REVIEWS BY LAUREN W. DEUTSCH
KYOTO JOURNAL 71
The Ancient
Tea Horse Road: Travels with the Last of the Himalayan Muleteers
by Jeff Fuchs (2008. Viking, Canada)
Tea and
Tourism: Tourists, Traditions and Transformations
Lee
Joliffe ED. (2007. Channel View
Publications, Clevedon, Buffalo, Toronto)
Delamu
Tian Zhuangzhuang, director. (BDI Films/Japan
Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) / Kuming Datongdao Film and TV/Beijing Time United
Culture Developing Co.)
In every age
there are celebrated corridors that clearly define the distance between “here”
and “there”, while others connect “past” and “present”. One never knows where
one is enroute unless there’s a reason to start, a reason to stop, or a path is
crossed, intentionally or otherwise.
It was along such
a route, the Internet, that I found Canadian photojournalist Jeff Fuchs. On one
level of reality, he was virtually no farther than three clicks away from my
home in Los Angeles California, at http://www.planetranger.com/vandor, where he
was blogging with a fifth grade class in Ottawa Canada. In another, he was
trekking deep in the Himalayas somewhere on the Chamagudao, (茶马古道),
the Tea Horse Road, an ancient network connecting China to India via Tibet and
Nepal.
The Tea Horse
Road – the “Southern ‘Silk’ Route” -- is actually a two-branched thoroughfare
with manifold tributaries some 2,350 kilometers in all. Its main branches –
Yunnan to Lhasa and the other beginning in Sichuan – had been a major
commercial trade route from the 7th century until 1950s, established
by the Chinese who coveted sturdy Tibetan “war” horses for employment in their
military exploits. In exchange Tibetans coveted tea, especially Pu’er, the
“tribute” tea, which they enjoyed as beverage and for its medicinal purposes.
Along the way other local commodities – salt, sugar and wild-crafted substances
such as medicinal mushrooms, caterpillar casings (supposed to be an
aphrodisiac) were actively traded.
In its Song
Dynasty (960 – 1127 CE) heyday, Tea Horse Road trading posts saw up to 2,000
people a day carrying upwards of 7,500 tons of goods[1].
Unlike in Mongolia, where the “roads” themselves are nomadic, the venerable
paths are well worn into the rocks as well as the current memories of myriad
tribal peoples who have inhabited for generations the lands along the way.
No Westerners had
personally participated in the movement of tea across 78 peaks, two of the
world's highest plateaus and crossing the mighty Mekong (Lancang), Salween
(NuJiang) and Jinsha (Yangzi) rivers that tracked through lush valleys. An experienced
mountaineer in the Himalayas where he enjoyed collecting “mangled yak turd pies
of tea” like others collect fine wine, Fuchs wanted to be the first Westerner
to traverse the route’s entirety, formally only accomplished by legendary
muleteers known as lados.
Fuchs explains
that, unlike Marco Polo’s accounts of his trek along the Silk Route, this story
heretofore has been entirely of Asian recollections. The trek, which began in from his base in
Shangri-la in 2002, took seven months traveling by foot, horse, mules,
automobile and even via airplane, the latter to facilitate quick transition
between legs of the route.
He purposefully
crafted his route out of sequence, by starting in the Tibetan regions, and
thereby came “to appreciate the deeper effects of tea and its relationships
with the isolated peoples of the mountains ... I had a first-hand taste of how
little tea’s influence has diminished. I was able to see how crucial tea was to
so many, and gain an understanding of the reasons for its valued longevity in
lands far removed from the green leaf’s birthplace.” Thereby, Fuchs’ effort
honors those whose lives depended upon the road by making his journey an end in
itself.
His plans were
outlined in the blog:
So much conflicting information on where the actual Yunnan Tea
Horse Road is. There are many old caravan routes, postal routes, immigrant
corridors, but only ONE Tea Horse Route ... some scholars have clarified where
the exact route lies.
This project is dependant upon scholars, elders, legend,
diligence and patience in no particular order, and up until now all has worked
out.
From here [the Shangri-la base] we head deeper south to near
the Laos/Yunnan border regions where the heart of the tea growing region
exists. Traditionally Dai people grew and produced Puer tea for the purpose of
transportation further north and into Tibet.
