The Cup of Humanity

El té began as una medicina and grew into una bebida. In China, in the eighth century, entró en el mundo de la poesía as one of the polite pleasures. En el siglo quince, Japón lo convirtió en una religión de la belleza — Teaism. El teísmo es un culto built on the worship of lo bello among the ugly facts of la vida diaria. It teaches la pureza y la armonía, el misterio de la bondad between people, el romance del orden social. Above all it is a worship of the Imperfect: un intento tierno to do something possible inside this impossible thing we call la vida.

La filosofía del té is not simply beauty in the ordinary sense of the word. Together with la ética y la religión, it expresses our whole view of el hombre y la naturaleza. Es higiene, porque exige limpieza. It is economics, because it shows that comfort lives in la simplicidad and not in lo complicado y lo caro. Es geometría moral, porque fija nuestro sentido de la proporción ante el universo. And it shows el espíritu verdadero de la democracia de Oriente, because it makes everyone who follows it un aristócrata in taste.

Japan's long isolation from the rest of el mundo turned us inward, and eso ha sido muy bueno para el crecimiento del teísmo. Nuestras casas y nuestras costumbres, nuestra ropa y nuestra comida, la porcelana, la laca, la pintura — even nuestros libros — have all been shaped by it. Ningún estudiante de la cultura japonesa puede ignorarlo. It has reached into las salas elegantes de la nobleza, and it has entered las casas de los pobres. Our farmers have learned a arreglar las flores, and our poorest labourer saluda a las rocas y al agua. In ordinary speech we say that un hombre has “no tea” in him when he cannot feel the half-serious, half-comic side of a personal drama. And when un amante salvaje de la belleza ignores las tragedias reales del mundo and runs riot in una primavera de emoción suelta, we insult him the other way: we say he has “too much tea” in him.

An outsider may well wonder what all this fuss is about. “¡Qué tormenta en una taza de té!” he will say. But think how small la taza de la alegría humana really is, con qué rapidez se llena de lágrimas, con qué facilidad se vacía by nuestra sed sin fin for the infinite. Then you will not blame us for making so much of la taza de té. Los hombres han hecho cosas peores. In la adoración de Baco we have sacrificed far too freely, and we have even made the bloody figure of Mars beautiful. ¿Por qué no entregarnos a la reina de las Camelias? Why not enjoy la corriente cálida de simpatía que sale de su altar? In the liquid amber inside la porcelana de marfil, los iniciados may touch la dulce reserva de Confucio, la agudeza de Laotse, and the airy scent of Sakyamuni himself.

Los que no pueden sentir la pequeñez de las cosas grandes en sí mismos suelen pasar por alto la grandeza de las cosas pequeñas en los demás. El hombre medio de Occidente, smug and comfortable, sees in la ceremonia del té only one more of las mil y una rarezas that make Oriente look quaint and childish to him. Llamaba bárbaro a Japón while she practised las artes suaves de la paz; la llama civilizada now that she has begun killing on a huge scale on los campos de batalla of Manchuria. Lately there has been a great deal of comment on the Code of the Samurai — the Art of Death, el arte de la muerte, which makes nuestros soldados glory in dying. Almost nothing has been said about Teaism, which holds so much of our Art of Life, el arte de la vida. Preferimos seguir siendo bárbaros, if being civilised has to rest on la gloria horrible de la guerra. Esperaremos: we will wait until our art and our ideals are given the respect they deserve.

¿Cuándo entenderá Occidente a Oriente, o cuándo intentará entenderlo? Los asiáticos nos horrorizamos ante la extraña red of facts and fantasies that has been woven about us. We are pictured as living on el perfume de la flor de loto, if not on mice and cockroaches. O somos fanáticos sin fuerza, o amantes sin vergüenza del placer. La espiritualidad de la India has been laughed at as ignorance, la calma de China as stupidity, el patriotismo de Japón as the product of fatalism. It has even been said that we feel pain and wounds less than you do — que el dolor nos toca menos, because our nerves are duller!

