Translating Zhou Zuoren's "Tea and Food in Beijing" Original Text

I bought a copy of the Japanese essayist Riku Igarashi's "My Shukan" at a used bookstall in the Dong'an market. In the middle of the book, it was said that the confectionery of the tea stores in Beijing was no longer good, and that there were only a few shops, such as Koya in Ueno Yamashita, that made good confectionery, in which the fillings

and the sugar and the fruits were blended together in such a way that one couldn't tell the flavors of each one from the other on one's tongue. When I think of the 250 years of Edo's prosperity during the Tokugawa era, there is certainly a remnant of this kind of enjoyment that has survived to this day, though naturally it is somewhat less than in Kyoto.

Beijing

The capital was built more than 500 years ago, in theory, in terms of food, clothing and housing should be much more subtle achievements, but the actual does not seem to be so,

Lang to the tea and food, we do not know any special taste of the things. Of course, we are not very familiar with the situation in Beijing,

just casually bump into a store to buy a little bit of palpitations to eat, but in terms of the experience of bumping into, there is always no very tasty points

heart to buy. Is it possible that there is no good tea in Beijing, or is it just that there is and we don't know about it? It's not necessarily all about craving

abdominal desire, but it's a big

drawback to live in an ancient capital and not be able to eat the refined or decadent snacks that make up the history of the city. Beijing friends, can you tell me two or three pastry stores that make good dim sum?

I'm a bit of a sucker for twentieth-century Chinese goods, crude imitations of what is euphemistically called national goods, which have to be sold

more expensively than foreign goods. The new house sells things, they can not help but be a little skeptical, although this seems to be the mouth of the old man

kiss, but in general about the affair of pleasure I am quite superstitious tradition. I walked south of the Xisi Pai Lou and looked at the ten-foot-high one-wood signboard of Yi Fu Zhai

, and couldn't help but be mesmerized, because not only did it indicate that it was an old store before the Boxer Rebellion, but the vague and gloomy

handwriting also aroused my fantasies of a leisurely and rich life of incense burning and sitting in meditation. I have never burned any incense, but I am very interested in

this thing, but finally I dare not go into the incense store, because I am afraid that they have already put flower water and sunlight soap on the incense box

.

We must have a little useless play and pleasure in addition to the necessities of life, in order to make life interesting.

We look at the sunset, look at the river in the fall, look at the flowers, listen to the rain, smell the incense, drink wine that does not seek to quench the thirst, eat snacks that do not seek to be full, are all necessary to live

- although it is a useless decoration, and the more refined the better.

The poor life in China now is extremely

dry and coarse, not to mention, I have been in Beijing for ten years, but I have never eaten a good snack.

February, 13th year

(February, 1924, from The Book of Rainy Days)