WANG DI. THE TEAHOUSE. SMALL BUSINESS, EVERYDAY CULTURE, AND PUBLIC POLITICS IN CHENDU, 1900 - 1950. Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2008. XIII, 355 p., ill*.
The second monograph of Wang Di 1 is dedicated specifically to the tea houses of his hometown. It is believed that the custom of drinking tea originated in the time of Western Zhou in Sichuan, the birthplace of tea. The culture of tea drinking as a part of public life has long-standing traditions, the preservation of which was promoted by the relative isolation and inaccessibility of the region that existed until the beginning of the XX century. When numerous travelers, both Chinese and foreign, began to arrive in Chengdu after the construction of new transport routes, they left many rave reviews about the city's tea houses, from which it becomes clear that the culture of Chengdu tea houses is something special, different from the tea houses of other Chinese cities.
This special feature is what Van Di is trying to reveal. Readers of his first book remember that for him, as a scientist, it is important not so much to describe the phenomenon as to show how it was transformed in modern times and how much these changes were favorable for the people. The first fifty years of the twentieth century are a time of constant changes in urban life through Westernization, hence the economic, social, political and cultural shifts in the social, "street", to use Wang Di's terminology, culture of Chengdu. The increasing role of the state leads to the loss of uniqueness of local cultures, and Van Di sets out to consider how this happens and how irreversible the changes are. Tea shops in Chengdu for him are the quintessence of local culture, the most vivid manifestation of its identity.
The book is organized thematically rather than chronologically, i.e. the chronology is contained within the topic. Such a structure is fraught with repetitions, which the author himself feels, but nevertheless recognizes that it is most co ...
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