Chapter 72 Tea Houses in Yangzhou

Revisiting the Slender West Lake, I found a newly opened tea house called Yangzhou Slow, and I subconsciously slowed down.It seems that if I don't, I'm sorry for this nice name.I don't have much research on calligraphy, and I can't identify which big name inscribed the plaque, but the tea fragrance wafting from it is very tempting.I thought, no matter how tight the travel schedule is, I might as well go in and sit for a while.Perhaps because of this, we can recognize another Yangzhou.An ancient and leisurely Yangzhou beyond the neon lights, billboards and electronic watches. Yangzhou is slow, which is a poem that existed in the Song Dynasty.Jiang Kui once wrote: "The famous capital of Huaizuo, the best place in Zhuxi, Xie An Shao stationed at the beginning of the journey. After ten miles of spring breeze, the shepherd's wheat is green..." The poets licked with their gentle tongues, as if they wanted to swallow a piece of sugar in their mouths. However, to this day, it is still sweet.Yangzhou in Tang poems, Song lyrics, Yuan operas, and even Ming and Qing novels are too thick to dissolve.

Sitting on a wicker chair, beating your sore legs and making a pot of tea, Yangzhou really slowed down.Floating on the surface of the water, it appears a green color like a rejuvenated child.The noise and air pollution unique to modern cities are far away. This tea house with an antique building, from the decoration of the hall to the dress of the waiters, is full of nostalgia.The music played on the old-fashioned phonograph was "Blessed Lovers", which immediately tied my heart.It seems that there are two invisible butterflies, accompanied by my nap, shaking their wet wings in the mist.I, who came from the excursion, let out a long sigh: I have finally returned to Jiangnan.

Open the carved wooden window, and the water scenery is picturesque: there are no fast boats on the Slender West Lake, only small boats (commonly known as "melon skin boats"), which are rowing slowly.Boaters, and boaters, are in no hurry.I know that in the 1930s, Yangzhou's boat girls were very famous: "Hongqiao turned north to Changchun Lake, or Slender West Lake. Painting boats and singing songs were prosperous in the past. When the situation changed, personnel moved accordingly. Fishermen around the lake used to The melon skin boat carries passengers, the setting sun and the bright moon, the shadow of the clouds and the shimmering light, with one or two people in rough clothes with messy hair in between. Huh!" (Quoted from "Preface to Poems on a Small Tour Boat") It used to be a feature of this place to use women to row boats and receive tourists.Fishermen will not be reckless in pole-pulling, and they do business very carefully: when you are invited to sit in the cabin, you will always make a pot of tea and bring out snacks such as melon seeds for you to enjoy along the way.I think, sitting on a light boat, watching the scenery while drinking tea, and chatting with the beautiful boat lady by the way—Yangzhou will appear slower and more beautiful.But now, there are only boatmen on the Slender West Lake but no boatmen, and there is even a lack of high-quality services such as making tea and water, and asking about your health.Of course, it can also be said that there are fewer and fewer tourists who really have leisure time.Most people's footsteps are in a hurry.Regardless of whether you are on a cruise, tasting tea or looking at the scenery, you need people to be able to slow down, have a desire to be slow and have a feeling of being slow.But in reality, slow is harder than fast.

The so-called tea ceremony is a slow art in my eyes.It has a set of very complicated procedures: boiling water, rinsing tea sets, brewing tea leaves, even smelling, viewing, and tasting.If you omit any of them in order to save trouble or seek quickness, you will destroy its complete beauty.That's not even the most important thing.The point is, if you destroy your mood first, how can you seek beauty and enlightenment?Impatient people and those who pursue utilitarianism are destined to miss the tea ceremony. From this point of view, Yangzhou is indeed a city that is quite consistent with the spirit of the tea ceremony.Yangzhou does not like to compete for the upper reaches. What Yangzhou pursues is not speed but slowness, which more or less gives people the feeling of being outdated.Yangzhou's "slowness" even became a ci brand in the Song Dynasty, and it should be said to be relatively classic.The character of the city may affect the character of the residents. Yangzhou people generally like to make teahouses, like to make tea over and over again to pass the time, and like to live a leisurely life.There is a saying that is specially used to describe Yangzhou people: "Water wrapped in water in the morning, water wrapped in water in the evening." With a few strokes, a most vivid caricature is drawn for Yangzhou people.Making teahouses and bathhouses seems to be the two most important things for Yangzhou people in a day.If you know Yangzhou people (especially those from the old days), you will feel that it is not an exaggeration.Yangzhou people are idle in their bones, not ashamed of slowness, but fully enjoy the fun of slowness.If compared with the lifestyle of Yangzhou people, people in other places will feel that their life is too tired, too hasty, or to put it more bluntly: simply living in vain.

No wonder Slender West Lake is always so thin!The lake water is used by Yangzhou people to make tea and bathe.People in Yangzhou rely on water for nourishment throughout their lives.This is quite similar to the properties of fish. It's no wonder that Lin Daiyu in the movie looks so watery, she grew up in Yangzhou.When she arrived in the dry Beijing, she was not acclimatized to the climate, and died at a young age. Zhu Ziqing is from Yangzhou. He said that Yangzhou is famous for its teahouses, which are always full in the morning and afternoon. "The area outside the north gate is called Xiajie. There are the most teahouses, often facing the river. When the boat passes by, tea drinkers and passengers can greet and talk casually. If people on board are happy, they can also ask for a pot of tea or a small tea or two from the teahouse. Drinking, eating, and talking in the river. When you come back, you will hand over the teapot and the so-called small cages, including the price, to the people in the teahouse.” He felt that the Yangzhou teahouse not only had a good location and picturesque scenery, but also It took a lot of effort to name them, such as Xiangying Gallery, Luyang Village, and Hongye Mountain Villa, which people can still remember after many years.In particular, the guise of Lvyang Village is hung on the Lvyang trees, floating with the wind, reviving the poetic flavor of "Lvyang City is Yangzhou", and there are small ponds, bamboo clusters, and thatched pavilions inside, which are extraordinarily quiet.Zhu Ziqing spoke highly of the teahouses in Yangzhou: "The teahouses in this area are well-arranged, and they are by no means comparable to the square teahouses in Shanghai and Beiping."

