What flowers did the ancients love to grow? Recommended antique-style flowers to cultivate from July to December
Growing flowers as a way to cultivate the mind and character was popular not only among today's many flower lovers, but also in ancient times. Tao Yuanming was known for his singular love of chrysanthemums, Yang Wanli loved lotus flowers, Lu You loved plum blossoms, and so on. So the editor cannot help but ask: do you know which plants these ancients used to decorate their lives from July to December? Let's take a look together below.
July: Orchid Month
In July the fragrance of orchids overflows, so July is also called Orchid Month. By the seventh month of the lunar calendar, many kinds of orchids vie to release their fragrance, incomparably sweet. "Sitting long, I forget the scent is in the room; pushing the window open, butterflies sometimes fly in" - this poem is a famous one praising orchids and is deeply loved by orchid enthusiasts. As one of China's traditional top ten famous flowers, the orchid combines clear spirit, clear charm and national fragrance in one, and simply could not be more endearing.
There are many varieties of orchids; common ones include cymbidium (Cymbidium faberi), summer orchid (Cymbidium ensifolium), spring orchid (Cymbidium goeringii), dancing-lady orchid (Oncidium) and moth orchid (Phalaenopsis), among others. The spring orchid's flowering period is from February to April; the cymbidium blooms a little later than the spring orchid, roughly in June in summer; and the summer orchid generally blooms in summer and autumn.
August: Osmanthus Month
August is the domain of the golden osmanthus. Although osmanthus has neither large stamens nor showy flower colors, its rich yet not pungent fragrance is truly unforgettable on first encounter. Come August, osmanthus is colored like the moon and its clear fragrance fills the nose; the unique charm of mid-autumn is embodied only in the osmanthus. A thousand years ago, the ancients were already deeply attached to and never forgot the osmanthus. Whether Tang dynasty poets Li Bai and Wang Wei, or Song dynasty lyricist Li Qingzhao, none begrudged heavy ink in composing poems about osmanthus to show their affection. The Southern Song poet Yang Wanli wrote a poem titled "Ode to Osmanthus," which says: "It is not a seed of the mortal world, but transplanted from within the moon. A single point of Guanghan's fragrance, blown until the whole mountain blooms."
There are also many varieties of osmanthus; golden osmanthus, silver osmanthus and red osmanthus bloom in rivalry, and who knows whose heartstrings they pluck.
September: Chrysanthemum Month
The chrysanthemum was the favorite of the Wei-Jin pastoral poet Tao Yuanming. When learning poetry as a child, one already grasped the chrysanthemum's noble character and detachment from "picking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence, calmly gazing at the southern mountain." As the hermit among flowers, the chrysanthemum has always been regarded as the representative of purity and reclusion. In traditional understanding, chrysanthemums come only in golden yellow and silver white. In fact, apart from bright red, chrysanthemums come in every color under the sun. Common ones include pink, purple, green and bicolor. Come September, throughout heaven and earth only the brilliantly colored chrysanthemums brave the autumn wind.
October: Dew Month
In October, temperatures plummet across the country, and one instantly feels the chill. You should know that plants and flowers do not bloom only in warm seasons; come October, there are still many plants worth admiring. For example, scarlet sage, marigold, Madagascar periwinkle and globe amaranth, among others. Take scarlet sage: its flowering period is relatively late, and if sown in spring, it can bloom around October. Its fire-like red can let people feel a special warmth in the desolate autumn. And in the language of flowers, scarlet sage carries the beautiful meaning of family love; looking at its flamboyant fiery red, one instantly feels warmth. As an ornamental plant, scarlet sage also has a long history. It is just that in ancient times, scarlet sage was often used as an image in erotic poetry.
November: Reed Month
The Book of Songs says: "Thick grow the reeds, white dew turns to frost. The one I call my beloved, is somewhere by the water's side." The two characters "jian jia" (reeds) are the symbol of November. Folk sayings also go: in the winter month the reed grass sprouts green tips. Come November, the winter grass has already poked out its little green head. Although November is a period when plants wither, the camellia blooming precisely in November is the embodiment of fiery beauty. The camellia's flowering period is long; it can withstand the severe cold of winter and also bloom to greet the spring breeze. With its full figure and brilliant colors, it has made countless flower-loving ancients bow. The Ming dynasty scholar Gui Youguang once poured his feelings into the camellia, writing: "It has the bearing of wealth and honor, yet not a seductive appearance. Through the cold of the year it does not wither last, and likewise faces the spring breeze of its own accord."
