Some say Nowruz, or Persian New Year, is a holiday that goes back 2,500 years. Seems impossible, but everyone agrees it is one of the world's oldest celebrations-- a celebration which continues to be one of the most looked-forward to events in the Persian calendar.
Part of the festivities include a picnic-- hopefully with a fire. Persians love their picnics-- as this devotion to picnics can be seen across the vast expanse of what was once the Great Persian Empire. From Turkey, Afghanistan, Central Asia to Kashmir-- even in Tehrangeles, in the more elegant part of LA-- people picnic around the vernal equinox.
It is a civilized pastime, very much like cherry-blossom viewing-- a day to relax and dream of paradise-- enjoying both the company and spring itself-- the birds, the clouds, the sunshine, and more than anything the flowers.
And, why is it that everything tastes better outdoors?
I was indoctrinated into picnics long before I came to Japan (by a Persian best friend back home). It is a custom which I carried with me to Japan-- where, of course, it fit like a glove.
So, every year we would celebrate the vernal equinox by picnicking. And, in my heart, this will always be the real New Year.
Like clockwork, the ducks and egrets return to the Uzumagawa River and specks of green start sprouting in the lawn-- yes, the return of life and the start of a new year. I cannot help but start imagining all the picnics and flower-viewing-- and somehow everything seems so filled with possibility.
The Kid and I usually would start taking to the mountains just before the equinox to go "baby fern hunting." Called "zenmai" 薇 you know how they are like little coiled springs waiting till it gets to be just the right time to unfurl?
They are so cute and adorable. I read once that ferns used to cover prehistoric forests... so maybe they're very old like dinosaurs? Can you imagine wandering in never-ending forests of ferns as huge, prehistoric dinosaur birds soared in the skies above?
There is an expression used in haiku poetry composition around this time of year: "Mountains smiling in early spring" Borrowed like so many other things from China, the painter who coined this phrase, the Northern Song painter and Literati great, Guo Xi, is most famous for his work titled Early Spring. His poem about mountains smiling appeared in an poetry anthology in Japanese known as 漢詩集 「臥遊録」 (yes, that's right, the Han Anthology Dream Journey Jottings)
春山淡治而如笑 夏山蒼翠而如滴 秋山明浄而如粧 冬山惨淡而如眠
Mountains smiling in early spring was a theme much appreciated at court-- even during my beloved's times-- which came about 100 years after the painter wrote his legendary poem. Imagine after what must have felt like an almost unendingly long period of cold and depressing "mountains sleeping," the mountains in March would seem to almost "spring" to life again.
First, came the slow but sure return of green. Followed by a splash of color here and there: plum, robai, and finally sakura. And, so people would take to the hills....
This was also after all the best season for a love affair ---for of course, we all know everything is always dashed to hell by mid-Fall so it's better to get started early, right? :))
In China, people travel back to their hometowns around this time of year for qing ming to sweep the tombs of their ancestors and celebrate the return of spring-- very much like Japanese O-bon. There is also a custom of eating outdoors to celebrate spring.Some scholars see the Japanese cherry blossom-viewing custom having its roots in qing ming --as a day of family communion (between the living and the dead), picnics (celebrating spring) and purification. Ideally, one picnics on top of a hill and purified oneself in a river (to wash away in bad deeds or bad luck). There are probably poems about friends climbing hilltops （踏青）or maybe about picking mountain herbs (山菜摘み）...
It was this idea, of "stepping on blue" （踏青→ getting out and walking in nature）, along with the Japanese idea of the gods of the fields returning from their long slumber around this time of year that are most deeply connected to Japanese sensibilities surrounding cherry blossom viewing.
And, it's that time again.
**
Shalimar Garden; one of Srinagar's three famous "gardens of love," one the most memorable picnic I ever had in my life took place in the shade of one the garden's many chinar trees. Beautiful tulips were planted alongside the many fountains, and families sat in the pavilions as what seemed like an army of newleyweds strolled across the grass....Sultan's wife had prepared a true Persian picnic of pollo rice and yogurt, kebabs and tea served in glasses. Although nearly 20 years have passed since then, I will never forget it. Sultn's wife had brought the most beautiful tomatoes I have ever seen and we laughed and talked about the flowers and all the future children we would have.
