The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| The leaf and the grape, not so distant cousins? Posted: 28 May 2014 09:40 PM PDT They are both symbols of conviviality and lifestyle, have been consumed for thousands of years, and come from "trees of life" – the bush and the vine – that have been revered and mythologised in different cultures for millennia. "Tea was a medicine at first and it was saved by Buddhism. And the wine of antiquity would have disappeared if it wasn't for Christianity," said Jean-Paul Desroches, curator of the "Tea and Wine: A Shared Passion" exhibition at the Yishu 8 gallery, on the site of Beijing's former Sino-French University. He based the exhibition on a long-forgotten Tang dynasty Chinese text, the Chajiulun or "dialogue of tea and wine". Written in ink brush more than 1,000 years ago by a certain Wang Fu, it was among the manuscripts discovered in the early 20th century in the caves of Dunhuang, long a stop on the Silk Road. Four copies are preserved at France's national library, and two in the British Library. Wang Fu imagined a conversation between tea and wine, each drink boasting of its merits and mocking the other, until a third beverage joins in. Water tells them that all living things need it, and without it, they would be nothing, ending the argument. Totally parallel history It is an "ancient Chinese contest", explains Desroches, between "wine, which was supported by scholars and was a symbol of intoxication, including poetic intoxication, and tea, which was supported by the Buddhists and was a symbol of serenity". "Tea and wine have a totally parallel history," he says. "The main tools of tea are bowls, and they only exist through an art form that uses fire, ceramics. Wine needs tools of its own to be savoured and they only exist through an art form that uses fire, glass or crystal." Teas come in multiple colours – red, green, yellow, black, white – as do wines, and the characteristics of a vineyard are as essential to the taste of a wine as those of a garden to tea. Similarly connoisseurs deploy a language of fruits, tannins, and finishes when they compare different varieties. And just as white wine is generally drunk earlier than a red, green tea is consumed earlier than fermented tea. Wine, though, came of age around the eastern Mediterranean, while southern China claims to be the birthplace of tea. There, in Yunnan province, Li Minguo grows puer, one of the "grand crus" of tea. A culture as rich as those surrounding wine in Europe has grown up in the mountains abutting the Mekong basin, she says. "Good wine and good puer tea both need a special environment, rich in biodiversity," she says. "And when quality is part of the mix, they can be preserved, aged and classed according to their vintages. In that they are very similar," she says. "Puer tea can also be compared to wine in that it grows on large trees. Their roots are very deep and their branches very old." As with great Bordeaux of exceptional vintages, the price of old puer tea rises with time and has soared at auctions in China. Wine in France and tea in China "both have 2,000 years of history", said Sophie Kessler, who runs the Chateau Calissanne in the hills of Aix-en-Provence in France and came to Beijing to promote it. Among the artefacts at the exhibition, which opened earlier this month, is a ceramic pillow dating back to the Northern Song dynasty of 960-1127. It bears the inscription: "Nothing beats wine for dispelling fear, but a drink of tea will make your mind clear." – AFP, May 29, 2014. |
| Obesity weighs heavily on global health, study shows Posted: 28 May 2014 05:50 PM PDT Traditionally associated with an affluent lifestyle, the problem is expanding worldwide, with more than 62% of overweight people now in developing nations, said the report. There are some 2.1 billion overweight or obese people in the world today – up from 857 million 33 years earlier. Among the most striking statistics: more than half the population of Tonga is now classified as obese – a dangerous level of overweight – as are more than 50% of women in Kuwait, Libya, Qatar and Samoa. The United States also stands out with nearly 75% of men and 60% of women overweight or obese, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study published in The Lancet medical journal. "Obesity is an issue affecting people of all ages and incomes, everywhere," said Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who helped collate the data for the period 1980 to 2013. "In the last three decades, not one country has achieved success in reducing obesity rates, and we expect obesity to rise steadily as incomes rise in low- and middle-income countries in particular, unless urgent steps are taken to address this public health crisis." One is considered overweight with a weight-to-height (BMI) ratio of 25 or over, and obese from 30 upward. A staggering 671 million people now fall within the obese category, said the study – 78 million of them in the United States, which accounts for five percent of the world's population, but more than a tenth of its grossly overweight people. China and India, with much larger populations, trailed 2nd and 3rd in the top 10 obese countries with 46 million and 30 million people respectively, followed by Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan and Indonesia. Overweight people are more prone to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoarthritis and kidney disease, and the soaring numbers are placing a heavy burden on health care systems, said the study. Excess body weight is estimated to have caused 3.4 million deaths in 2010, and previous research has warned that an unabated rise in obesity could start eating away at life expectancy. The study, based on data from 188 countries, said the prevalence of obese and overweight adults grew by 28% worldwide, and by nearly 50% for children. For men, the increase was from 29 to 37%, and for women from 30 to 38% of the population. The study authors expressed concern that nearly a quarter of kids in developed countries and 13% in developing ones were overweight or obese – up from 16% and 8% in 1980. Thirteen percent of American children are obese, almost 30% if you include overweight – up from 19% in 1980. "Particularly high rates of child and adolescent obesity were seen in Middle Eastern and North African countries, notably among girls," the study authors noted. Other regional differences included a slower rate of increase in developed countries, but fast expanding waistlines in the Middle East, North Africa, Central America and Pacific and Caribbean Islands – regions where many countries' overweight rates exceed 44%. Fast gains were measured in Britain and Australia. Women are heavier in developing countries and men in developed ones, said the study. The World Health Organisation aims to halt the rise in obesity by 2025, a target the study authors said appeared "very ambitious and unlikely to be attained without concerted action and further research". One solution, said Klim McPherson from Oxford University, was to return to the BMI levels of 1980 – which would mean an 8% drop in consumption across the UK alone, at a cost to the food industry of some 8.7 billion pounds (RM46.91 billion) per year. "The solution has to be mainly political," he wrote in a comment on the study. "Where is the international will to act decisively in a way that might restrict economic growth in a competitive world, for the public's health? Nowhere yet." – AFP, May 29, 2014. |
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