的婚姻出现危机。
"If I make another submarine, I will get down to 30 or 50 metres without any problems, I'll just make the steel a bit thicker," he said.
“如果我再做一艘，下潜到30到50米绝对没有问题。只需要把钢板再加厚一点。”他说。
But his eight-year-old son Tan Junfeng added a note of scepticism. "Our family doesn't have much money, and Dad's spent it all," he said. "So I don't think he'll be making another one."
但他八岁的儿子谭峻峰却对此表示怀疑。“我们家里没有多少钱，并且爸爸已经把钱全花光了。”他说道。“所以我认为他没法再制作一艘。”