To sit in the warm sunshine in a cool garden surrounded by the sounds of flowing water and laughing children truly is the perfect pastime for a spring day. I only wish I could go back in time and somehow insert my son right smack in the middle of the memory. Of course, he is war of rice with nuts and fruit in it and isn't crazy about tomatoes....Still, I think he could have really had fun in those fountains.
When the German explorer Albert von Le Coq was at Kizil as part of his grand travels to "borrow" ancient artifacts in Central Asia (carving frescos right off the walls in some cases!), he was stunned to come upon cave temples in what was by that time the middle of nowhere with murals of such beauty that he described them to be "the finest in all of Turkestan."
These murals were of astounding beauty. And most surprising of all was the blue pigment used in the paintings decorating the cave walls. He would write,
“…the extravagant use of a brilliant blue – the well-known ultramarine which, in the time of Benvenuto Cellini was frequently employed by the Italian painters, and was bought at double its weight in gold."
A color likened to the brilliant blue of the heavens above; as Le Coq explains, this ultramarine pigment was the same blue pigment so beloved by the Renaissance painters. How is it possible, he wondered, that the most expensive blue in the Renaissance painter's palate was also to be found in this remote spot in Central Asia?
One Day many years ago somebody told me that all the true ultramarine paint in the world came from one mine in the heart of Asia.
It's true, it seems that all the ultramarine paint in the world was painstakingly derived from the lapis luzuli rocks mined from one place in northeast Afghanistan. Located not far from Bamiyan; from the Sar-e-sang mine in Afghanistan, donkeys transported the expensive pigment in rough sacks over an ocean of mountain ranges-- East to Central Asia and beyond, and West to Venice and beyond.
In Europe, the precious pigment was so expensive that it was worth more than gold, and the legendary painters of the Renaissance were forced to wait till their patrons provided them the pigment before they could apply the heavenly blue to Mary's robes (for by this time the color was symbolic of Mary).
Finlay says in today's money, a pound would cost about $3000.
The color is truly heavenly-- just look at the Wilton Diptych-- shown above. That is all lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. It is the same color blue that was used at Kizil in what is now Western China and the same color blue that was used in painting the great Buddhist statues that stood over the Bamiyan valley for 1400 years.
In Medieval Byzantium dark blue was the color reserved for an empress. It was also--along with gold--the costliest material of all and so was used in paintings of the Virgin Mary as an expression of devotion.The color became, therefore, a symbol of Mary, and this is where the term, la sacre bleu comes from too...
Cennino Cennini, in Il Libro dell'Arte, wrote that "Ultramarine blue is a color illustrious, beautiful and most perfect, beyond all other colors; one could not say anything about it, or do anything with it, that its quality would still not surpass."
Even the great Michaelangelo was famously unable to finish his painting The Entombment because his promised shipment of ultramarine fell through.
In the East too, lapis luzuli was treasured. Called vairya in Sanskrit, lapis luzuli was one of the Seven Buddhist treasures (七宝)--along with gold, silver, pearls, agate, crystal, and coral. In Japanese, it is written 瑠璃. Ruri is also used as a girl's name, signifying the beautiful gem-like quality of the color. In fact, one of the most beautiful women I ever met in my life had that heavenly name.
My own favorite blue is Huizong's blue --that shimmering lavendar blue he longed to re-create in his imperial ceramic glazes--like "the the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..." That blue was the blue that would become a kind of longing in people --existing more in people's imaginations and hearts than anywhere else. But Cellini's blue--that lapis luzuli blue from Bamiyan-- is perhaps the most treasured blue of all times. It was, after all, a color to designate a celestial Queen.
There exists a great arc dotted with Buddhist cave temples that stretches from the State of Maharashtra in India reaching all the way across the Taklamakan Desert-- deep into the heart of China.
