Sentence one Wilkinson- Typically, all memory of the original borrowing of the practice from indigenous peoples was erased by assigning the invention of tea to the Chinese culture hero, Shennong, who was believed to have flourished thousands of years before the actual borrowing of took place.
Sentence two Twoler- Interestingly enough this discovery was only by-product of his intense study of herbs. Shen Nong is the father of Chinese herbalism and his work, the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing or Shen Nong’s herbal Classic, is still used today.
These sentences both discuss the same person- Shennong, but through their writing styles highlight him and his story in very different ways and thus lead the reader to vastly different conclusions through subtle writing differences. Wilkinson, mentions Shennong only as a cultural hero for his discovery of tea. By only mentioning this fact and not mentioning the rest of his story, it makes the reader digest the story differently, since it sounds like he discovered tea on purpose rather than on accident, and that he didn’t do anything significant outside of that. Overall this adds to the mythical nature of him and his story, almost romanticizing his life and really makes him into that cultural hero for the Chinese people being the original creators of tea that would later spread it to the rest of the world. While Towler on the other hand, mentions that yes he might have discovered tea, but, one this was by accident, and two this wasn’t his primary focus in life and in fact he was a person with accomplishments outside of that. The subtle difference in how these men mention the same person gives the reader a vastly different portrayal of who this person was and wether what he did made him a cultural hero or more of an average man that happened upon something grand.
Bibliography
Towler, Solala. Cha Dao: The Way of tea As a way of Life. London: Singing Dragon 2010.
“A Brief History of Tea in China.” Chinese History: A New Manual, by Endymion Wilkinson, Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2013.