Why not amuse yourselves at our expense? Oriente devuelve el cumplido. There would be even more to laugh at if you knew everything que hemos imaginado y escrito sobre vosotros en nuestros libros. Está todo ahí: el encanto que da la distancia, el respeto inconsciente que trae el asombro, el resentimiento callado of anything new and undefined. Os hemos dado virtudes demasiado finas para envidiarlas, and accused you of unos crímenes demasiado pintorescos para condenarlos. Nuestros escritores in the past — los hombres sabios, the ones who knew — told us that you had colas peludas escondidas en la ropa, and that you often dined on un guiso de niños recién nacidos. And we held something worse against you: we used to think los hombres de Occidente the most impractical people on la tierra, because you were said to preach what you never practised.

Such mistaken ideas are dying out fast among us. El comercio ha impuesto las lenguas europeas en los puertos de Oriente. Los jóvenes de Asia acuden en masa a las universidades de Occidente for una educación moderna. Our insight does not go deep into vuestra cultura, but at least queremos aprender. Some of my countrymen han tomado demasiado de vuestras costumbres y demasiado de vuestra etiqueta, under the illusion that stiff collars and tall silk hats were what vuestra civilización amounted to. Such affectations are sad and rather pitiful, but they do show that estamos dispuestos a acercarnos a Occidente de rodillas. Unfortunately la actitud de Occidente no ayuda a nadie a entender Oriente. El misionero cristiano viene a dar, no a recibir. What you know of us rests on traducciones pobres de nuestros libros, and there are thousands of them; when it does not rest on that, it rests on las historias poco fiables de los viajeros who pass through. It is rare that a generous pen like that of Lafcadio Hearn, or that of the author of “The Web of Indian Life,” lights up la oscuridad de Oriente with la antorcha de nuestros propios sentimientos.

Perhaps I show mi ignorancia of the Tea Cult by speaking so plainly. La cortesía del culto del té exige que digas lo que se espera de ti, y nada más. But I am not going to be un teísta cortés. So much harm has already been done by the misunderstanding between el Mundo Nuevo and el Viejo that nobody need apologise for adding his small share to un entendimiento mejor. The beginning of el siglo veinte would have been spared the sight of una guerra de sangre, if Russia had lowered herself to know Japan better. ¡Qué consecuencias tan graves para los hombres trae el desprecio de los problemas de Oriente! El imperialismo europeo, which is not ashamed to raise el grito absurdo del Peligro Amarillo, does not see que Asia también puede despertar a la verdad cruel del Desastre Blanco. You may laugh at us for having “too much tea,” but may we not suspect that you of Occidente have “no tea” in you at all?

Dejemos que los dos continentes dejen de lanzarse insultos ingeniosos. Let us be sadder, if not wiser, for what each half of el mundo can gain from la otra mitad. Hemos crecido por caminos distintos, but there is no reason why one should not complete the other. Occidente ha ganado expansión al precio de la inquietud; Oriente ha creado una armonía that is weak against attack. Will you believe it? En algunos aspectos, Oriente está mejor que Occidente.

Strangely enough, los hombres se han encontrado hasta ahora en la taza de té. Es la única ceremonia de Oriente que se respeta en todas partes. El hombre blanco has mocked nuestra religión y nuestra moral, but he has accepted la bebida marrón without a moment's hesitation. El té de la tarde is now an important event in la sociedad de Occidente. In el ruido delicado de las bandejas, in the soft rustle of a hostess offering her welcome, in las preguntas de siempre about cream and sugar, we can see that the Worship of Tea, el culto del té, is established beyond doubt. And when a guest submits, calmly and philosophically, to whatever fate is waiting for him in that doubtful brew, it proves that in this one case el espíritu de Oriente reina por completo.