And within 5 centuries, dozens of cave temples covered in murals of impossible beauty were to be created across thousands and thousands of miles along the Silk Road-- all the way to Japan.
I told him: We really should start a railway company and put down tracks to connect all the temples so that pilgrims can ride with us on our glorious mural express.
Being a practical sort of guy, he was dubious about the diplomatic and political hurdles, and so I sought to persuade him.
It would be a very sexy start, that's for sure. I mean, starting in India, the wonderous Murals of Ajanta would set the mood in every way.
He said he was listening. So, I continued:
It must be a little ultramarine blue narrow gauge train with a carmine red engine and red caboose. "Just like the one we rode to Shimla," I say. Not just anyone shall be allowed on the train either-- for like Mecca, our train will be a place reserved only for true believers of love and beauty.
He smiled and answered that, It wouldn't be easy since the mountains kind of get in the way.
That's when I tell him my plan to dynamite our way through the mountains:
What do you think about blasting a huge tunnel that goes for miles and miles under the Himalaya—and then we can use laser lights to recreate all the murals that were lost on the tunnel’s dark walls for our dear passangers? Wouldn’t it be romantic? They can dine on Cantonese cuisine by candlelight as they watch the evening laser light mural show? After all, so much has been lost. Are you in or not, my darling?
I'm in, he says at last. And asks, Where to from Ajanta?
Well, first it's up to Ladakh.
Ladakh? Isn't that a little off the beaten track?
No, not really. For in that remote region, downtown Leh might as well be downtown Manhattan. And everyone loves Manhattan.
Just a few kilometers outside of the town of Leh is-- of course-- the Monastary of Alchi, which has paintings that have almost stained my mind with their dazzlingly rich colors. As I have written in these pages before, sometimes when I close my eyes before sleeping at night--even now all these years later-- I see those colors. And, it was Alchi that first inspired me to dream this dream journey dream from Ajanta to Dunhuang and then all the way across to Horyuji-- traveling on the glorious mural express.
**
I spent some time last year translating two documents for the Oriental Library about two other cave temple sites along the Silk Road: Bezeklik and Kizil. As I looked at photos from the sites, I become dazed like a pilgrim-- nearly blinded by the beauty of the Flaming Mountains and and the seering noonday sun of the desert, I imagine stepping into a darkened cave temple, and there I find myself in another dimension-- a place of pilgramage.
This from my translation:
The architecture follows an iconographic programme, functioning as the stage for the carrying out of a Buddhist pilgrimage. device for this procedure. Entering the cave, the pilgrim first contemplates the past lives of the Buddha as he or she passes along murals depicting scenes from these past lives. The pilgrim would next circumambulate the corridor moving in a clockwise fashion. Along the back walls, the pilgrim would view scenes Sakyamuni’s nirvana scene and in order to contemplate his or her own existence...
Like falling in love; like mountains of the mind; indeed, like all pilgramages-- this is an imaginary possession achieved via the colloboration between physical form and human imagination; a dream journey that occurs at precisely that disjuncture between the real and the imagined. Pilgramage. I wonder if this is not yet another essential human practice on the decline (an endangered species?) Pilgramage being of particular significance since it is both practiced collectively together with others and serves to connect inner and outer understanding.
And then-- this morning-- appropos of everything...
...the mysterious and sexy Csomo de Koros emails to point me to his new website:
And right at the top of the page are the words of the Dalai Lama:
A pilgrimage through wild, open lands provides visions that help shape the proper attitude and inner awareness for religious practice.