December: La Month
La Month is named for the plum blossom releasing its subtle fragrance. Wintersweet is a traditional Chinese bonsai plant, praised for its graceful tree form, elegant parts and splendid flower shape. Wintersweet blooms in the depths of winter when all other flowers have withered, braving the cold and defying the frost, giving people the enjoyment of beauty. Since ancient times, wintersweet's appearance and spirit have been loved by people of integrity. Whether Lu You, Wang Anshi or Mao Zedong, none stinted on ink in expressing their appreciation of wintersweet. Whenever one reads the lines "Already on the cliff a hundred zhang of ice, yet still a lovely flower branch. Lovely, yet it does not contend for spring, only brings news of spring. When the mountain flowers bloom in profusion, she smiles among them," one is moved by wintersweet's optimistic and tenacious bearing.
Secret bonsai. Antique and full of antique charm
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Text
| Liang Shiqiu
When I was a child, I saw a bonsai added to my father's desk, and I loved it very much. It was a pot of asparagus fern, planted in a slender square white porcelain pot, like bamboo yet not bamboo, with fine leaves and tender branches, yet not losing its upright, elevated bearing. All things are lovable when small and delicate. A tall grove of bamboo shading out the sky is certainly serene and pleasant, but green bamboo lush among pots and basins is also not without its charm. Asparagus fern belongs to the Liliaceae family and was still rather uncommon in the north at that time.
To cultivate this bonsai, my father went to great lengths. First he matched it with a hard wooden stand neither too large nor too small, placed it at the right corner of the desk by the window, towering proudly over the inkstone field at the center. Watering it on schedule goes without saying; the hard part was that it needed sunlight, so when morning sun shone in through the window, the pot had to be moved into the light to let it enjoy that brief warmth. If moved into the courtyard, too long a time would leave it unable to withstand the sun's tyranny. Every year or two the fertile soil had to be turned and replaced to benefit new roots. Withered branches and dead leaves also had to be pruned. On someone's advice, a tube was used to poke holes in the soil and diluted sesame paste soup was poured in, whereupon new shoots sprouted vigorously and grew with great force. One year it indeed shot up, growing to several chi yet still not done, so a fine string was used to hang and tie it, making it creep along the window like cypress vine.
This bonsai accompanied my late father for twenty or thirty years and remained unharmed. Later it was moved into my study, where it still kept its usual appearance and added no small amount of delight while I wrote at my desk. Then the War of Resistance broke out, the household lacked anyone to care for it, there was no fire in the study in winter, and the asparagus fern finally froze to death. In times of turmoil, people themselves are hard to preserve, let alone a bonsai! Yet to this day my heart still aches over it.
This pot of asparagus fern was bought from a Japanese merchant. Japanese people seem very skilled in this art. The potted plants they make mostly have branches shading one another and graceful postures from every angle. Especially potted pines and cypresses: they can shrink a towering tree with tangled grain into a pot less than a foot across - one could call it superb workmanship surpassing nature. In fact, the art of potted planting originated in our country; the Japanese are good at imitating and skilled at marketing, and over the past century bonsai has thus come to be loved by Westerners. The word "Bonsai" is in fact a transliteration of the Chinese "penzai."
It is said that bonsai began in the Han and Tang dynasties and flourished in the Northern and Southern Song. Wang Ao of Wuxian in the Ming dynasty wrote in his "Gazetteer of Gusu": "The people of Huqiu are skilled at planting rare flowers and unusual herbs in pots, and at training pines and ancient plums, placing them on desks and tables; pure, elegant and lovable - this is called penjing." Thus Gusu was not only renowned for the beauty of its gardens; it was also famed at the time for the making of bonsai. Liu Luan's "Five Stone Gourd": "Today people take trees and stones among pots and basins as playthings; the long ones they bend short, the large ones they pare down, some bearing fruit within a few inches, some holding insects and fish within a foot - all are collectively called penjing, which the people of the Yuan called xiezijing." Xiezijing is probably Yuan-era speech, meaning small and fine.
Over many years I have roamed in all directions and seen a great many bonsai; there is no place north or south without them, and the refinement of the craft has kept pace with the times everywhere. I have seen pine and cypress bonsai with root and trunk exposed, in the shape of a dragon's claw grasping, called "exposed roots." Or slanting out and hanging inverted over the pot's mouth, upright and graceful in many postures, just like Huangshan's "Cushion" and "Black Tiger," called "cliff-hanging." Or a single trunk standing upright, or two growing side by side, none failing to display a coquettish air amid strength and uprightness. There are even those who plant a maple grove in a shallow bowl, with ten or twenty maple trees gathered into the shape of a forest, leaves unexpectedly red as fire, a whole scene of frosted woods. Of bonsai there is no wonder not found; they gather Mount Sumeru into a mustard seed and take their method from nature. As a pure offering for the desk, they are truly supreme exquisite articles. In recent years some have taken bonsai as a profession, and sometimes they hold public exhibitions, a dazzling array, an imposing spectacle. The cultivation of bonsai requires years and months of careful tending, sometimes even decades of painstaking care before success is achieved. Some say there are ancient bonsai trees spanning a thousand or a hundred years, priceless beyond measure, but this is hard to verify and beyond my knowledge.
