WHO I AM

My name is So-Han Fan.  I was born in New Orleans and raised in Texas.  I am descended from nomads:

My father is Hakka, a tribe of Han Chinese from China.  Their migrations took them from the Yangtze river valley to Southern China, and eventually across the world as part of the first wave of overseas Chinese immigrants to Taiwan, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and the West Coast of North America.  Transience is so ingrained in their society that their name means “Guest people.”

My  heritage on my mother’s side is European Jewish, a group whose famous nomadism originates from a pastoral lifestyle and was perpetuated by political upheaval, persecution and intolerance. It was a dramatic series of events – The Mongol and Manchurian invasions of China, the expansion of Islam throughout the Arabian Peninsula, the fall of the Roman and Chinese empires, the rise of Communism,  the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust – that brought together the very disparate genetic materials that produced me, distant twigs on the human family tree that have not been joined for thousands of years.  I am the product of two of the world’s largest and most historically-significant migrations:  The Jewish and Chinese Diasporas.

The deeply-ingrained nomadic impulse that is my birthright has led me hither and yon, through nearly every United State, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and now back to China, my fatherland.

WHAT I DO

My interests and pursuits are as varied as anyone’s, but the subtitle on my business card reads, in English and Chinese, “Tea – Fish – Music.”  This is a somewhat glib summation of my main passions in life so I’ll elaborate below:

TEA – I’ve always had a deep fascination with traditional Chinese culture, and about 7 years ago, while studying at UCSC, I began to practice Gong-Fu Cha 工夫茶, “the art of brewing tea.”  Briefly, gong-fu cha is an intensive and traditional style of brewing high-quality Chinese tea, especially oolong, using specialized vessels and techniques, paying special attention to the selection of leaves and water, in order to bring out the subtle flavors and aromas of the tea.  After many years of practicing the discipline individually and with a small group of like-minded friends in Santa Cruz, California, as well as holding informal tea tastings, I was employed by Jade Leaves Teahouse in Austin, Tx, where I worked as the house tea expert for more than a year.  At Jade Leaves I taught gong-fu cha classes, performed gong-fu cha service at the table, and held complimentary tea tastings.  I also performed gong-fu cha at local Austin events such as Synergy, an ecstatic dance party, various art openings, and private parties under the moniker “Tea For Texas,” often with my friend Nathan Davis of the Urban Teahouse.  For me tea is a hobby, a passion, and an erstwhile profession, but beyond that I firmly believe that the spread of tea culture and its associated values can help people to enjoy themselves without indulging in wanton consumption.

In the context of this website, the heading “TEA” may refer to tea production, processing, history, culture, trade, gong-fu cha or any other tea-related discipline, and occasionally broader aspects of Chinese culture such as architecture, horticulture and food which relate to tea.

FISH – I studied Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 2007.  My undergraduate thesis, Light limitation of Microcystis aeruginosa in a eutrophic environment, led my academic interests in the direction of limnology, which is the study of freshwater biology.  Somewhat peripherally, but not really, I spent the better part of a year working as a fishmonger at Quality Seafood, an Austin, Texas fish market, where I learned the art of cutting fish.

In the context of this website, “FISH” refers to limnology/marine biology, culinary traditions involving seafood, and sustainable agriculture/aquaculture.

MUSIC – I play classical guitar in addition to writing my own songs.  During my time in Austin I performed frequently, usually solo, although I was briefly the MC end of the electronic hip-hop duo NOCHE DE FIESTA with my friend DJ Naysayer.  My musical style is nebulous and eclectic, ranging from folk and country to acoustic hip-hop, rock, dirges and pirate music.  While in China I hope to learn several instruments, foremost the Sanxian 三弦, a 3-stringed Chinese lute with a python-skin resonator.  It has a dry, percussive sound similar to the American banjo, and like the banjo it can be fingerpicked or struck.  Sanxian music is associated with blind people in China.