The earliest mention of el té in los libros de Europa is said to come from un viajero árabe. He reported that after the year 879 Canton took most of su dinero from los impuestos sobre la sal y el té. Marco Polo records that el ministro de finanzas of China was removed from office in 1285 for raising los impuestos del té as he pleased. It was in the age of los grandes viajes of discovery that los europeos began to learn more about the far end of Oriente. At the end of el siglo dieciséis the Dutch brought back the news that una bebida agradable was made in the East from las hojas de un arbusto. Los viajeros Giovanni Batista Ramusio (1559), L. Almeida (1576), Maffeno (1588) and Tareira (1610) also mentioned el té. In that last year, los barcos of the Dutch East India Company carried el primer té into Europe. Se conoció en Francia en 1636 y llegó a Rusia en 1638. England welcomed it in 1650 and spoke of it as “That excellent and by all physicians approved China drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, and by other nations Tay, alias Tee.”

Like every good thing in el mundo, el evangelio del té met with opposition. Heretics like Henry Saville (1678) attacked the drinking of it as una costumbre sucia. Jonas Hanway (Essay on Tea, 1756) said that los hombres seemed to lose su altura y su buen aspecto through tea, and women their beauty. At the start el precio — about fifteen or sixteen shillings a pound — put it out of ordinary reach and made it “regalia for high treatments and entertainments, presents being made thereof to princes and grandees.” Even so, el té se extendió muy deprisa, at an astonishing speed. In the first half of el siglo dieciocho the coffee-houses of London became, in fact, casas de té, the haunt of wits like Addison and Steele, who passed the time over their “dish of tea.” La bebida pronto se convirtió en una necesidad de la vida — and therefore something to tax. It is worth remembering here how large a part it plays in la historia moderna. Colonial America put up with oppression until la paciencia of ordinary men broke under los impuestos pesados laid on el té. La independencia de América dates from the throwing of las cajas de té into Boston harbour.

There is a subtle charm in el sabor del té, and it makes la bebida irresistible and easy to turn into un ideal. Los humoristas de Occidente were quick to mix la fragancia de su pensamiento con su aroma. No tiene la arrogancia del vino, ni la vanidad del café, ni la inocencia tonta del cacao. As early as 1711 el periódico called the Spectator says: “I would therefore in a particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families that set apart an hour every morning for tea, bread and butter; and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up and to be looked upon as a part of the tea-equipage.” Tea, bread and butter, and the morning paper: la vida tranquila de una familia ordenada. Samuel Johnson paints su propio retrato as “a hardened and shameless tea drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of the fascinating plant; who with tea amused the evening, with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning.”

Charles Lamb, un devoto declarado, struck the true note of Teaism when he wrote that el mayor placer que conocía era hacer una buena acción en secreto y que se descubriera por accidente. Porque el teísmo es el arte de esconder la belleza para que la descubras, de sugerir lo que no te atreves a decir. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly but completely, and so it is humour itself — the smile of philosophy, la sonrisa de la filosofía. In that sense every genuine humourist may be called un filósofo del té: Thackeray, for instance, and of course Shakespeare. Los poetas de la Decadencia — and when was el mundo not in decadence? — have also opened the way to Teaism a little, with sus protestas contra el materialismo. Perhaps today it is in nuestra contemplación tranquila de lo Imperfecto that Occidente y Oriente pueden encontrarse y consolarse.

Los taoístas tell us that at the great beginning of the No-Beginning, el Espíritu y la Materia se enfrentaron en un combate a muerte. Al fin, el Emperador Amarillo, el sol del cielo, venció a Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and earth. The Titan, dying, struck his head against la bóveda del cielo and shattered la cúpula azul de jade into pieces. Las estrellas perdieron sus nidos, y la luna vagó sin rumbo entre los huecos salvajes de la noche. In despair el Emperador Amarillo searched far and wide for someone who could repair el cielo. He did not search in vain. Del mar del este salió una reina, the divine Niuka, crowned with horns and tailed like a dragon, brillando en su armadura de fuego. She welded the five-coloured rainbow in her magic cauldron and rebuilt el cielo of China. But it is said that Niuka olvidó llenar dos grietas pequeñas in the blue heaven. So began el dualismo del amor — dos almas rolling through space, never at rest until they join together and complete el universo. Cada uno de nosotros tiene que construir de nuevo su propio cielo de esperanza y paz.