Jardin chinois

 Photo prise au au Jardin botanique de Montréal, dans le jardin chinois. Je partage rien que parce que c'est pas mal notre section préférée, à ma femme et moi.

Mysterious Chinese Dragon

 Last weekend, when we went to the school camping activity with Wolfie, I saw this thing floating on top of a pole. And I was wondering what the heck was that. I mean I could tell it was a dragon, and a Chinese dragon at that, but still, I was not sure. So I took a picture and checked online. A quick Google Image search made me discover that it was a Traditional Chinese Fire Dragon Windsock. Well, I got the Chinese dragon part right. But what it was doing there, why it was there and who had the idea to bring a Chinese dragon on a camping site, I have no idea. It remains a complete mystery. All the same, it looks kinda cool.

Yuenyeung: coffee with tea

 Oh the things you find sometimes just browsing the internet because a trivial question pops into your head. It happened to me recently: I was wondering if there was any people that drank tea with coffee, I mean together, in the same cup. I was wondering if it was a thing or just some abomination that existed in my twisted, imaginative mind. Well, a quick Google search made me discover that it is actually a real thing: it's called yuenyeung, as in ying and yang. Apparently, it originates from Hong Kong, where it is popular. I love tea, but loathe coffee, so for me this sounds like the stuff of nightmare, a Frankenstein's Monster of a drink, a brewing mutation. I'm not sure I would dare to try it, even out of curiosity. Be that as it may, yuenyueng is the word of the day.

A Dragon in a Teacup

I know I am very late in the news, but I wanted to share this image taken from the Facebook page of David's Tea. It was publishedduring the Chinese new year. Even though it is most likely AI generated, I found it so cool that I wanted to share it here. If there is one thing I love about Chinese culture, is that they brought us tea. Like the proper stuff, strong yet delicate. That and their dragons. And there is actually some association with Chinese dragons and tea, read this post from 2016 to know more about it. So yes, I love this image.

Jardin chinois

Photo prise dans l'Isle of Wight, dans le parc de Robin Hill. Parmi toutes leurs attractions, ils ont un jardin chinois. Nous avions vraiment l'impression d'entrer dans un autre pays, même si je ne crois pas que ce soit vraiment authentique (je me trompe peut-être). Mais authentiques ou non, je trouve les jardins orientaux en général assez calmants et toujours très plaisants à voir. Ils ont le sens de l'esthétique.

Questions about pu'er tea

A few months ago, I watched The Night Agent. It was all right and entertaining enough, if a bit light and derivative. But it got me curious about something. You see, one of the characters drinks pu'er tea. Its virtues are discussed briefly, apparently it keeps one's awake and alert or something. I have seen pu'er, or pu-her, or p'u-erh tea in various businesses, but I don't remember ever trying it. Its mention in the Netflix series got me curious, so I have a few questions, which I have decided to ask on this blog:

-Are there anyone among you, my dear readers, who drink pu'er tea?

-How does it taste?

-What are its virtues? Not the alleged ones, the ones you have experienced, if any.

-Is there a proper way to prepare it and drink it?

-Finally, what's the correct spelling? Pu'er, pu-her, p'u-her tea, or something else entirely?

 Well, that's it for me tonight.

"La première neige est tombée..."

Parce qu'il neige au Québec:

Jade Owl

I found this picture in the Facebook page of the British Museum. It is a pendant, probably reprensint an owl, made of jade. You can read more about it here. As I child, for some reason, I always thought jade was both exotic and mysterious, even though I never learned all that much about it. Be that as it may, this pendant caught my eyes: I love owls and I love jade. So I find it quite classy.

Matcha Matsu and Me

Many businesses celebrated the Chinese New Year recently on social, including David's Tea. They associated each sign of the Chinese Zodiac, so I learned on their Facebook page that as a serpent, I should celebrate with Matcha Matsu. And... Well, I don't know. I generally drink black tea, but I do enjoy some green tea from time to time. It's meant to be very healthy. It looks and sounds very exotic, according to its description.

The Year of the Tiger

I found this picture in the Facebook page of the British Museum. It was shared to celebrate online the Chinese New Year. It's a tiger shaped bronze and thus fitting for this Year of the Tiger. More details about it here. I really want to go back to the British Museum. And I love tigers, so maybe this Chinese year will be good for me.

Jade teapot

I found this picture in the Facebook page of the British Museum. It is not an antique, it was actually made in 2017, by Chinese artist Yu Ting. It's on display in Room 33b, for those wishing to visit the place. I know I do. I wanted to share this picture because I love tea and because this got me thinking about something. Say what you will about the Chinese, and people in the Far East in general, but they sure know how to make and prepare tea. They turn it into an art. This teapot is a prime example of it. And I have a rhetorical question about this: who in his right mind, except a raving maniac, would spoil such delicate work by throwing a splotch of milk in it?

