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 …
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 …
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. …
Continue reading “A History of the World in 6 Glasses vs. Robert Fortune: Tea Thief”
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 …
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 …
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 …
Continue reading “Reflection on Chapter 11 of Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad””
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 …
Continue reading “Event Response: Art Gallery Exhibit & Talk (October 15th, 2019)”
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 …
Continue reading “Event Response: The Importance of Being Earnest 9/27/19”
Tea, as with anything worth its salt, features a motley reservoir of distinct tastes. A slew of variables may influence the taste of tea including, but not limited to, sort of leaves used, washing, fermentation, and whether one incorporates tea first or milk first. With these and other techniques of preparing tea in mind, I …