Later we head to Sichuan for the second major tributary of the
Tea Horse Route, the aptly named "Sichuan Tibet Tea Horse Route".
Here they transported Ya'an tea into Tibet although from what we've been told,
Tibetans loved the Puer from Yunnan far more than the "shallow"
flavoured Ya'an from (yes you guessed it) Ya'an.
The last and final segment will be a half jeep / half trek from
Lhasa to Nepal and into northern India where we will meet with some of the
oldest traders left in Kalimpong.
All is well and I suppose tea has taken over from the mountains
as our guardian.
His generous
online postings prompted real-time queries from his young correspondents in
Canada: Does yak milk tastes gross? Why is juniper oil good for a safe trip?
What is the caterpillar fungus used for? How was the frostbite cured? How did
the people in the small villages respond to your technology (computer)? The
blog compliments his recently published adventure-travel book, The
Ancient Tea Horse Road: Travels with the Last of the Himalayan Muleteers.
The book goes
into details on who and why Fuchs chose his trekking partners from among the
tenacious Kham peoples – Eastern Tibetans – the most experienced mountaineers
who could contribute local languages, had a range of trading and other social
skills, and would provide good natured company while enduring life-threatening
conditions, such as frostbite, bandits, snow-blindness and hunger.
Picking up local
guides along the way proved helpful as the team needed to rely on the
hospitality of small villages along the way as had the caravans for centuries
before them. He relates how truly “civilized” life revolves around sharing of
tea with a stranger, even in the underdeveloped, remote places of human
existence. At every opportunity, the offering of tea was a universal sign of
support for their effort. Fuchs kept a stash of Pu’er in his pocket during the
most remote legs of the journey. Breaking off a piece from the brick and adding
a bit of hot water immediately demonstrated the sincerity of his intentions.
Whenever possible
he sought out meetings with the few venerable remnant tsompos, caravansary leaders, who were pleased to
recount stories of their past and to offer routings and cautions about the
locations and conditions of the paths. Some legs of the journey were local
shortcuts hardly ever used anymore, other were completely covered by chest deep
snow.
These men, the
least of their breed, would be away from their families on the trail for months
at a time in charge of schlepping their employer’s precious cargo with promises
of payment backed by nothing more than gentlemen’s agreements. Their tales of
competition for right-of-way along the single lane paths cut deep into the
mountain bedrock or of “highway” robbers who would stop at nothing to claim a
bit of cargo, are among the last first-hand accounts of a lifestyle long gone.
What information
about the horses is lacking in The Ancient Tea Horse Road: Travels with the
Last of the Himalayan Muleteers, it more than makes up for in discussion about tea. Fuchs’
knowledge of camellia sinensis is extensive and technical, yet his writing provides even the
neophyte tea drinker a close understanding of how tea is grown / harvested and
the manifold ways it is processed, transported and its relative value among
other commodities. His stops in processing plants and ultimately tea shops give
the reader a full understanding of what happens to the leaf from the plant to
palate. Fuchs' wonderful photographs are
unfortunately few in number and poorly reproduced in black / white and color in
the book.
[A wonderful visual companion
is Delamu[2], (Tibetan
for “Peaceful Angel”) a documentary
film by Chinese director Tian Zhuangzhuang. It is very short on dialogue, and long
on self-narrated cameo portraits by some of the people who live in the villages
en route and gorgeous scenery along the Nijiang River Valley. It shows the love
that the lados had for their mules (the film title is the name of one of the
four-legged family members), the treacherous pathways and the need for
extraordinary cooperation to make the route productive for all.]
As the ultimate
tea tourist, Fuchs is sensitive about how tea has sustained cultures and the
people in along the “Road”. Yang Fuquan, writing in the 2004 Newsletter of
the Silk Road Foundation,
concurs, noting “the road also served as a significant corridor for migration
as well as a channel for cultural communication among the ethnic groups in
western China ... beyond this it was a bridge for international cultural and
economic exchange between China and India.”[3]
What’s next for
the Tea Horse Road? According to “New Highways Revitalize Ancient Tea Horse
Roads”[4],
an online article by Jason Rush for the Asian Development Bank, “A new highway
is connecting isolated rural communities with modern commercial corridors, and
fostering new economic links that carry with them the potential to bring the
people along the highway a new level of prosperity.”
