Tibetan Stories on the Tea Horse Road

Author: Sun Jiong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: "The Tea Horse Road Culture Series" is a story guide about tea, ancient roads, mule caravans, and the living conditions of people. It has only one simple purpose—to entice readers with descriptions, encouraging them to see and appreciate our "Tea Horse Road." The series comprehensively introduces the regions of Shangri-La, Nujiang Grand Canyon, the World Heritage-listed Lijiang Ancient Town, Xishuangbanna, Simao, and other places in China's southwestern region, but we remain firmly focused on the "Tea Horse Road." For the Tea Horse Road, travelers, merchants, explorers, and monks are merely passing through. Yet on this long and arduous path in human history, the tea-horse trade that once propelled the prosperity of the road has vanished. Still, one can imagine the moving scenes and vibrant life, the spirit of the "Tea Horse Road" where humans overcame difficulties—this spirit will bring a bright future to China's southwestern region. The former glory has sunk into the horizon of the West, while the future's magnificence will rise in the sky of the East. Okakura Kakuzō, in The Way of Tea, quotes others to describe the essence of tea culture: "Tea culture is an art that hides beauty for you to discover, an art that suggests things you dare not express. It is a noble secret of self-mockery in perfect tranquility—it is itself a humorous and optimistic smile." This is an expression of the spirit of tea culture, and I like it.