I have written again and again of feeling myself in a flimsy boat (Palinurus at the helm) being tossed about on the open sea. And so I re-listen to the TED Talk lecture with Matthieu Ricard, on his book the Habits of Happiness. In the lecture, Ricard talks about the Buddhist idea of a pebble being tossed about on the waves on the ocean. Most of us exist in such a state that like a pebble being tossed about in the water, our state of mind is so dependent on outside forces that we are happy when things are going well and then crash when bad things happens. The Buddhists tell us to combat this doomed way of being, we need to cultivate our inner serenity, inner freedom, and confidence through what Ricard calls mind training (ie meditation). For it is mind that "translates" all our outer experiences into inner meaning, he says. As a translator myself, this image of mind "translating" experiences into meaning speaks to me very strongly. Ricard urges us to think about how illusory our control inevitably is over outer circumstances. And indeed we meet people all the time who have everything in the world and yet remain unhappy. And vice versa, those suffering great adversity who seem strangely quite happy.
In the end, I think just as Ricard says, it all comes down to working to cultivate practices and habits which will enrich us by forming and strengthening what is an underlying ethical-aesthetic sensibility-- for it is that which will help us to flourish and feel serenity. Ricard talks of meditation while the Dalai Lama speaks above about the "shaping power" of pilgramage. The Dalai Lama's words above recall the project of the Confucian Rites as proper comportment through the cultivation of ethico-aesthetic sensibility, don't you think? I know I am not the only one who wonders what is at stake for the human race when collective and shared practices which have long served to connect inner and outer understanding via the human heart are lost forever (Are we really destined to become McPeople like I fear?).
In the spirit of Csomo's new project, I too want to imagine that the Mural Express will have a special line that travels West to Bamyan, which stands as the ultimate symbol of that which is lost forever. But East to Bamyan or West all the way to Japan. For what better place than Japan to end up? Land of the Great Antiquinarians, the Japanese have been obsessed with the Silk Road since the 1980s and scholars continue to work to re-create what was lost--in reproductions or in digitalization--in what in itself is an act of pilgrammage
Bamboo Stalk Lyrics by Liu Yuxi Willow trees dangle blue-green; the river flows languidly as I hear my lover's voice, singing joyfully as he walks upstream Clear morning skies in the East; while in the West it rains ...It almost seems heartless, and yet my lover sings in blue-green
I knew he wouldn't approve of my translation. The illustrious Wang sensei is no pushover, that's for sure.
But, what to do about translating the word for China's blue-green color, qīng (青)? A color that is so associated with late spring and early summer it is thought to express the color of nature itself. A green so deep it is blue. Like the dark moss at Nikko, the color of willow trees and slowly moving rivers, dragons, dragonflies, tea and bamboo, all of these things are known as qīng. In spring, people talk of "stepping on blue" （踏青→ getting out and walking in nature）, and along with the Japanese idea of the gods of the fields returning from their long slumber around this time of year, this concept of the return of blue-green is deeply connected to Japanese sensibilities surrounding cherry blossom viewing. The best time of year in which to begin a love affair (since we know from Genji that everything is sure to be dashed to hell by the start of autumn), it is a time for picnicking and picking herbs outdoors (山菜摘み）...the time of 清明; late spring into early summer is a world of blue-green.
And so as the famous poet said: "Shu rivers are green and Shu mountains are blue" (蜀江水碧蜀山青).
**
Qīng (青).
My beloved too loves painting in blue. In fact, you could almost say he was obsessed with the color. And, while-- like me-- he loved all shades of blue-green-- one shade in particular fascinated him. Sometimes, he and I would wile away the hours playfully trying to describe some particular shade of color to each other. He, though, always came back to that one specific shade:
"Close your eyes and imagine the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..."
I closed my eyes and recalled that slowly over the years, my Emperor's unquenchable “yearning for blue" was a beautiful, imperial dream which had somehow worked its way into my own heart. And, I became fascinated not so much by his passion as by his method. For what better way to "capture" a particular shade of color than in porcelain?
So an emperor dreams of blue. And being the wish of an Emperor, his wish was everyone's command and it wouldn’t take long for the ingenious potters at nearby Ru to provide him with exactly what he as looking for:
The most beautiful porcelain in the world
Because Ru ware was created with the Emperor’s particular taste in mind and then disappeared so mysteriously without a trace after the fall of his dynasty, it has been forever after associated with my man. And, with less than 100 surviving examples, a very small piece was sold several years ago at Sotheby’s in New York for approximately 1.5 million dollars. The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds the great majority of the remaining pieces, with a fairly large number held in British museums as well.