In a way, nothing
is new, more cyclical. In a distant echo of news from the first caravans, he
recalls that in Man Mai village, “nestled in the Xishuangbanna region of the
PRC’s Yunnan province, 19-year-old Ha Ge and his family own a field of ancient
tea trees whose roots date back more than a thousand years. The tea from the
trees is a highly valued commodity in PRC, and the family is seeing firsthand
how expanded access to broader markets can change lives. Ha Ge and his
community now can tap into regional markets willing to pay a premium price for
Pu’er tea, bettering their lives in the process.”
The future also
holds great prospects of tea tourism, hopefully sustainable tourism. While
most adventure travel in China remains focused on the “exotic ethnic” peoples
rather than tea, several English language tour operator are including a
reference to the venerable route on their web sites. Dayan in Lijang, a noted
tea site, has undergone such transformation and attracted domestic tourists;
although its popularity is not due to its prominence in the tea trade.
While it is often
compared to the northern “Silk Route”, which has been attracting international
tourism, what is unique about the Tea Horse Route is that it is still very
much, however barely, living history. Any effort to conserve should also sustain, if not
improve, the people who live along its way and the earth which provides their
nourishment.
In Tea and
Tourism: Tourists, Traditions and Transformations, editor Lee Jolliffe not only presents articles that link
the histories tea producing and consuming cultures (Fujian Province, Hangzhou,
Sri Lanka, Kenya and Assam, in the first case, and the UK, Canada and the rest
of China in the second), his colleagues look into the contemporary issues of
how the resurgence of popularity of tea has given remote, underdeveloped
regions a reason to considering investment in developing necessary
infrastructure to establish a lucrative, tea-centric tourism-based enterprise.
In addition to
promoting the route’s romantic exotic peoples, there’s money to be made
welcoming eco-tourists to stalk wild tea bushes, visit plantations, gardens,
processing facilities, markets and auctions. Other visitors – from the tea
hobbyist to Asiaphiles -- can enjoy festivals and seminars, visit historic and
artisan sites, such as pottery studios and enjoy cafes, buy souvenirs, stay in
guest houses, etc.
Contributor Paul
Leung Kin Han suggests that improvement of the roadway and development of
tourism infrastructure might also mitigate rural poverty, especially at the
small-scale village industry level, “facilitate natural environment
preservation and cultural asset conservation” not just in China, but in every
one of the 57 countries where tea is produced as a commodity. Tea tourism in
China is developing among domestic as well as inbound visitors from abroad. A
friend from Yunnan tells me that Taiwanese entrepreneurs are already building
restaurants, cafes and hotels in the tea garden region.
Tea and
Tourism contributor
Hillary Du Cross suggests that the geographic complex of route and people and
commodity might be added to world heritage lists as a “linear cultural
landscape” or an asset of high national significance.
She also cautions
that for the Chinese government to realize the value of the Tea Horse Road’s
tangible and intangible cultural heritage assets of the route, national and
international significance has to be documented.
In addition to
anecdotal information, such as oral history and photographs gathered by Fuchs
and his photojournalist comrades, extensive, accurate, detailed facts must be
and researched and analyzed, whether for a town, a tea making process, a
personality or the route itself, before any claims can be staked and
governmental investments secured.
Fuchs’ book will
not necessarily promote a run on Chinese embassy visa offices by tea-tipplers
or even those with impeccable taste buds. It’s an account of a technical
accomplishment, more of use to someone who has a topo map rather than one from
the rental car company. However, in addressing the challenges to documenting if
not also improving the lives of the current generation of folks who live along
the Tea Horse Road today, time is of the essence. The World Monument Fund has
listed the Sideng Market in the Shazi Valley (between Dali and Lijang) on the
list of the 100 most endangered World Monuments, as the “last intact
‘caravanserai-like’ stopover in China.” Fuchs’ first-hand impressions may be
among the last.
