Chinese Herald PEN column
Dora Xuan Qiu Suo
During the Spring Festival holiday, I stayed in New York for twenty years, and encountered heavy snow twice. There is very little snow in Shanghai and Tokyo, and even when it does, it is only a few flakes of snow that are politely floated. Winter without snow is not New York, a snow on the eve of Valentine's Day, a proper Bai Suzhen in New York the next day, the snow-white snow loves the lover who goes to the appointment, and the most precious red rose of the year is stained with blood.
The snow of Valentine's Day still hugged the dead vines of the North Courtyard, and it snowed again tonight. Looking at the small white dots floating under the street lamp, I took out the glass and brewed a cup of Taiping Monkey Kui, lit the candle aromatherapy, the snowflakes fluttered outside the house, the monkey kui in the cup was diffuse, the light and shadow in the fragrant fragrance were in a trance, staring at the TOM DIXON candle wrapped in bronze wrapped in no candles and tears, thinking of the naked Sukiya and the candle, my mind couldn't help but go back to the night tea party presided over by Mr. Reiko ten years ago.
One weekend in early February, when the night was falling and snow was falling in Tokyo, I headed to the night tea party in the cold wind. Waiting at the waiting place, the tea owner will make the handmade ash in the fire bowl, and give the tea guest a ginger soup to warm up, in front of the open field lamp, the tea owner and the main guest hand each other with the right hand to hand the candle to exchange hand candles, after silent salute, the second guest and the guest silently watch the tea master until the figure disappears, and then follow the guest into the tea room with the candle goose. There are white lycoris daffodils in the narcissus pots in the tea room, since ancient times, the white narcissus is the first choice for the night tea event, the hazy white can be loomed in the dimness, the tea hanging of the night tea can be not hanging, there is no endless hiding in the nothing, there are flowers and the moon and the building, not hanging can let the tea guests imagine the wonderful in the emptiness, and feel the mysterious world in the Zen, so as to sense the warmth from the cold, the tea room is hazy in the swaying of light and shadow of the short canopy, and the tea guests are introduced into the mystery. The steaming leaves of the kaiseki soup and the steam of the pot are made by the tea owner to make the tea guests feel warm in the cold night. After the tea owner sprinkles the beautiful wet ash in the hearth, three pieces of round short charcoal are put into the bottom of the furnace as a bottom fire, when the tea guest enters the tea room, the body of the bottom fire charcoal is just covered with a thin layer of charcoal ash, the tea owner adds the initial charcoal on the bottom charcoal, and then adds the white charcoal of lime on the branch charcoal made of fine branch firing, the spark in the hearth flashes red and white gray, and the three charcoal is warm and interesting around the hearth.
In order to let the tea slowly cool, the tea owner chose a high-depth wabi-sabi coarse tea bowl that contains the interest of the Xuandong farmer. The tea with strong tea is a tea confectionery called the sound of weaving shuttle, with burdock as the core wrapped in bean paste into a weaving shuttle, sprinkled with a layer of fine soft white sugar, although the shuttle has nothing to do with frost and snow, but the ancient winter cold and deep snow in February, it is the old time when housewives were busy weaving in the winter farmhouse, so that the tea customers are reminded of the sound of weaving shuttles back and forth in the farmer's loom, the tea confectionery is sent to the mouth, the white sugar powder has fallen, just like the fine snow in February, this tea confectionery with literary colors makes people love and love. Accompanied by the thin tea is the frost pillar tea fruit, made of caramel brushed, slender and crisp, with a crisp sound in the mouth, as if stepping on frost grains. The tea owner and the guest took the tea props in the candlelight, and when they moved their hands to the next tea props, they reluctantly moved away from the previous tea props as if they were separated from their lovers. On a snowy night in February, the light tones and bright outlines of the tea props in the candles are seen in the swaying of the dim candlelight, and the purpose of the tea props is between the snow or frost, and the warmth is felt because of the cold. The tea ceremony coincides with the grandest noon festival of Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, and the tea owner entertains tea guests with the inscription of Mt. Inari En Nosai Huang Seto Mizuchi, the incense of Yu Tafuku, the soft and gentle tea pot, and the soft and elegant Shifu, and so on.
Compared with the seven-style tea ceremony such as the tea ceremony and the tea ceremony, the tea ceremony is limited to the cold winter, especially the cold winter of the snowy night, and it is the most amorous and the most challenging for the tea owner, and various candles are used for the romantic taste of the tea ceremony, such as the candles to be closed, the hand candles of the geese walking in the open field, the short candles after entering the table, the dining candles during the kaiseki, the hand candles when the tea props are rewarded, and so on. Since ancient times, the night tea event is known as the work of the old skillful practice, and the first kettle tea event has a different atmosphere, such as the old skillful practice of the generation, that is, the Zhengke's learning and education intelligence skills coincide with the tea owner, it is a tea event that has reached a wonderful situation. The tea event is called the most difficult tea affair, so it is more charming, and the taste of tea is more profound, playing with geese with candles, lighting tea in the candle flame, injecting the soup and fire phase of the heart of the tea owner, and the overflowing mystical interest, if the swaying candlelight is missing, the taste may be missing. The old and clever guests in the night tea event give warmth to the guests in the cold, and the important thing is to peck at the same time, the Buddhists use this as a metaphor to indicate that the two coincide with the chance. It is very important whether every action of a bowl of tea and the host and guest can be coordinated, and the tea ceremony is a metaphor for the realm of like-mindedness and tacit understanding between the host and the guest or between the guest and the guest, and more importantly, the ability to talk together.
The tea owner and the guest talked together, what is a period and a meeting, because of a certain chance to meet it is called a period and a meeting, this is a general understanding. In fact, it is not just a meeting, but it is important to emphasize how to spend this moment meaningfully at this moment, and it is the continuity of the moment and the moment. Even if the same tea ordering is different from person to person, even if the same tea ordering person repeats the same tea ordering action during the tea ordering process, the breathing speed and urgency will not be the same. Listening to the conversation between the tea owner and the guest, I felt that this was a philosophical topic of "one person cannot cross the same river". The host and guest talked about the heart of tea, and the low-level guests such as me felt a little abstract, as if they were groping for an exit in the dark, and it was difficult to explain it by words alone. The sages of the tea ceremony created a variety of methods of ordering tea, such as cleaning the tea whisk and folding the silk yarn, and brought people closer to the heart of tea step by step, and listening to the dialogue, I seemed to understand a little bit of what Sengenmuro said: "The process of ordering tea is the process of injecting blood into the mold." "Blood is the soul of the tea man, only in this way can the type and blood be fused to produce the form, and the difference between the form and the type is that it is integrated into the soul of the tea man. The winter night is long, and in the long winter night, you can talk leisurely and leisurely, and know the interest of cold and warmth. There was no tea gathering, and the guests left their seats amid the sound of boiling water in the kettle.
We modern people live in the night like day, accustomed to the brilliant lights, and the night tea ceremony gives me the experience of returning to the ancient times in the darkness of candlelight. On a snowy night in New York, I was reminded of the smell of Tokyo's night tea ceremony in the flickering of TOM DIXON candles.