MUSIC, in this case, refers only to music:  my music, the music of others, music from China and elsewhere, lyrics, audio, and video.

WHERE I’M GOING

My itinerary is loose and flexible; in mid-January of 2010 I drove Roxanne, my red Mazda pickup, from Austin, Tx to San Francisco, Ca, where I sold it to my friend Eric Heller.  I flew from San Francisco to Hong Kong on February 1st.  I intend to travel through as much of China as possible, in particular Fujian 福建, Zhejiang 浙江, and Jiangsu 江苏 on the East Coast, as well as Taiwan 臺灣, the Southern Central province of Guangdong 廣東, which is where my ancestors are from, and the Southwestern provinces of Guangxi 广西, Yunnan 云南, and Sichuan 四川.

WHY I’M HERE

I came to China because I love to travel; if I had to name a single purpose in life, travel would be it.  But I’ve always felt drawn to China in particular for many reasons, not the least of which being that it comprises half of my heritage, as well as a deep independent interest in Chinese culture, tea culture, and a love of Chinese food.

SUSTAINABILITY OR DEATH

The main reason, or at least the most significant reason, I’m here is to take part in the growing sustainability movement in China.  China is the world’s most populous country, and is poised to become the world’s foremost economic superpower.  If the Chinese, in their multitudes, engage in the level of consumption and waste now observed by the current superpower – i.e. the United States – the world’s resources will be exhausted in short order and the earth will face almost immediate economic collapse.  To put it another way:  The American dream, according to Herbert Hoover in 1928, involves two cars in every garage, and a chicken in every pot, and that’s a very conservative lifestyle compared to the reality of the American middle class.  Assuming the population of the People’s Republic of China is 1.2 billion (it’s somewhat more than that), and that it is roughly divided up into 3-person family units (Mother, father, and one child under the current reproductive policy), we now have .4 billion households.  If the Chinese were to strive for the “2 cars 1 chicken” lifestyle, it would involve 800,000,000 cars and 400,000,000 chickens.  Clearly the earth cannot sustainably produce that many cars and chickens.

Naturally cars and chickens are just indices of consumption, both for Herbert Hoover and China.  The “2-cars 1-chicken” paradigm represents a high-waste, high-consumption lifestyle driven by global capitalism and powered by global industry, a lifestyle that has been enjoyed by the 1st world for the better half of the 20th century at the expense of the environment and developing countries.  There’s no reason that China, as a rising superpower, can’t enjoy a 1st-world lifestyle, but what a “1st-world” lifestyle is needs to be redefined.  Unchecked consumption and waste can no longer be synonymous with luxury.

The Chinese have a saying, “Dig a well before you are thirsty.”  To put this in modern economic terms, we have to invest in long-term sustainability before our resources are completely exhausted.  The human race has not yet reached carrying capacity (i.e. Maximum population) for the planet Earth.  We still have time to correct the failures of the last century, and in the case of developing nations like China, there is time to establish a sustainable food-production infrastructure before the blight of industrial agriculture can take hold.

I plan to travel to Sichuan province to work with the Chengdu Urban Rivers Association (CURA), an environmental rehabilitation organization based in the Sichuan capital city of Chengdu.  They are currently undertaking a Model Village Project in the village of Anlongcun 安龍村 (Peace Dragon Village), implementing sustainable measures such as graywater and groundwater treatment, green agriculture, and methane gas harvesting.  There I intend to learn about green agriculture and the local foodshed from the villagers, and to pilot and implement a vertically-integrated aquaponics system of my own design which incorporates an aquaculture fish pond, a pump to remove excess nutrients, and a hydroponic garden to take up said nutrients.

Depending on how much free time this endeavor allows me, I plan to travel throughout China visiting tea farms, old villages with traditional architecture, places of natural beauty and historical and cultural value, and whatever else happens to come my way.  This website is my way of documenting and publishing what I see and do, as well as generating interest and funding in the sustainability end of my project.