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Tea 茶天下未亂蜀先亂天下已治蜀未治 Tea and politics, teahouses and activism, gathering and gossiping, all of these things mark the life of tea in China's largest inland empire, that of Sichuan 四川. Given the dramatic events of the first months of the Dragon Year of 2012, an ancient saying about the restive nature of what was once the Kingdom of Shu 蜀 would appear to be an appropriate place to launch our issue-length meditation on tea.  Fig.1 人散後，一鈎新月天如水，TK（豐子愷）畫 'After everyone has departed/ The new moon a hook, the sky like water', TK (Feng Zikai), 1924 In Sichuan they call it 'laying out the dragon formation' 擺龍門陣. An ancient military tactic famous in China's southwest, the 'dragon formation' has, over the years, became a popular expression used to describe the setting of verbal stoushes and gossip. In teahouses throughout the province, men and women have gathered over the years, often sitting on bamboo stools or reclining chairs, with small tables scattered about, tea cups and teapots mixed among clutches of locals, visitors and passers-by. Amidst the clatter and the long, slow sipping of tea, people discuss matters pertaining to 'All-Under-Heaven' 天下事兒. Although the Internet has become the virtual space of choice for the movement of idle chatter in recent years, it is the heritage of tea and the teahouse that bound people in conversation and conviviality in the past. In the teahouse people would engage in idle gossip 閒談, chat 聊天, rant 侃山 and brag shamelessly 吹牛. It was, and in many places throughout China, an environment in which tall tales 大話 and arrant nonsense 廢話 can hold the day; it's also where the chatter on the streets 道聽途說 is elaborated and circulates with the speed of a prairie fire. It is over tea too that people gather to play mah-jongg with clamorous concentration, although tea is just as much a boon companion that is suited to quieter moments of relaxed repose 閒適 and thoughtfulness 静思, as it is for conviviality and calm conversation. As the Guest Editor of this issue Daniel Sanderson points out, this is the first time China Heritage Quarterly has focussed on a tangible consumer item, and it is a product, a drink and a status symbol that encompasses elements both democratic and autocratic. A few leaves brewed or steeped in boiling water create one of the most ubiquitous elements of everyday life in China. But the varieties and qualities of tea provide an equally unparalleled vehicle for the more noxious aspects of social behaviour, a civilizing process that relies on distinctions and discrimination. Tea is graded according to strict hierarchies relating to 'terroir', quality and price. In recent times lavishly packaged premium teas have become another means for people to engage in competitive displays of wealth 鬥富, to parade their profligacy 擺闊 and to ingratiate themselves 鑽營, be it with power-holders or business grandees. But, as our colleague Li Baoping 李寶平 points out, 'tea contending' 鬥茶, or competitive demonstration of techniques of brewing or whipping premium-grade tea, often in rare and expensive tea bowls, has been commonplace in China since the Song dynasty. Tea People Talk Tea 茶人茶話 published in Beijing in 2007, collects some of the most important essayists writing on tea, teahouses and the culture of tea in the last century, including the master of the elegant essay Zhou Zuoren's famous 'On Bitter Tea' 關於苦茶. In 1935, Zhou published a book titled Jottings from the Studio of Bitter Tea 苦茶庵隨筆. It included works in which the acerbic taste of strong tea is likened to a particular kind of mature prose style: se 澀, an aesthetic that is simple yet demanding, one that imparts a lingering aftertaste. It is the kind of writing that is the natural enemy of New China Newspeak, a topic to which we devote an extended essay in Articles. Also in that section Mark Elliott contributes to our discussion of 'Prosperous China' 盛世, while we commemorate the memory of the thinker, scholar and liberal Hu Shi 胡適, who died half a century ago in Taiwan, in the words of Jerome B. Grieder, and discuss the social life of the most famous scenes of the Western Pavilions at the Garden of Perfect Brightness in Beijing 圓明園西洋樓. Also in Articles we continue our account of Mao Zedong's sojourns at West Lake in Hangzhou. In T'ien Hsia, Joshua Fogel extends our discussion of New Sinology, and we carry another chapter from Pierre Ryckmans' (Simon Leys) 1996 Boyer Lectures, this time the subject he addresses is writing. We also re-introduce two pieces from the original T'ien Hsia Monthly: one by Yeh Ch'iu-yuan 葉秋原 on the subject of seals (璽 and 印), the other a short story by the essayist and scholar Yu Pingbo 俞平伯. In New Scholarship we introduce an important discussion on ethics in contemporary Chinese documentary film-making by the young scholar Ying Qian 钱颖; a recently published volume on traditional Chinese humour; and, a report by William Sima on a major conference on Lin Yutang 林語堂 held in Hong Kong in late 2011. Lin and The China Critic 中國評論週報 will be the focus of the June 2012 issue of this journal. The present issue of China Heritage Quarterly casts its net back in time to bring together material from Chinese and non-Chinese sources related to tea and its rich heritage. We also delve into the beclouded waters of the contemporary world of the Chinese Internet in pursuit of our topic. In doing so we have benefitted greatly from the advice and guidance of many friends, colleagues and tea aficionados in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Europe, North America and Australia. They include: Michelle Garnaut, Lawrence Zhang 張樂翔, Carma Hinton, Raymond Lum, Sang Ye 桑晔, Lois Conner, Jeremy Clarke, Charlene Wang 汪晓宁, Jeff Fuchs, Gary Sigley, Li Baoping, Maria Barbieri and Fuchsia Dunlop. We are also grateful to those authors who have generously granted us permission to reproduced their work here. And, above all, I would like to thank my colleague Daniel Sanderson for suggesting the topic of tea, and for agreeing to curate this issue with me as Guest Editor. As ever, we are grateful to Lois Conner for providing an image to adorn the virtual pages of our journal through the year. In keeping with the disturbing nature of the ever-recurring Dragon Year, it is a stone dragon, from Chengdu in Sichuan.—Geremie R. Barmé, Editor |
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