The Dar es Salaam-based China Cultural Centre intends to promote Chinese tea culture in Tanzania through its online media platforms.
The initiative to promote Chinese tea culture around the world, called “Tea for Harmony – Yaji Cultural Salon,”was organised by China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The ‘Tea for Harmony Yaji Cultural Salon’, the International Tea Day took place on May 21, 2023.
“Having originated in China, such tea is not only a medium for the Chinese belief in the harmony between human and nature, but also an important bond connecting China and the rest of the world,” said Wang Siping, the Cultural Counsellor of the China Embassy in Tanzania and Director of the China Cultural Centre in Tanzania while addressing journalists about the issue at China Cultural Centre, recently.
Mr Siping said the millennia-old tea culture gained renewed worldwide attention with the inscription of the traditional tea processing techniques and associated social practices in China onto the representative list of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
As its name indicates, Yaji literally means a gathering of elegance that was a common way for the ancient Chinese literati to enjoy their cultural life collectively.
“During meeting, the participants would recite poetry and appreciate tea, paintings, flowers, incense and Guqin (a traditional Chinese zither) music, in pursuit of elegance, artistic sensibility and moral nobility,” said Mr Siping.
He said that giving some tea plays a greater role in enhancing friendly dialogue and mutual learning between civilisations.
The worldwide event was organised by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, in cooperation with international organisations and Chinese embassies, consulates and missions abroad and by means of overseas China Cultural Centres and China National Tourist Offices.
Furthermore, he said the practice is reflective of Chinese culture that highly values harmony, be it about aesthetic refinement, friendships based on affinity of souls or unity between human and nature. It holds a good clue to the relation between ‘tea’ and ‘harmony’.
