[Anthropgrad] REMINDER: RMAP Seminar on Puer Tea - Thursday 6 November

[Andrew Walker]

RMAP Postgraduate Seminar
 

Jinghong ZHANG, PhD Candidate, RMAP

 

12.30 - 2.00 pm. Thursday, November 6th 2008

Seminar Room C, Coombs Building

 

The Jianghu of Puer Tea: Socializing in a Chinese Teahouse

 

This post-fieldwork seminar is based on a PhD research program which looks at how Puer tea, a type of Chinese tea originating in Yunnan, is 'packaged' by multiple actors into a fashionable drink in contemporary China. The seminar is based on one chapter of the thesis. It provides an ethnography of a tea party held last year in Kunming, China, by focusing on the socializing between participants in the teahouse. In addition to considering anthropological theories on food and taste, as well as the Chinese concern with tea, the paper argues that it is the interaction between people that tells most about the taste of a cup of tea. The Chinese concept Jianghu (??) is borrowed from kung fu novels and movies to shed light on the social context in which various cultural distinctions meet, interact and contest. A short film will be screened to show some scenes from the tea party. 
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