Tea

When Britain’s characteristic greed encountered China’s handsome holdings of tea, both polities acted predictably. Britain coveted China’s tea and China safeguarded its treasure, but the multi-faceted nature of that struggle was no less byzantine than why Britons eat toast sandwiches (seriously search up “toast sandwich,” it’s the strangest thing you’ll see this week). To the ill-versed in Chinese history, the variables constituting the strife for proprietorship of tea include, but are not limited to, indentured servitude, addiction, imperialism, opium, and tea. It isn’t easy correlating these points to make a coherent diagram, but here’s my take:

Imperialism, tea, opium, addiction, and indentured servitude. Britain’s conquest of the world eventually led it to China, who possessed tea in bountiful quantities which enraptured the British. Subsequent to failed negotiations, Britain resorted to furtive methods at acquiring tea, via cultivation and distribution of opium in China. The opium was cultivated in India, China’s southern neighbor, enabling efficient mobilization of the product. This opium degenerated Chinese society, yet succeeded in garnering Britain the requisite capital to defray tea from its victim. Britain then discovered tea in Assam, India, yet it was dismissed as an inferior ilk relative to Chinese tea. Britain had not dispatched enough of its populace to its colonies, so Britons in India cultivating tea/opium relied on “coolies” or indentured servants imported from China. Chinese addicts were undesirable workers as they were incapacitated by their opium use, thus increasing demand for Indian laborers. The components of the first sentence are all connected in sequence: that is, causality beginning with imperialism and ending with indentured servitude constitutes the network.

These are merely the facts of the matter, but they induce some compelling questions: would Britons have supported the tea trade had they known of its iniquity? Was indentured servitude, as realized by the British in India, a reincarnation of slavery? Would China have evaded its ordeal with opium if it enabled trade of tea with Britain? I have little doubt that there’s no unequivocal answer to any of these questions, but perhaps any informed answer illuminates new dimensions of the period’s dynamics.

William Almack’s journal of his odyssey in China amid the dawn of the First Opium War doubly elevates and confounds my understanding of the era’s milieu. Almack addresses the dynamic between British traders and Chinese officials by emphasizing each party’s misgivings towards the other. Britain’s skepticism of China inheres in the latter’s sufferance to the opium trade, and China’s skepticism of Britain concerns the festering dissolution Britons spurred via opium amongst the Chinese citizenry. Despite Britain’s preponderance of China’s markets, Almack sheds light upon his scruples regarding his countrymen’s guileful transgressions of China’s probity. Almack’s grievances intimate the likelihood of there being other contemporary conscientious objectors to Britain’s malpractices.

Within a holistic perspective, Almack’s journal is paradigmatic of the mounting tension between China and Britain in the immediate years foregoing the First Opium War. The journal exemplifies dismays of the Chinese government that had antagonized it against British traders. British economic interests were irrespective of China’s social welfare and thus undermined Chinese heterodoxy. In retrospect, the First Opium War became inevitable once Britain enacted its economic agenda in China. The precipitous decline in Chinese society would have eventually compelled the emperor to undertake proactive measures to prohibit the opium trade, thus embittering Britain such that it would resort to militaristic capacities to preserve its profits. Nice work, Britain.

British fondness for tea has been well elucidated for the past four centuries. Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses broadly addresses the English tea trade since its inception from a modern perspective. It is a tertiary source, meaning it is a compilation of primary and secondary sources intended for unfamiliar readers. The book is an informative piece, and as such assumes an impassive tone to discuss Britain’s annals in tea. Standage’s format is more or less chronological: he begins in 1767 and concludes in 1872 with intermittent lapses in time.

Diane Perelszetjn’s documentary, Robert Fortune: Tea Thief, magnifies British botanist Robert Fortune’s espionage in China to wrest the polity’s grail. The documentary is a medley of Fortune’s coeval account and topical interpretations of his quest, thereby functioning as both a primary and secondary source. Dictated excerpts from his journal are sporadically punctuated by modern dialogue throughout the documentary. The interplay between the historical and modern accounts elicits greater understanding of the expedition by contextualizing the history and illuminating its implications.

Chanoyu is a Japanese ceremony ennobling tea’s centrality in the nation’s culture. The tea ceremony’s procedures effect an esteem for puritanism, emphasizing the simplicity of life. At the dawn of the 20th century, when western imperialism’s yoke jeopardized Japan’s identity, chanoyu emerged as the ballast between the nation’s history and modernity. Japanese nationalists such as Okakura Kakuzo invoked the tea ceremony as emblematic of Japan’s solidarity. It has persevered as a beacon for Japanese culture, epitomizing its propriety, longevity, doctrines, and the innumerable remainder of the nation’s identity. To this end, chanoyu has duly bound Japan’s citizenry through the crucibles posed by foreign interests. Such is chanoyu’s avail that it merits the admiration of both the Japanese for its cohesion and foreigners for its inspiration.

Really, I should have titled this post “Ridding Weeds 2.0.” I again purged the garden of weeds, but today I was joined by three upperclassmen and three fellow FYS students. While the upperclassmen mingled amongst themselves, so too did the three students apart from myself in the FYS. I pulled alone, uttering not a single word in the midst. But I’m not complaining, I’ve always esteemed the company of my own thoughts. Upon reflection of my labor, my shift today reinforced the outstanding point I gleaned last time: humans and flora still share an aversion towards weeds. Hopefully this motif doesn’t constitute a trilogy.