As rare as they are stunningly beautiful; the celadon glaze ranges from pale green to a lavender blue and is characterized by its delicate opalescent quality caused by minute crystals and air bubbles trapped in the glaze. It is this shimmering quality--this transportive luminecence-- which reminds me of the luxerious purple of the Roman emperors. But then again Huizong's blue, in my opinion is far finer yet.
Due to its watery translucency and magnificent green-blue color, the quality of its much admired glaze reminds one more than anything else of jade, and although countless artists and even scientists have tried to re-create it, its exact method of production remains a mystery.
Researcher, Fumito Kondo, on assignment for Japan’s NHK, visited the Ru kiln site not all that long ago, and he describes his meeting with a Chinese researcher, a certain Mr. Zhu, who had been working for over 20 years en-situ, attempting to unlock the glaze’s secrets. Kondo writes,
On the day we arrived at Ru to begin filming, 30 pieces of celedon were being fired. The color in celedon glaze is extremely delicate and so slight changes occur depending on where the vessel is placed inside the kiln. Mr Zhu, carefully removing each piece, upon examing them, discovered that not one piece had turned out! Mr. Zhu then exclaimed that 20 years at Ru together with all the advances in modern technology had been unable so far to bring back that very mysterious color blue.
A shimmering blue-green-lavender that has somehow been lost forever. This dream of the rain-drenched color of the morning sky after a storm was, in his own words, "like a vision or a poem between us...a work of floating imagery...a dream: it is very blue...very deep. Blue..."
What should have been one of the greatest homecomings in ancient times, instead ended in cold-blooded murder when the King's wife stabbed him to death that evening in the bath.
How did it come to that? You ask.
Even Odysseus-- the reluctant hero-- finally in the end made it safely home to his loving wife and son, didn't he?
And, hadn't the Greeks won the war after their rightful sack of Troy?
Why did she do it?
The chorus, too, demands an answer.
And, so in a series of stunning speeches, which would be the envy of any Washington speech writer, the queen lays out her case. Her husband-- the King-- has killed their beloved daughter, and for that he must die. That he had brought a concubine home with him from Troy and that she and her lover were already happily ruling the Kingdom ensconced in the castle were reasons as well. But Clytemnestra-- make no doubt about it-- is clear about her reasons: he killed their daughter and for that he must die.
So, she sets him up.
In what is one of the most famous homecoming scenes in all history-- Clytemnestra gives her husband Agamemnon the "red carpet treatment."
Laying out the family's priceless reddish-purple color tapestries, she urges him:
"Walk across, my Lord."
He tells her he will not. For that is the kind of arrogance that Persian Kings show-- believing themselves to be as all-mighty as the gods.
"We are democrats," he responds.
And when she continues begging him to glide across the sea of blood-red tapestries, he retorts:
"These are heirlooms, how can we soil our family heirlooms?"
In the end, exhausted perhaps from the trip, he allows himself to be persuaded and across he walks-- to his death. For this show of arrogance is the all-important piece of evidence that Clytemnestra will need as "reason" of the need she had to get rid of him; for most Athenians would have agreed that an all-powerful monarch in the style seen in Persia was something to be avoided at all costs.
In the translator's introduction, it is stated that "puffed up with ego, Agamemnon walks across the tapestries." (many of you will be more familiar with the translator's brother from his Chongqing days)
"Is Lattimore totally oblivious?" Asks Dreyfus, "Where did Agamemnon show any indication of being puffed up? Didn't he try in vain to argue with his wife till he just became exhausted and walked across to please her?"
Dreyfus has a point.
