On Lu Xun and Other Writer's Thoughts on Tea-drinking and the Meaning of Tea Culture

In the New Cultural Movement emerged in the Chinese Literary world a group of excellent new writers among whom Lu Xun, Lin Yu-tang and Zhou Zuoren were outstanding masters. But during the decade of the late 1920s, the thought of those sensitive penmen was influenced by the chaos both internal and external and the misery of the people of this country. There appeared different literary thoughts and views in their works, of which the above-mentioned three masters were the typical ones. The word tea-drinking, often mentioned by the Chinese penmen in their writings, was favored by Lin Yu-tang and Zhou Zuoren. In a different ideology and literary thought, Lu Xun's writings on tea-drinking presented a sharp contrast to those of Lin and Zhou, which also signified the differences of their thought, purpose, cultural inclinations in tea-drinking . Chinese tea culture has been eulogized as an intensive knowledge and a profound scholarship. Due to their professional skills, Chinese scholars have had meticulous and original descriptions of tea culture. Their different descriptions usually embody their own unique literal thoughts and styles. Zhou Zuoren and Yu-tang have been regarded as representatives of the Xing Ling ( inspiration on the basis of individual character ) School. The quintessence of the tea culture manifested in their works, was mainly about interest and self- appreciation . No traces of the civil war or national calamity caused by foreign aggression are found in their other works. What Lin Yutang initiated in his works was his humor style, which was similar to his tea-tasting . Similar to Lin Yutang, Zhou Zuoren advocated naturalism in his early works on tea drinking. He later turned deteriorated and showed feelings of bitter tea. Different from Lin and Zhou, Lu Xun realized the abuse of the Chinese traditional culture. He worked toward waking up of his countrymen and reforming the society and objected to Lin Yutang's inappropriate humor and leisure style. His brief essay Tea Drinking , though a l ittle descriptive in content, was taken by him as a means to criticize the abuses at that time. His brilliant thoughts were fully displayed to the people. Lu Xun's thoughts on tea drinking and the meaning of tea culture were quite different from those of Lin Yutang and Zhou Zuoren. Lu Xun was superior to the two masters in his depth of thinking and in his understanding of the Chinese culture.