Session 09—Fri, Sep 16: Pre-Tang China ①: Legends & beginnings

Topics

❖ Early contacts with Chinese (Han) culture—Chinese Legends associated with the origins of tea consumption (revisited)

• Shen Nong ("Holy Farmer") and his Materia Medica (神農本草經, Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, Han period)
• Bodhidharma
  

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

We consider the place of tea within culture. Origin legends are an important markers for establishing and reconfirming in an ongoing way that place. We revist the two primary legends for how tea came to China and, while we are at it, contrast this with the discovery legend of coffee. The "weight" placed on tea is seen from this other angle, since a similar "weight" is placed on coffee in the documentary we will see a poertion of. Reviewing the legends before class helps make this discuss go more smoothly and we can bore down more deeply.

Sidenote: The reading for this session is light but very soon the reading required for this class gets heavier. You might want to look ahead to the next several sessions and see what I mean, and plan your work for this class accordingly. We switch gears now from tea basics to tea culture history and preparation for class becomes more challenging.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Become very familiar with legend portion (from an analytic point of view — what do they suggest) s of: Camellia Sinensis Origins & Physicals [bSpace, PPT].

Multimedia notes

❖ Coffee legends (brief clips from a KQED TV-documentary titled "Black Coffee [Part 1]: The Irresistible Bean"

Links

⇢ No specific links. The coffee documentary is easy to locate on Google; it continues to be screened on public broadcasting networks and is avaiable on dics via Netflix.

Other

None.

Links to each session page