Chapter 11 of “A Visit from the Good Squad” features the character of Ted, a disenchanted art history professor, conducting a halfhearted search for his wayward niece, Sasha, in Italy. Sasha had fled her home with her then-boyfriend, the drummer of a band, and embarked on a skein of escapades beginning in Japan and culminating in Italy. Sasha’s parents perforce enlist her uncle to venture to Italy and retrieve her. While in Italy, Ted defers his duty in favor of exploring the country’s art and architecture before fortuitously encountering Sasha. Their resultant interplay is one of farcical proportions.

Throughout the chapter, Ted recurrently invokes the statues of Orpheus and Eurydice that he sees in Italy. The legend surrounding these two figures chronicles Orpheus’s failed attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld. Following Eurydice’s death, Orpheus ventures to the underworld to supplicate Hades for the reincarnation of his wife. Hades agrees on the condition that Orpheus must not look at his wife while they depart the underworld until they reach the light. Orpheus, delighted by Hades’ mercy, relents to the condition and proceeds to vacate the underworld with Eurydice. During their exit, Orpheus becomes dubious of his wife’s truly being behind him, believing that Hades had deceived him. Mere steps before the light, Orpheus turns around in incredulity only to discover the shadow of his wife whisking back to the realm of the dead, never to be retrieved again. Dejected by this misgiving, Orpheus wishes death upon himself to be eternally united with his love, a wish realized by Zeus, who strikes him with a lightning bolt lest Orpheus divulges the nature of the underworld to mankind.

“Uncovering what is implicit,” which I will designate as the Iceberg Theory (a name I didn’t actually coin; search it up if you’re so inclined), is the agency I used to shed light upon this chapter. Ted’s quest to recover his niece parallels Orpheus’s quest to recover his wife. Ted’s scouring of Italy’s slums for Sasha introduces him to dissolute youths, with the slums exemplifying the underworld and the youths the dead. The woman Ted bribes into leading him to Sasha alludes to Hades’ acquiescence to liberate Eurydice. These likenesses are juxtaposed by a stark contrast between Ted’s mission and Orpheus’s: upon glancing at Eurydice, she vanishes; upon averting gaze from Sasha, she vanishes. While Egan sought to effect the Greek legend in a modern setting, she markedly distinguishes her iteration from its antecedent.

Ronny Quevedo’s art gallery exhibit features an oeuvre concerning the demarcation of boundaries. He expressly defines his art through sports, painting and constructing pieces before an athletic backdrop. Quevedo’s works include portraitures of sporting fields and contraptions based on athletic paraphernalia. His paintings of sporting fields are strewn with lines which project Quevedo as a sort of designer of novel games. Thus, he allegorizes the system of borders as a game not to be amended, but reformed.

Admittedly, I can’t attest to the event’s expanding my schema. If anything, I found it to be the most vapid function I have attended this year. I find all modern art to be a bore, however, so it may be untoward to pass such a judgment. I deemed Quevedo’s purpose of undermining international borders to be feckless. His subject of sports was underwhelming; if he truly sought to convey a powerful message, he should have resorted to a more unifying medium like family. I understand that he believes sports promote solidarity, the concept of which runs afoul of the philosophy of borders, but many interpret sports conversely. Sports are contentious events that evoke factionalism from spectators. They are innately adversarial and encourage competition, thereby disconfirming Quevedo’s rationale. Many a sporting event is marred by overzealous partisans provoking quarrels with their counterparts. An especial case can be made about Egyptian soccer fans, who cheer so riotously as to foment stadium-wide brawls. In 2012, such an incident claimed the lives of 70 spectators. Clearly, Quevedo doesn’t garner much acclaim from Egypt. Such disunity serves to delegitimize Quevedo’s theory. Ultimately, there is no rhyme or reason to the divisive furor sports elicit. Tailoring an entire art exhibit to the vain unity sports muster fails to typify the unity of a borderless world, if such a world could even be unified.

The Importance of Being Earnest is English playwright Oscar Wilde’s theatrical magnum opus, first premiering in 1895. A farce, it follows two protagonists, Jack and Algernon, who maintain apocryphal personas to shirk social obligations. The protagonists’ artifice is laid bare at the climax of the play when they simultaneously introduce themselves as “Ernest” before their respective lovers, who were both engaged to that same persona. The play lampoons Victorian society’s folkways and institutions, especially emphasizing the demerits of marriage.

I entered the theater with foreknowledge about the play as I read it some years ago, so the plot was not unfamiliar. Admittedly, I was not expecting an all-female cast and did not see any particular reason to feminize the ensemble. The performance of the play, however, was aptly true to form, and I appreciated the cast’s faithfulness to the source material. My experience was tarnished somewhat by an audience member sitting in the row ahead of me who would erupt into exceedingly boisterous laughter when nobody else was laughing yet remained mute whenever everybody else did laugh. Apart from the nuisance, I enjoyed my time at the theater. The cast delivered an exceptional performance of a timeless play. I extend an earnest bravo…