Twenty-four bridges are twenty-four hours in a day.The pendulum had come, but had not yet swung.The birds are on their way.In order to listen to the distant storytelling, I subconsciously stood on tiptoe.The sun is still lingering... It seems that I was right to stay in this Yangzhou slow tea house for a while: if you don’t go to the teahouse, you have never been to Yangzhou.In other words, only by sitting in a teahouse can you see the real Yangzhou and experience the unique slowness of Yangzhou. Looking around, the rest of the customers are sipping tea, talking to each other or thinking to themselves.I guess they are all locals, right?According to Mr. Hong Weifa, Yangzhou is a place for idlers, and the real tea drinkers must be idlers, who disdain to discuss business in teahouses: "In the past, the prosperity was combined with the old way of enjoying, soliciting songs and singing voices, and playing moon chants. So far, all that can be left to Yangzhou people is a leisurely attitude. It seems that there are still many people who maintain a common outlook on life, that is, in terms of diet, they only want a little comfort, and in terms of career, But they don’t necessarily try to make progress. Among these many people, there are some idlers who go to teahouses all day long, but do nothing all year round.” Those who are keen on “bag water in the morning” not only go to teahouses in the morning, but also go to teahouses in the afternoon: "I arrive at the tea house at about nine o'clock in the morning, and I will sit until eleven o'clock before leaving. After three o'clock in the afternoon, I go to the tea house again, and wait until the dusk is dark. Then Shi Shi, who is a car, leaves at leisure. Regardless of the cold and heat, and regardless of the rain or shine In addition to sleep, almost half of the time in the four seasons of the year is spent in the tea house." Of course, what he described was Yangzhou more than half a century ago.Are there still idlers in Yangzhou today?Even if there are, the number is greatly reduced, right?After all, the whole society is fast-paced, and idlers will feel double the pressure.Unless he loves slowness in his bones and insists on slowness.Slow, in fact, is competing with fast.Hot tea still needs to be drunk slowly. The so-called idlers treat life with the attitude of "slow work and meticulous work", and only want to live a more delicate and nourishing life.

Fortunately, teahouses still exist in the streets and alleys, providing the last stand for the increasingly lonely idlers.Yangzhou's slowness will not be lost.The tea ceremony in Yangzhou will not be lost.Yangzhou, which is half a beat behind the times, dozed off in the teahouse.I don't know what night it is. Sitting in the Yangzhou Slow Tea House, I seem to have accepted some kind of psychological hint: Slow down, slow down... In a daze, it seems to have returned to the distant Fuchun Tea House: "This Fuchun is not only dim sum in the eyes of Yangzhou people. Well, the tea is good, and the table is clean. The tea is a blend of Longjing, Zhulan, and Kuizhen. Longjing takes its color, Zhulan takes its fragrance, and Kuizhen takes its taste. A cup of tea can have all the colors and aromas. Is this not enough to be praised? As for the table, the ones in teahouses are generally greasy, but this in Fuchun can reassure the tea drinkers. Even if the white sleeves are pressed on the table for a long time, they will not be stained .Because every table there has to be scraped and polished every day.” (Hong speaks in French) In this bright and clean environment, I couldn’t help but want to stay a little longer.So I ordered another pot of Longjing.How interesting it is to drink Longjing tea from the West Lake by the Slender West Lake.Just think of it as "stealing half a day's leisure in a floating life".It can be regarded as a "fake" idler in Yangzhou.

The West Lake for weight loss, the thin West Lake is not in Hangzhou, but in Yangzhou.In spring, it is easy for me to make some misunderstandings: I think Hangzhou has changed, I think West Lake is sick—or I think I am another person.Fortunately, the moon also began to go on a diet, trying to maintain a girlish figure.This evening, it is thinner than paper, pasted in the window of the inn.Slender West Lake is not alone.The poet also has no signs of getting fat, and the poet can only feel the feeling of his belt getting wider.At this end of the Twenty-Fourth Bridge, I tightened my shoelaces, as if to better tie myself.Yes, the wind is too strong (but I am not willing to be blown away by the wind).Yes, I'm in a bit of a trance.Yangzhou, here I come again.I'm thinner than Slender West Lake...

A pot of Longjing made me a poet, which gave rise to the above associations.Well, in the teahouse in Yangzhou, I had the desire to write poetry again.Writing poetry is the same as tasting tea, it needs to be slow and deliberate.The birth of a dream needs to be cared for slowly, because it is fragile and must be handled with care. Du Mu said it well: Dreaming of Yangzhou once every ten years.A perfect dream can last for ten years, one hundred years or even one thousand years, which shows the greatness of Yangzhou.Yangzhou, you have great slowness, unchanging slowness.You are great because you are slow and unchanging.

Is there any place slower than Yangzhou? I gradually fell in love with the slowness of Yangzhou.The slower the place, the more memorable it is.Even forgetting will become very slow, very slow...