Judge for yourself:
AGAMEMNON Daughter of Leda, guardian of my home, your speech was, like my absence, far too long. Praise that's due to us should come from others. Then it's worthwhile. All those things you said— don't puff me up with such female honours, or grovel there before me babbling tributes, like some barbarian. Don't invite envy to cross my path by strewing it with cloth. That's how we honour gods, not human beings. For a mortal man to place his foot like this on rich embroidery is, in my view, not without some risk. So I'm telling you honour me as a man, not as a god. My fame proclaims itself. It doesn't need foot mats made out of such embroideries. Not even to think of doing something bad is god's greatest gift. When a man's life ends in great prosperity, only then can we declare that he's a happy man. Thus, if I act, in every circumstance, as I ought to now, there's nothing I need fear.
They debated back and forth. In the end, though, the King gave up and treaded upon the "sea of blood." Scholars continue to argue about exactly why he did finally acquiesce and walk across the tapestries.
But what of "these red tapestries dyed in the sea?"
In the translation above, the English word "cloth" is used, and that is probably a safe translation. I think Lattimore uses the word "carpet" but that doesn't quite seem right, does it? For carpets are made to be walked across. Even the heirloom rugs which one finds hanging in a millionaire's yurt could also probably be walked on without causing too much damage. Dreyfus, I think, prefers calling them tapestries, and that works, I think.
The walls of medieval castles were covered in tapestries of fantastic quality-- in fact, I think I read somewhere that tapestries were among the most costly heirlooms of Medieval Europe.
I have also seen the above translated as robes-- which is perhaps my personal favorite translation. The other day, I was having tea with a friend who had taken out several of her beautiful kimono to air them in the dry autumn weather. Silk brocades with golden threads were only to be out done by the most exquisite embroidery on the thinnest, most delicate silk I have ever seen. It was a splendid fortune in textiles, amassed by a woman who in her youth had been very successful in Osaka's water trade.
Dreyfus says, "It would have been like as if Clytemnestra had taken a dozen Monet paintings down from the walls, and laying them down, had said: Walk across my Lord." Textiles more costly than the finest oil paintings....
My tea teacher as well had warned me to never waste money on jewelry if you can buy textiles.
In the ancient world-- almost no matter where you look-- people who could, spent vast amounts of money on such textiles. And, before the invention of money, cloth formed a large bulk of things which were traded across borders. Indeed, it was the silk trade which was to give its name to the most legendary overland trade routes in history!
Agamemnon's robes were most probably woven from wool. The Persians were known for their exquisite dyed cloth in this material. Still, textile scholars remind us that the silk trade, while it took off in Han or Roman Empire times, actually goes back much further. In 1983 the New York Times ran an article about strips of woven silk found on an Egyptian mummy from 1000BC. Scientific studies showed this silk to be Chinese. Silk was also found in 7th century BC graves in Germany and 5th century BC graves in Greece. This latter date corresponding to Aeschylus' play.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that Agememnon's robes or tapestries were made of woven silk.
II.
More than the material, however, it is their color which intrigues. Many will know that these robes, "the blood red color of the sea," were dyed from the pigments gotten from mollusks-- thousands upon of sea creatures. This was the "purple" dyed linen of the Arc of the Covenant that was later to be the color of the robes of the greatest Roman emperors and the color of Cleopatra's "fragrant sails." Indeed, Cleopatra was said to have dwelled within a world of fragrant incense and a cloud of costly purple.
The color purple has long been associated with emperors and queens. While we say "purple" the term actually encompassed a large spectrum of colors from light pink to very dark fuchsia-- with the most sought after color being a shimmering dark red (sometimes referred to as the color of blood). The most refined-- and therefore the most sought after-- shade was this precise shimmering shade of blood, in fact.
The Phoenicians built their fortunes on trade in the dye-- and indeed, the color is known to us today as Tyrian purple. Based on the coast of Lebanon, the ancient mariners of the Mediterranean delivered cloth dyed in this purple of the sea throughout the ancient world. They say it would take 10,000 dead mollusks to dye one robe the coveted color.
It was smelly business too-- as dying inevitably is. But so lucrative was it that many peoples gave it a shot. No one, however, achieved as beautiful a shade of purple as the Phoenicians (who are believed to have used two species of mollusks: —the Purpura pelagia or Murex trunculus, and the Purfura lapillus or Buccinum lapillus).