Although the wonder of bonsai still values nature, its making relies entirely on human work. From an artistic point of view, art is originally an imitation of nature. For example, landscapes in painting: within a foot of space there is the momentum of a thousand li. When Du Fu gazed at Mount Tai, layered clouds washing his chest and flying birds entering his eyes, it was also a matter of exhausting the limits of sight and gathering it all beneath the brush. Bonsai seems to be like this too, only its method of expression is different. Why does the pine of Huangshan have such a coiling, twisting form? That is not its natural ecology. The mountain is rugged, the cliffs full of crevices, pines grow among them, and year-round mist and haze veil them, with morning rain whipping - of course the branches twist and coil, even hang inverted, unable to be straight even if they wished. Pines that were not originally a natural ecology thus become part of the natural scenery. Painters love their strangeness, and when wielding the brush to paint pines they often make the coiling, twisting posture of dragons. Bonsai makers follow this idea, placing a small pine in a pot, cultivating it with the least possible fertile soil, making it grow but not flourish too much, pruning and clipping it to make its root base swell, and using lead wire to bind and wrap its branches and trunk, making them bend into postures and unable to stretch freely.
Art and nature are originally relative terms. All art is artificial. A Western proverb says: Ars
est celare
artem. (its art conceals the traces of human work), just like what we call "no trace of axe or chisel." I have seen some bonsai where the lead wire had not yet been removed, looking as if bound hand and foot, or where even if removed, the bark could hardly avoid scars of split skin and flesh. Such artistic making is, for the plant, close to a shackle that harms its vitality. Often while admiring bonsai, I think of a person with dwarfism I saw at an amusement park, appearing neatly dressed before the audience to make everyone laugh. And I think of the foot-binding of women in the past, bound until the toe bones bent and broke to become three-inch golden lotuses, assuming a swaying, graceful posture!
Reading Gong Ding'an's "Record of the Sick Plum Studio," I was deeply moved. He believed that every pot of plum blossoms was a sick plum tormented by craftsmen, and that the bent, hunched form created by artificial methods was a morbid state; so he untied its bonds, removed its shackles, and let it grow freely without restraint, naming his studio the Studio of Sick Plums. Gong's essay often appears in my mind and awakens me to the understanding that all things should follow their nature. Bonsai is art, not nature. When admiring them, I truly want to imitate what Gong did: remove their pots, move them to open ground, untie their bindings and let them grow naturally.
Source | Wudao
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How to choose century eggs; can century eggs be put in the refrigerator
How to choose century eggs
1. Bounce. Place the century egg in the palm of your hand and gently bounce it; a good-quality century egg trembles greatly, while a century egg with no trembling is of poorer quality.
2. Shake. Hold the century egg in your hand and shake it next to your ear; a good-quality century egg makes no sound, while a poor-quality one makes a sound, and the louder the sound the worse the quality - it may even be a rotten or spoiled egg.
3. Look at the shell. One with a complete shell and a grayish-white color without black spots is best. If it is a cracked egg, too much alkali may seep in during processing, thereby affecting the flavor of the albumen, and bacteria may also invade through the cracks, causing the century egg to spoil.
4. Look at the albumen. Crack open the shell from the large end; if the egg body has a sunken small round hole, does not stick to the shell, gives off a fragrant aroma, and the albumen is brownish-green or tea-brown, semi-transparent, elastic, with pine-flower patterns, it is a high-quality century egg. If the albumen is grayish-white, dark green or yellow and smells unpleasant, it is an inferior egg. If the albumen is incompletely congealed and in a liquid state, it must absolutely not be eaten.
5. Look at the yolk. A high-quality century egg's yolk does not stick to the knife, has only a yolk center the size of a soybean, and the yolk is dark green, grass green, dark green, tea-brown or other colors, or the yolk is entirely congealed with a cross-section similar to that of water bamboo, and some yolks have a soft, paste-like center. If the yolk is still yellow, or has hardened into a spherical shape, it is an inferior century egg. If the yolk has turned black and has a sour, reeking, pungent or other off-flavor, it is an even more inferior product.
Can century eggs be put in the refrigerator
Century eggs should not be stored in the refrigerator. Century eggs are made by soaking in alkaline substances, and the egg contains moisture; if stored in the refrigerator, the moisture will freeze, affecting the original flavor of the century egg. Century eggs that cannot be eaten should be sealed in a plastic bag for storage, and they can be kept for 3 months without the flavor changing.