Mon filleul veut voyager

J'ai appris une nouvelle de la mère de mon filleul récemment: il ramasse de l'argent pour faire un voyage d'un an après son cégep. Il veut aller en... Chine. J'espérais un peu qu'il vienne ici, même si on ne peut pas vraiment l'héberger, en tout cas pas pour longtemps. Dans tous les cas, ça m'a fait un choc de voir qu'il grandit et qu'il a des idées de voyage. Il est très sérieux et discipliné dans sa démarche, paraît-il.

Le Roi des singes

Ce sera bientôt le nouvel an chinois, que je ne célèbre pas, mais ça m'a fait penser que j'ai acheté un livre à Montréal que je n'ai pas encore rapatrié (expatrié?) ici: Le Roi des singes. C'est une adaptation de La Pérégrination vers l'Ouest, une légende chinoise que je connais depuis des années et qui m'a toujours fasciné. Il me semble que ce serait le bon temps pour le lire, même si ma liste de lecture est déjà assez chargée et que je lis lentement cette année. Je voudrais quand même connaître la légende plus en détails.

Chinese Dragon

I took this picture in our friend's home in Derbyshire. I don't know if they got it in China. They have lots of stuff they bought in the different places in the world they have visited (they are quite wealthy), so it is possible. I really loved it, so I took a picture, just for the heck of it.

Serendipi-Tea

During her last visit to our place two days ago, looking at the amount and range of various teas I had, Blonde Tickler said that I was tea obsessed. She may be right. I am not a connoisseur, but tea is my favourite non alcoholic drink and I like trying new things. Having read good things about green tea and its health benefits, I bought a pack of China Jasmine Green Tea from Serendipity Infusions. It was good, but not as much as their black tea from Vietnam I tried recently and which is now the favourite I have at home. I guess green tea is an acquired taste that I need to develop. So I will drink more of it. On a side note, I think the company should really have called themselves Serendipitea.

Hou Yi and the Ten Suns

I took this picture from Dragons, Gods & Spirits from Chinese Mythology. This is Hou Yi, one of the few legendary Chinese heroes I know and one of the few I liked. This illustrates the story of his mission to free the earth from the ten suns that were turning it into a oven. He had to shoot down nine of them with his arrows, then to fight the monsters which were roaming the earth due to the heatwave. You can read one version of the story here. In a way, Yi is like the Chinese version of Herakles.  Don't know why I blog about him today, maybe because I don't like heat and long days, so Hou Yi is my kind of hero. Maybe because this image is beautiful and elegant yet has a subdued violence. Yi is killing the suns there. And maybe because I am about to finish reading the book and wanted to share one of its lush images that bring the stories to life.

Lapsang souchong, thé pénible

Le titre est un calembour atroce ("t'es pénible"), mais ce billet est plutôt dans la catégorie des choses que j'ai essayé d'aimer, sans succès. J'aime le thé, j'en aime bien des sortes, mais le Lapsang souchong, je ne suis pas capable. Il est peut-être meilleur en Chine, je sais pas, mais peu importe la marque, ceux que j'ai bus ont un goût de bois brûlé encore fumant bien trop prononcé. Le Lapsang souchong a la réputation d'avoir une saveur fumée, mais c'est vraiment plus du bois brûlé, la fumée c'est en plus. Je trouve donc malheureusement que c'est un thé pénible et ça m'attriste beaucoup de l'admettre.

Histoire de singes

Photo prise à Branféré, car elle sert mon propos. Je sais, c'est une excuse comme une autre. Mais enfin bref, je me suis rappelé récemment que j'ai acheté à Montréal un livre usagé qui raconte une version pour enfants de La Pérégrination vers l'Ouest. Il va me falloir remettre la main dessus et avant mon prochain retour au pays, qui risque d'être tard. Je l'ai acheté un peu comme cadeau à petit loup qui était alors encore dans le ventre de sa maman, un peu pour le plaisir de le lire moi-même. Je vais donc demander au prochain membre de ma famille qui vient me rendre visite de me l'amener.

Mon Nouvel An chinois

C'était le Nouvel An chinois hier. J'aurais oublié, si ce n'était de deux détails: j'ai été informé par les notifications sur Facebook (pas que j'aie beaucoup d'amis chinois, mais j'en ai un ou deux et d'autres qui aiment la culture chinoise) et il y avait des feux d'artifice hier. Apparemment, m'a dit ma femme qui suit les nouvelles locales, les feux d'artifice étaient pour célébrer le Nouvel An chinois. C'est assez approprié, les feux d'artifice venant de Chine, si je ne me trompe pas. Il s'est résumé à ça pour moi, les feux d'artifice. Comme ce temps-ci de l'année est monotone, c'était bienvenue.

A fancy tea set

I saw this at the window of the local Italian shop, of all places. It is a fancy tea set from China or Japan or elsewhere in the Far East, I have no idea. And I was in a rush when I took the picture so I did not take time to ask the shopkeeper where it was from. Or its price. All the same, I love it. From Italy to the East, I felt like a modern Marco Polo just looking at it. I would love to have such a tea set, because I love the idea of tea drinking rituals (see my post here) using posh tea cups. And don't get me wrong: I am a borderline Philistine when it comes to tea. I would just like to be a bit sophisticated drinking it from time to time.