Faces of Nepal Mandal 01

 

Tamang lady from around Nepal Mandal नेपाल मण्डल . 

Nepal Mandal is Kathmandu valley and the surrounding areas which is under the cultural and religious influence of Kathmandu. Around the periphery of Kathmandu valley you have a lot of Tamang settlements. 

I learnt a few words in Tamang as it is useful when hiking around the valley and it is fascinating because it is so different from what I speak. However knowing a bit of Japanese (and even less Chinese) I find that some words are similar to those East Asian languages. For example, "Ta" means horse in Tamang language. The word for horse in Chinese is 马 (Ma) and in Japanese Uma. Similarly water is "Kui" is water in Tamang and the word for water in Chinese is  水 (Shui). 

It just goes to show how Nepal is connected to both its neighbours to the south and north but yet we are so different. Perhaps Nepal is also the place through which some of our Out of Africa ancestors passed through with some of them settling right here.  

Camera: SL2  🔴

F-Stop: F/4

Exposure time: 1/60 sec.

Focal length: 35mm

ISO: 100

Date of photograph: 20 February 2021

Rice Fields of Champi

It has been a long time since I uploaded something here. Last time was April 2014. Two reasons: first was Twitter and the second Instagram. I have quit the former and these days I am reluctant to post in the latter. Instagram was mostly to share photographs but perhaps I should do it here from now on.  

This photograph is of rice fields of Champi छम्पी in Lalitpur ललितपुर looking south towards Lele लेले. It was taken on 21 August 2021. So it is right in the middle of a fairly heavy monsoon. 

While most of the emerald valley is now a concrete slum, there are still some green patches showing how Kathmandu valley was decades ago. 

Camera: SL2

F-stop: f/5.6

Exposure time: 1/100 sec.

Focal length: 35mm 

 

Dark Mountain Hut

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

とふ人も

思ひ絶えたる

山里の

さびしさなくば

住み憂からまし

No one visits here
in my dark mountain hut
where I live alone.
But for this sweet loneliness
it would be too bleak to bear.

- Saigyo 西行 (1118 – 23 March 1190). Saigyo was a Japanese poet in the late Heian and early Kamakura period. He was from the nobility and was a guard to Emperor Toba 鳥羽天皇 before becoming a monk at a young age. His poems are greatly loved and revered even today.

How appropriate it is to have tea in this place somewhere in the mountains of central Taiwan. 

This is the residence of a devout Buddhist living almost in solitude after long years of service in a temple in south Taiwan. The residence and the garden is designed in Japanese style with a certain sense of Shibusa 渋さ. Even the water for the tea was brought to boil in a Japanese tetsubin which is unusual for drinking teas from Taiwan. Peace and tranquility pervaded the atmosphere. 

Visitors are not allowed as it is a private home. Extremely private, I hasten to add as the few residents spend most of their time in prayers, meditation and household chores. 

A disciple of this person brought me here after a getting a special appointment, just so that we could enjoy tea in this serene place with exceptional water from a nearby mountain spring. These photographs do not do justice to the place and the description here is a very poor substitute to the feeling and ambience that I experienced. It was a perfect setting for drinking and enjoying classic high mountain teas from Taiwan (Meishan 梅山) and Nepal (Jun Chiyabari).

Tea was brought to Japan from China by Buddhist monks and scholars and was propagated by various monasteries. In East Asia, Buddhism and tea were for many years very closely connected. 

So finding myself in this place, that connected all the dots of the tea universe, Chinese culture, Buddhism, tea and Japan, I am transported to another dimension, to the world of the tea poet, Lu Tong 盧仝 (790-835) of Tang dynasty..........

.......I am overcome,

Feeling only a pure wind rushing beneath my wings.

Images: Residence, garden and tea pavilion with a meditation room below. Taiwan March 2014

Sun Moon's Black Tea

Long years have passed; yours in the Way, mine in worldly life.
I am fortunate to speak with you this autumn.
Drinking fragrant tea until late,
Painful though parting be, I bow to you as I see
you off to distant clouds.

