Traditional pavilion home to an ancient, fragrant art
Print Edition
A PAVILION in traditional Chinese style on Zhouqiao Old Street is where to appreciate incense as an instrument for meditation or a form of art thousands of years old.
Xu Hongduo, the operator, is also a master of incense. As a disciple of a well-known Beijing-based incense master Pan Yichen, Xu has spent years studying the skill of making incense as well as the culture behind it.
After her husband resigned from a foreign-funded company, he started collecting different spices throughout Southeast Asia and the couple embarked on their new career.
At Xu’s pavilion in Jiading there are all sorts of incense made of different materials and with different uses.
Many fragrant herbs used to make traditional incense are also used in traditional Chinese medicine. They include chen xiang (agarwood), reputed to be the world’s most expensive wood, tan xiang (sandalwood), she xiang (musk), ru xiang (frankincense) and anxi xiang (benzoin resin).
Since Neolithic times, Chinese people burnt stones and wood for aromatherapy. When more spices were introduced to the country through the Silk Road, incense was widely used in daily life. They gave clothes a better smell and were used in traditional medicine, meditation and religious rituals.
To use of incense was considered elegant. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), appreciating incense was considered one of four “graceful daily things” to do, along with tasting tea, arranging flowers and arranging paintings on walls.
Xu, who spent her childhood at her grandparents’ TCM pharmacy, knows a lot about herbs and incense.
“The most important is to use incense in a correct way,” Xu said. There are different ways to light or burn incense while incense can also be made in different shapes, she said.
Different incense burners have different symbols. Some should be placed in the bedroom while others are more suitable for the living room.
For ancient men of letters, burning incense meant both pleasure and meditation.
When hermits sit down to discuss moral issues, lighting incense will cool their hearts and minds; when one feels lonely and lost in the wee hours, lighting incense will soothe the mind and body; when one writes calligraphy by the window, recites rhymed articles, or reads books at night, lighting incense will boost the spirit and prevent one from becoming sleepy; when a man and a woman are together, lighting incense can deepen their passion for each other.
Apart from practicing incense skills, Xu is also a Chinese teacher at Taoliyuan Experimental School and a lecturer in incense culture.
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