Saanna: Tea as a Friend, Its Sweet As a Thorn (Haike Talk China)

A recent photo of Sana.

Walking into Anna Eva Budura's home, a familiar scent of jasmine tea wafts in. The old man was over ninety years old, smiling, fluent as his mother tongue Chinese. Behind her is a wall of books, two of which are bookshelves that can be called the "classic area" of Chinese tea culture.

Since 1950, She has studied in the preparatory class of Tsinghua University and the Department of History of Peking University, and since 1956, she has assisted the Romanian Embassy in China in various tasks. In her academic career of more than half a century, she has published a variety of monographs such as "Shenzhou", "Equal Treatment - The Spirit and Roots of China's Diplomatic History", and "China - Living in the Value of History", of which "The History of Tea" (excerpted as "The Story of Tea - Chinese Tea Culture") is the most unique.

In Sana's memory, the relationship with tea began in 1951. As one of the first Romanian students to come to China, she and her classmates visited Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Ningbo and other places. Longjing Village in Hangzhou impressed her deeply. "The sun shines through the flowers and trees, and we sit in the courtyard and listen to the tea brewer slowly talk about growing tea, picking tea, making tea, and telling the history of this mountain and land. The tip of Longjing's tender green buds swirled and stretched in the glass, drinking a sip of tea, clear, bitter, sweet... The magical taste enters the mouth and rushes to the heart. I don't know how to describe that feeling now, all the physical and mental exhaustion is swept away, as if trekking through mountains and rivers is only for this moment of unexpected encounter. Sana said. It was then that she decided to study Chinese tea culture. "I'm going to bring it back to Romania."

In 1956, Saanna graduated from the Department of History at Peking University. After 6 years of study, she not only fell in love with the land and its culture, but also met her beloved, Mr. Luo Ming, the former Romanian ambassador to China. Having worked together in China for more than ten years, one of them has devoted himself to diplomacy and translation, and the other has devoted himself to sinology. The couple, who held hands because of Chinese culture, achieved a good story.

During this period, the Beijing Cultural Association often invited the wives of diplomats to participate in some cultural activities. After a lecture on tea culture, Sana proposed to the lecturer that Romania knows very little about Chinese tea culture, nothing more than tea from China, there are several kinds of tea, they do not know the impact of tea on the inner temperament of Chinese, which is a pity. The teacher encouraged her to write a book to tell Romanians about her taste of Chinese tea and the origin and connotation of Chinese tea culture. "I felt the responsibility on my shoulders and the expectations of my teachers. I'll finish the book. ”

Saanna began to gather information. She traveled to almost all the libraries, bookstores, and even flea markets in Beijing, but there were too few books to see at that time. Back in Romania, she continued to ask her teachers and friends in Beijing to help her search. After a few strokes, Saanna finally acquired a large number of Chinese books.

In her research, Saanna mainly relied on ancient Chinese classics, fearing that the translation would lose the spiritual meaning of tea culture, and even more afraid that some external views would affect her judgment. The only foreign language material to refer to is the "Book of Tea" by Okakura Tenshin, a pioneer in japanese tea ceremony aesthetics, because it is an important work that shapes the understanding of oriental tea culture by European and American readers. The book led Westerners to marvel at the profound wisdom of the aesthetics of the Japanese tea ceremony, but also led them to mistakenly believe that Chinese tea culture had been carried forward in the Tang Dynasty after being brought back to Japan by the high monks, and had disappeared in Mainland China. "Clarifying this misconception to people is also a sense of responsibility that I have gradually developed in my research."

Saanna said that history records that as early as 3,000 years ago, people who ate tea had appeared in the Sanxingdui culture in the Shu region of Cuba, China. As the native place of tea plants, many ethnic groups in South China have had the custom of daily tea consumption and tea worship for ancestors since ancient times. Tea is even worshipped as a totem, and is often used as an invitation from neighbors, a gift to settle disputes, and a keepsake of friends and lovers. Tea not only plays a pivotal role in foreign trade, but also influences and even shapes the character of Chinese.

"Tea connects people together." "It traveled north during the Qin and Han dynasties, and then connected the daily customs of the north and south of China along the Grand Canal of the Sui Dynasty," Sayanna said. To the Tang Dynasty, Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" turned out to be a world, carrying the temperament of Chinese calm, indifferent and honest, and tea went to the world. Whether it is the peaceful trading of tea and horses in the market, the tea ceremony is compatible with cheese and oil sugar; or the Zen master Rongxi was taught zen tea, carrying seeds and planting them in Nagasaki and Kyushu, Japan; or the efficacy of tea and the beauty of tea utensils impressed Westerners, making countless celebrities admired and praised by civilians, the reason why Chinese tea is popular in the world is because of the harmonious culture it contains - dissolving accumulated gas, soft temperament, making people clear, inclusive and not impulsive. In Sana's view, this is the spiritual character of the Chinese she feels, and Chinese is also in the process of replacing wine with tea, meeting friends with tea, and making friends with tea, and grinding and merging with tea, the "spirit of the earth".

Saanna likes a poem: "Cold night guests come to tea as wine, bamboo stove soup boiling fire first red." She believes that there is Chinese philosophy of life. When she was in China, Saanna often went to the Qianmen Tea House with her friends to listen to the drama and eat tea, and she knew that young people in China are the same now, exchanging work while drinking tea. "This is how tea culture comes from habit and enhances the taste of habit." She said, "Whether it is the Yangchun Baixue of 'Qinqi Calligraphy and Painting Poetry Wine Tea' or the Xialiba people of 'Chai Rice Oil Salt Sauce Vinegar Tea', tea has always been an important element in Chinese life." ”

The "History of Tea", which has been written for more than ten years, is a gift from Sana to Romania. It was reprinted in one edition and was widely acclaimed. The packaging of the book is carefully designed, and a bag of good tea leaves is tied to the book with a belt, waiting for people who have a relationship with tea. While drinking tea and reading the "History of Tea", Romanian readers feel the charm of Chinese tea culture in this way.

Known as the mother of Romanian sinology, Saanna has won important awards such as the "11th Chinese Book Special Contribution Award", and is also the first scholar in Romania to comprehensively study Chinese tea culture. Tea tasting is her way of life, she loves tea, also like tea. "In my early years, I felt miserable and helpless in my life. In China, my teachers and friends treated me like family; I met Luo Ming and held hands in Chinese culture for 70 years, working, translating, researching, and drinking tea together. After he left, I continued to do his unfinished business every day – to pass on Chinese culture to Romanians. Sana said, "To paraphrase the Verses, 'who is bitter, its sweetness is like a thorn', for me it is more appropriate to say' who is bitter in tea, and its sweetness is like a thorn."" There is no bitterness, it cannot be dissolved. ”

(The author Zang Tianxiong is a ph.D. student at the School of Language and Culture, University of Bucharest, Romania, and Zhou Feifei is an assistant researcher at the "Belt and Road" Research Institute of Beijing Language and Culture University)