Less well known are the tribulations endured by the tawny-skinned men and women who grow ornamental jasmine here in Daxing, a district on the rural fringe of the capital. They say prices have collapsed since March, when the police issued an open-ended jasmine ban at a number of retail and wholesale flower markets around Beijing.
— Jasmine is in trouble in China. Read more at Catching Scent of Revolution, China Moves to Snip Jasmine at the New York Times. Thanks to Kevin for the link!
p.s. I'm posting this because I find it interesting that a flower can be a victim of political maneuverings, but as regular readers know, we try to avoid talking politics around here. Keep that in mind if you'd like to comment, or, leave your comments over at the New York Times where you can probably say (nearly) whatever you like.
How eerie….
Yes.
It’s a bit silly if you ask me, and stomping on the livelihood (sp?) of a segment of your population strikes me as a bad idea. But I’m not Chinese, so I probably don’t get to have much of an opinion.
*sigh* So is the price of my jasmine tea going to go up now too? I’m already looking at having to pay more for coffee.
I thought about the tea too! I am going to order a huge amount this week, I think…it’s a staple in my house.
Order? Who do you use? (I was thinking about making a trip past a Teavana.)
I drink the Yin Hao jasmine from Upton Tea.
Ooooookay…I don’t know what happened to my browser, but it was time to leave work anyhow. Thank heaven for blackberrys!
As for which I drink, I generally choose the one most fragrant…er, most jasminely fragrant, at the time. One reason I like the Teavana shop is because they let me sniff (last time I ended up with the peachberry jasmine. Not quite my cup of tea, although it was very tasty.) We do have (or had, I’m not sure if it’s still there,) a specialty tea shop here in Des Moines called Gong Fu that carries really nice teas. But, as with when I went looking for longpepper, I find their hours to be inexcusably inconvenient for anyone with a full-time job. And it does tend to be a bit on the pricey side. I have no problem with paying more for an excellent product (any one from Des Moines been to Django lately?) But any time I find myself in our *ahem* “East Village” I can’t help but feel that part of what I’m paying is the price of being caught with money in a trendy area.
When jasmine is outlawed, only outlaws will wear jasmine.
There’s your product idea right there – “Outlaw” the jasmine scented perfume forbidden in the world’s most populous country.
I see the commercial as involving a Matt Damon-Bourne Identity-type chase sequence (shot in Hong Kong or Taiwan) with a courier who starts on a motorbike, then switches to a small car, then runs, all the while looking over his shoulder as he is being chased. At the end he hands a small package to a beautiful young lady, who opens it and sprays the scent of Jasmine on herself…
Excellent!
Love that! I can totally see it play out in my imagination.
in the end , do the Chinese police drag her away for obviously being an insurgent? *who else would wear a jasmine perfume?*
Smell Bent should do a whole jasmine based line….
Dairy – they don’t drag her away…but in order to find out what happens, you have to wait for the release of the flanker – Jasmine Escape (a lighter, breezier version of Jasmine Outlaw)…the commercial accompaying the release will explain what happens.
Let me get this straight…because jasmine has a political connotation the govt. is trying to discourage the use of jasmine? The pro-democracy types should make chopsticks their symbols and that will force the Chines gubmint to outlaw chopsticks…
Sorry, Daisy, it should be Daisy, not Dairy…my bad typo.
NST’s article is about the third down from Google on this topic.
Western China include large tracts of lands whose population traditionally were Islamic, and in these regions, there are stirrings of demands for independence. There have also been conflicts between the folks whose ancestors have been in some of these areas for generations and recent migrants from “Chinese” area.
In recent months, the internet has shown some interest in China for promoting the “Jasmine Revolution” such as that which Egypt went though this Spring, within China.
Hence Jasmine, a very traditional Chinese flower and flavoring, has taken on a political meaning, at least for the Chinese leadership. . Hence the crack down on Jasmine flowers.
I guess all those people who want the U.S. to reduce its deficit will forget their political agenda if they are forced to forgo tea bags and drink coffee instead.
Sorry for the digression into politics, but I thought an explanation of why jasmine was being banned would be useful, since it was not self evident (at least to me).
Historically, White and Red roses were they symbols of the competing dynasties which in late medieval England, and the British still associate roses with a quasi-national symbol. (British fair skinned beauties are still sometimes referred to as a lovely as an English Rose).
The Lily flower (stylized as the Fleurs de Lys) was a symbol the French royalty. However, ,. Victims of the French revolution in 1793, going on the scaffold, decorated their clothes with carnations. During the period of Jacobin terror this flower was called as “a horror carnation».
The red carnation later became a revolutionary symbol. in Australia during processions in memory of revolutionaries of 1848 the demonstrators bore red carnations In the Russian revolutionary semiotics the carnation was a sign of the spilt blood.
Well, I for one am grateful not to have to google that. My initial rxn was a headscratching, huh, why? Thanks. 🙂
I’m going to stick with the Welsh, wearing leeks in their hats on St. David’s Day! 🙂
If I’m remembering my literature correctly, wasn’t there a digression on carnations in Les Miserables on the subject of carnations? (Note to self, this may be a good excuse to go digging through my books again.) I seem to remember one, but it’s been a long time (and it is far from the only such lengthy “unnecessary” portion of the book.)
As a digression of my own, I recently came across, on local public access, the final act of the musical Les Miserables…On Ice! Please tell me this has not, in fact, been inflicted upon the rest of the country? Someone? Anyone?
Er…this was supposed to be posted in response to Dilana’s post about flowers as a political symbol. Sorry, wasn’t paying enough attention to the teeny tiny screen.
And now that I’m on a real computer again, I can see that it did post where it was supposed to.
Don’t ask me; I got lost in the history of the chapter of nuns, and never found my way back to the rest of the books. It would not surpise me if the communes used red roses as their emblem.
I love leeks. Do the Welsh wear them as a statement of independence?
It is interesting just how much political association some flowers have. Just got back from China and its such a weird mood at the moment. Not to over generalise but the Chinese have always been big on symbolism.
The Jasmine flower has always had a long time arisocratic association and the recent riots have just tipped this into an even more anti-communist symbol.
I also found it interesting that in the UK Poppies are associated with World War Veterans, but in China it has a horrible negative association because of the Opium wars.