plum blossom

plum blossom

What a nice day here in Hangzhou,China! Clear and warm, and I'm sure there're lots of local people going to the botanical garden to appreciate these plum blossoms with friends and families.
Do you love them or, I should ask you, as much as the Chinese? The Chinese never like a flower just because of its floral beauty but more of its spirit it bespeaks. For example, lotus is so loved for it's a symbol of purity and cleaness. Need no more explanation, right? So a lotus is loved so and often used to describe some girl having good virtues although she might be from undecent background.
So what a plum flower represents, then? Simple to understand, it blossomes in freezing cold winter while all the other wither. With its white, pink, red or even light green flowers, it warms your cold winter heart and informs you another spring of sunshine and breeze is coming soon. No wonder it's regarded a flower of hope and seclusion and gain all Chinese great love. By the way, China, unlike most other foreign nations hasn't chosen its national flower yet. Campaign to select national flower was begun some 10 years ago. Good news is plum and peony are the two lastround candidates. If you had the final vote, which one would you like?
Another story related to plum (or mei in Chinese language, also a family name) is in Hangzhou there's a tea valley named Family Mei's valley. As the largest of five villages working on some very tradtional agriculture, great tea production, it welcomes everyday thousands of locals and tourists around the year. Valued to be the finest great tea in China and the world, this all handmade tea earns its famers a very very good living. The picking season of best grade of a year is going to start soon around the middle of March. Till May the tea picked and pocessed belongs to Spring tea, is far more nutritious and valuable than other two season of summer and fall. Do you drink great tea a lot? If yea, I am happy for you for it does lots of healthy benefit to you. Recommendedly, have two cups per day to maximum the intake of antioxidant from it to retard the aging and radiation and keep your young look.
The third plum news is about the coming release of Mei Bojiu's Beijing opera album. This morning I watched a programme hosted by Yang Lan interviewing Song Ke, one of most successful music producers on mainland China. It's going to be a Hi-Fi album of Master Mei, son of the most important opera performer in the 30-50s of 20 century China, Mei lanfan. Check out google for more reports about him.
Have a beautiful day!