Victoria Finlay tries to track down the color in her book, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, and it is really the only failed adventure in the book. The species have been hunted to the point of extinction and while she did get a glimpse of the huge ancient vats that were once used to make the luxerious dyes (wisely located downwind of the ancient city of Tyre), she is unable to find much of anything else in Lebanon and so travels to the New World where the Central American Indians continue to dye cloth in a similar color gotten from mollusks of a different species. (See this Post for more about her travels into Blue).
I would love to see cloth dyed this color. I cannot even really imagine what murax silk would have looked like, but it is something I would very much like to see.
III.
Anyway, the Phonecians and their trading...I have been thinking a lot lately about the silk road. In particular, I am-- as many here will know-- interested in the way the silk road is held up today as a symbol of something worth emulating for today's times.
For example, we see scholars in Europe (UNESCO scholars) discussing silk road exchanges as "two way streets" where, perhaps in contrast to monoculturalization or super-power monologues of today, silk road influence worked more like a true dialog. (And, how much of this is being romanticized is not really the point as the interesting thing is not the historical accuracy, but rather what contemporary phenomenon it is being contrasted with)
In history books as well, there is a stress on the manner in which trade led the way for these exchanges. And, sometimes when I read, while I feel that there is an implied contrast at how things occur in today's world, I am left with questions.
Aren't international exchanges even today based on trade? Or has the financial world changed to such an extent that two-way trade doesn't really exist any longer?
But, we know that huge trade imbalances existed during Roman times. Pliny (I seem to recall) took pains to complain about Roman trade deficits with India. Purple silk was banned in part for this reason in ancient Rome (being reserved for the emperor). But, if it is not contemporary trade imbalances, what then is being implied?
Decades ago, "finance" was generally understood as financing something other than finance itself; that is, stocks and bonds and money were tied to the production and circulation of goods and services, which were for the most part tangible, or "real" in economic parlance. Beginning with at least the oil crisis of the 1970s, finance has been transformed, now stunningly overshadowing the "real" economy. Left academics have coined the term "Financialization" to get at these changes. How big has finance become? That is a difficult question but think about this kind of statement (from the above linked Wikipedia page):
Thus, [in 2006] derivatives trading – mostly futures contracts on interest rates, foreign currencies, Treasury bonds, etc had reached a level of $1,200 trillion, $1.2 quadrillion, a year. By comparison, U.S. GDP in 2006 was $12.456 trillion.
Indeed, this week "trillion" has become a common reference. How big is the market in credit default swaps? We hear reports in the tens of trillions. Government action valued in the hundreds of billions seems puny by comparison. Welcome to the world of financialization.
Sam asks, what would Mencius think? I think it's a good question.
So, these topics remain on my mind, and I still am not exactly sure how to approach them: silk road trade versus contemporaray finance silk road cosmopolitanism versus contemporary globalization silk road international relations versus the Great Game
Checking in at the provincial warlord's homestead, I see someone left a comment here concerning the warlord's preposterous idea that the Tang dynasty is China's #4 most impressive dynasty. I can only say it again: he must be delusional (as clearly the Tang must be either #1 or --if I calculate my beloved's feelings into the calculation-- then, fine, #2) In any case, the comment had some interesting things to say about trade and is recommended reading. Whoever wrote it seems to have similar spelling issues that I have, so at first I wondered if I did in fact write the comment-- but reading it, I realized, no it wasn't me.
Kublai Khan: There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening with the odor of the elephants after the rain and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the brazier, a dizziness makes rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of the plainspheres where they are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the other, the despatches announcing to us the collapse of the last enemy troops, from defeat to defeat, and flakes the wax of the seals of obscure kings who beseech our armies' protection, offering in exchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, and tortoise shell....Italo Calvino
I recently read that so tightly controlled was the Great Khan's empire that it was claimed that a beautiful woman could cross the great expanse of pax Mongolica carrying a solid gold tray atop her head and be assured of arriving wherever she was going in perfect safety.
