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From Abroad

In the words of my friend and instructor, Wendy, I am “completely obsessed with tea”. (Note that this is often said in a tone of exasperation.)

She teases me a lot about this because, as my final project in her Chinese Culture class last semester, I researched an incredibly detailed and…okay, I’ll admit it…LONG…project on the politics and cultures of tea in China and its effect on international relations. (I think it says something when your professor tells you it’s too long.) As part of my presentation, I even brought thermoses of tea into the classroom with plastic cups and tea snacks (imported by Vonson’s from a Suzhou bakery for the occasion)...ever since then she’s been accusing me of a fixation. Which is a blatant untruth. I just really, really, really, really, really like tea. A lot.

As I wrote about in an earlier post, one of the first things that Wendy and I did upon arriving in Suzhou was to partake of a very pricey tea ceremony at a teahouse outside of the Cold Mountain Temple. I was completely ecstatic and had to restrain myself from constantly clicking away with my camera…not so successfully, as it turns out…

At home I think I have 23 varieties of tea from 8 different countries, 7 teapots and innumerable teacups, tea scoops, tea strainers and other tea accoutrements (Western and Eastern). I have a set of silver demitasse spoons I picked up in Northern Ireland, 3 complete cream and sugar sets (matched to specific teapots), hand-molded cups from Zenclay in Morgantown, a set of Moroccan teacups a friend brought me from Spain…this list could actually go on for quite some time. Now I also have a suitcase full of 碧螺春 (biluochun) and 龙井 (longjing) teas, not to mention various 乌龙 (oolong) and 普洱 (pu’erh) varieties, to drag back home stateside. There’s also the small matter of a complete gongfu cha tea service set that Wendy haggled down for me that comes with a bamboo serving box/tray, tea scoops, towels and picks, plus a Yixing teapot and teacup set to serve six. That’s taking up some space. That and the 5 books on tea culture that I have also purchased while here.

On second thought…maybe Wendy has a point…

Regardless.

Here is the second in my three-part postings about tea! Suzhou teahouses and Suzhou pingtan, to be specific.

Suzhou is known for a very special type of green tea…it is, as I’ve expressed before, my favorite…碧螺春 (biluochun). Instead of talking further about it here…here is a link to an excellent e-Report on how biluochun is harvested and made. The author presents a much clearer depiction than I ever could, in addition to detailing a step-by-step photographic journal of the process itself that he/she was very lucky to have been able to document…basically, I just think this article is really cool…

http://chineseteas101.com/articles/biluochun.htm

Partly because of this fact and partly because of Suzhou’s position as a cultural epicenter for artists and the literati, Suzhou has a very well-cemented reputation in southern teahouse culture.

In the north of China (like in Beijing), when you visit a standard teahouse (not the giant extravaganzas like Lao She’s…also in Beijing…), you will probably witness the Chinese ritualized tea preparation in varying degrees of elaboration (depending on where you are, what you’re drinking and how much you’re paying). These steps in a Chinese ceremony are all to increase the pleasure of consumption, but they can still become pretty elaborate. Even sharing a cup of oolong with a friend can become an event. However, in the south, you are much more likely to have your tea brought out to you in the teahouse already prepared and waiting for consumption. Instead of the tea ritual being central to the event, southern teahouses often offer music and performances.

What you will no doubt be treated to in Suzhou is a special type of performance composed of Suzhou pinghua and tanci (storytelling and ballad-singing), known collectively as Suzhou pingtan.

Suzhou pingtan are these local ballads and stories, which may or may not be accompanied with music, performed in the Suzhou dialect. (For those of you unfamiliar with the dialects of China, in addition to what we call Mandarin and Cantonese each town has its own local dialect that can be completely unintelligible for outsiders. China is a very large landmass with very, very many towns…so you can imagine how many dialects there are. Pretty daunting, isn’t it?)

There seems to be some established ritual for these events…every time I’ve seen it performed, there seems to be at least two people (generally a man and a woman to sing duets), each playing an instrument (usually the woman plays lute-like instrument called a 琵琶 – pipa and the man plays what I think is called a 双清 – shaungqin)...the stage is generally set with a table and chairs where the performers sit virtually motionless while they perform…there are also these long, embroidered silk cloths that are draped over the chairs and tables, which is often the only decorative touch aside from screens or paintings towards the back of the stage…in this setting, the focus is solely on the sound and the music…

Here’s some photos of a night out in Suzhou at a teahouse…

I particularly enjoyed the tea snacks at this teahouse…pistachios, fresh fruit, melon seeds…in addition to how kind and informative the other visitors were. This teahouse is owned and operated by a former Suzhou pingtan performer, so night after night the place is packed with his friends and coworkers, singing together and just enjoying tea and music. It was nice to hear him take the stage, because he had a beautiful voice and it was obvious how deeply he enjoyed music…he also spoke very good English and spent some time with us of his own accord during and after the show chatting about pingtan and Suzhou’s musical culture…he was so good and so full of information, it was almost like having an expert guest lecturer just pop out of the shadows…

Here’s a photo of him (obviously, if you can’t tell, I have no idea how to write his name), the female singer (another person whose name I don’t know how to write), and some of the group that was there…there were actually a couple shots like this, taken by kindly strangers in the audience, but unfortunately nobody else had brought a camera to the show and my camera is difficult at best to maneuver (it doesn’t have very many automatic settings)...this is the best of the bunch (even though Natalie has been cut off at the arm) and even this is after Photoshop…but here we all are…I’m at the far right in the back, towering once again over most everyone…

One of my (many) recent purchases was a DVD of famous Suzhou pingtan and an accompanying book describing famous songs, singers, history and musicians…surprisingly for me, after I brought the DVD back I noticed that some of the scenes from it are available on Youtube…so, here you go. Brew yourself a cup of tea and press play.

The Ballad of Du Shi Niang

An excerpt from Dream of the Red Chamber…if you go to Youtube, click on “More Info” to get an English translation of this one…I should also explain that this clip contains magic, because there are times when she quits playing but the music continues on… ;)