Excerpt
As we slipped
down a Simaon tea alley in the tropical heat, a stern teahouse hostess invited
us into her shop with a forcible hospitality more common to Tibetans than the
Chinese or minority tribes. The alley consisted of neat rows of nearly
identical teahouses that opened onto a walkway. We were in the realm of tea
purism; such alleys were visited by addicts rather than by tourists. The shop
we now found ourselves in was a small tidy room with a tea table that took up a
good quarter of the space. The room smelled of dried tea, and every bit of
space was occupied by bags of tea, stacks of dry tea cakes, a shelf of vintage
tea, loose leaf tea, bricks of tea, and poorly printed photographs of tea
fields. While most teahouse owners engaged themselves with card games or
television, this woman appeared to have deemed herself responsible for
educating the two foreigners in the ways of Puer, and it was her intensity that
drew us in.
In the Simao
Prefecture, tea was not only enjoyed by revered, used in ceremonies and
purchased not by the gram but by the kilogram. Here there was a ritualistic
aspect to tea, in both its preparation and its consumption, whereas in the
Tibetan regions it was a basic ingredient of life, one that nourished and
warmed. But we were far from the rough ways of Tibetan tea etiquette. I tried
to imagine a tall, raw-boned Khampa encased in a chupa – a long wool coat – and pleated hair
sitting next to us, with these delicate ornaments and discussions of
tea-drinking etiquette. Although his meaning of tea might differ, its importance
and value would be the same. ...
Simao had been a
centre of tea cultivation for thousands of years, and Simao’s tea had been
making its way to Tibet for more than thirteen hundred years. Even in china,
tea purists referred to the area as the home of tea. Simao’s climate and
altitude is perfect for growing that oddly named and most unusual of teas,
Puer. Tea, its production, its culture and particularly its consumption were
all of the utmost importance in Simao. First consumed as a medicine and as a food,
tea was originally referred to as tu, meaning bitter herb, before becoming known from the eighth
century onward as cha – tea.
It has always been integral to the lives and diets of Yunnan’s ancient
Tibeto-Burman lives. (p. 150-1)
Ya’an, the beginning of the
Sichuan-Tibet Tea Horse Road ... had once been the home to horse markets and
the dreaded ax officials. Whereas the deep south of Yunnan had been largely in
the hands of the ethnic minorities, Ya’an has always been a Chinese stronghold.
Simao and Puer in Yunnan were the
southern-most points visited by lados; Ya’an was the most easterly. ...
Teas from Ya’an were readily
available in Lhasa, sold in their recognizable long woven bamboo containers,
though the tea themselves were completely different in shape, colour and type
from the Yunnan Puers. They had long been imbibed not only in Tibet but in all
the frontier regions for as long as the caravans had been carrying tea. We were
in the land that became the largest producer of teas for Tibet, home to the “Celestial” green
tea of Mengshan and of the famous bian cha, the frontier / borderland tea. It was also an area
where the local governments held a monopoly on the export of tea, controlling
the completely the production and trade of the green. ...
The porters carried much of
the tea, piled high on their backs, treading along the mountain paths that led
from the tea towns around Ya’an to the main markets of Kangding (Dartsendo to
Tibetans). Many died tumbling off cliffs, tied to their tea. Merciless treks in
bamboo sandals, carrying hundred-kilogram loads of tea for weeks on end – the
porters’ stories were the stuff of legends. And like the lados, there were
fewer and fewer porters still living. (p.184, 185)
[1] http://www.chinaexpat.com/article/2007/04/11/history/ancient-tea-horse-road.html
[2] A BDI Films/Japan
Broadcasting Corp. (NHK)/Kuming Datongdao Film and TV/Beijing Time United
Culture Developing Co. presentation of a BDI/Beijing Time United Culture
Developing Co. production. Produced by Takahiro Hamano, Yang Zhao. Executive
producers, Lui Zhao, Hao Li, Toyohiko Harada. Co-executive producer, Nobuo
Isobe. Directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang.
[3] Fuquan, Yang, “The ‘Ancient
Tea and Horse Caravan Road,’ the ‘Silk Road’ of southwest China”
http//www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/2004vol2lnum1/tea.htm
[4] http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2008/12430-mekong-roads-developments/
Also on that site is the fast action video, Closing the Gap: Highway 3 Kunming to Bangkok http://mms.adb.org/Media/Video/GMS/gms-route3.wmv/, and slide show, Revitalizing the Tea Horse Road http://www.adb.org/Documents/Photos/GMS/Tea-Horse-Road, both worth watching.