Empire does have its advantages, I suppose.
In spite of his tremendous power and wealth, however, the Great Khan seems restless; and while he doesn't necessarily believe everything the Venetian tells him, still he enjoys the listening; for indeed, there is no better way to wile away the evenings than in storytelling.
And so like a magnificent Caliph in a long and luscious dream, Kublai Khan listens to the Venetian tell stories of marvelous and exotic cities located on the edges of his vast empire. And, in this way, the Khan and his humble servant Marco Polo engaged in the most exquisite conversations-- where sometimes they even speak without words, as one imagines what the other wants to say, the other imagines answering.
You will recall that I too sometimes have conversations with an emperor. While we often talk about the way the light reflects on the icy cold river, whose waters flow slowly south from Siberia; sometimes he will silently-- extemporizing a poem-- describe one of his paintings; delicate and perfectionist paintings of flowers or tiny, plump birds-- "paintings
which are but a promise of a thousand autumns to come Painting Autumn birds"
Every so often too, we will playfully try and describe a partiular shade of color. This game often goes on for hours as describing a shade is never easy. Some may even say it is impossible to describe a color.
He said, "Close your eyes and imagine the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..."
I closed my eyes and recalled that
over the years, my Emperor and his unquenchable “yearning for blue was a beautiful, imperial dream which had somehow worked its way into my own heart (in the way of all truly fine conversations). And, I became fascinated not so much by his passion as by his method-- for what better way to capture a shade than in porcelain?
And as the wish of the great Emperor, it wouldn’t take long for the ingenious potters at nearby Ru to provide him with exactly what he as looking for either.
The most beautiful porcelain in the world
Because Ru ware was created with the Emperor’s particular taste in mind and then disappeared mysteriously without a trace after the fall of his dynasty, it has been forever after associated with my man. And, with less than 100 surviving examples, a very small piece was sold several years ago at Sotheby’s in New York for approximately 1.5 million dollars. The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds the great majority of the remaining pieces, with a large amount held British museums as well.
As rare as they are stunningly beautiful; the celadon glaze ranges from pale green to a lavender blue and is characterized by its delicate opalescent quality caused by minute crystals and air bubbles trapped in the glaze. It is this shimmering quality--this transportive luminecence-- which reminds me of the luxerious purple of the Roman emperors.
The glaze is also characterized by a fine crackle, a quality which was highly appreciated as a kind of natural decorative element to the otherwise unadorned vessel. Due to its watery translucency and magnificent green-blue color, the quality of its much admired glaze reminds one more than anything else of jade, and although countless artists and even scientists have tried to re-create it, its exact method of production remains a mystery.
Researcher, Fumito Kondo, on assignment for Japan’s NHK, visited the Ru kiln site not all that long ago, and he describes his meeting with a Chinese researcher, a certain Mr. Zhu, who had been working for over 20 years en-situ, attempting to unlock the glaze’s secrets. Kondo writes,
On the day we arrived at Ru to begin filming, 30 pieces of celedon were being fired. The color in celedon glaze is extremely delicate and so slight changes occur depending on where the vessel is placed inside the kiln. Mr Zhu, carefully removing each piece, upon examing them, discovered that not one piece had turned out! Mr. Zhu then exclaimed that 20 years at Ru together with all the advances in modern technology had been unable so far to bring back that very mysterious color blue.
Its not just Ru ware either. Many of the most renowned Song dynasty glazes as yet remain impossible to perfectly reproduce. Isn't that amazing?
My emperor. When he spoke of his Palace so faraway-- it was almost as if like a swallow traveling south-- his eyes too were locked faraway on the horizon.
How can I ever forget that old Palace? Sometimes I visit in dreams And yet all alone Sometimes I am even unable to dream
To not be able to dream-- and yet, so well did he describe that rain-drenched color of the morning sky after a rain-- that, well, I don't believe he ever stopped dreaming-- though sometimes I understand how he felt.
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