- Emperor Saga 嵯峨天皇
(February 8, 785 – August 24, 842) 52nd emperor of Japan
 

  

 

 

Black tea was introduced in Taiwan during the Japanese period in the 1920's when assamica variety, mostly from Burma, was introduced. After much research Sun Moon Lake area was chosen to be the area for black tea cultivation because of its climatic conditions.

Long years have passed and black tea has come on its own in Taiwan. Some of those plants were crossed with the local Taiwanese wild varieties Camellia sinensis forma formosensis. A prime example of this being Hong Yue 红玉, a hybrid of a Burmese and a local Taiwanese cultivar. This is a fragrant tea with an amazing flavour profile is now one of the most well known teas of Taiwan: a true, living national treasure if there ever was one.


I was fortunate to "have a conversation" with Liao Mayor Black Tea Storyland at Sun Moon Lake in the spring of 2014. It was a fascinating place where the story of black tea in Taiwan is told in a simple but very effective way. Here one can try various types of black tea at the tea bar and even eat tea flavoured ice cream or buy tea and tea ware. In another but contiguous section, a museum of old tea machines and history of black tea are displayed.

How I wished that we could have something similar in Nepal.
........... Painful though parting be, I bow to you as I see you off to distant clouds.

Images:
An aesthetically done shrine to black tea at Liao Mayor Black Tea Storyland at Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan. (March 2014)

Qingming 清明節 2014

 

 

A drizzling rain falls like tears on Qing Ming;

The mourner's heart is breaking on his way.

Where can a tavern be found to drown his sadness?

A cowherd points to Xing Hua (Apricot Blossoms) Village.

- Du Mu 杜牧 (803–852) of Tang

This year Qingming festival 清明節 falls on 05 April.

Du Mu's poem alludes to Qingming rains. Tradition has it that it will rain on this day piling more misery to those already heavy with grief in remembrance of their departed loved ones.

Almost every year I like to post something about this festival because of its connection with tea. Tea lovers all over the world look forward to pre-Qingming teas specially from China, the country where tea originated. Despite the stratospheric prices for these pre-Qingming teas they are in great demand. Accordingly this festival is of great significance to all of us involved in tea.

Qingming Festival usually falls 104 days after winter equinox. On this solemn day families visit ancestral graves and tombs to sweep and clean them and generally remember their forebears. The festival itself is said to have started during the Spring Autumn Period (771-476 BCE).

One does not celebrate Qingming for it is a solemn day. However on this special day for tea, I shall reminisce about the bowl of tea that I had in a wonderful natural setting of a tea garden in the mountains of central Taiwan. The feeling was out of this world: much like the 7th bowl of tea of Lu Tong 盧仝. Of course, some exquisite tea will be on the menu for the day as an offering to the Gods and ancestors for a successful 2015.

Images:

Tea "ceremony" near Pagua Tea garden somewhere in central Taiwan. (March 2014)

Tea on The Tropic

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ruisui Township 瑞穗鄉 is a small rural town in Hualien County of Taiwan on the Pacific coast. Population of Ruisui probably does not exceed a few thousands. Nothing significant except that Tropic of Cancer passes right through it. Except its innovative tea farmers produce some exquisite red / black tea called Mixan Hong Cha (Honey Red Tea). One sip is enough to make you exclaim, "Wow! How can anyone produce such teas?"

Oh yes, if you get fed up of drinking sublime teas, you can always head to its wonderful dairy and drink fresh, fragrant and "udderly" delicious milk.

A real bucolic idyll to which I want to go back soon!

Images: 

Top Three: Tea gardens some amidst betel nut plantations.

Middle Three: Tea farmer serves tea to customers. A happy smiley Mixian Hong Cha and the tea cultivar from which this is made. 

Bottom Two: Orchids (grows profusely in Taiwan).

March 2014