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Royal Inspiration · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Some aspects of culture are so ingrained that we cannot
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  Speaker 1: imagine a time without them. It's easy to picture what
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  Speaker 1: it was like to not have cars or cell phones
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  Speaker 1: or email, but conceive what human life was like before
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  Speaker 1: the invention of water filters requires a more subtle stretch
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  Speaker 1: of the imagination. The same can be true of other
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  Speaker 1: drinks and foods. The origins of alcohol, bread, and more.
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  Speaker 1: We've known these things for so long the original incidents
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  Speaker 1: that led to their invention are the stuff of myth.
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  Speaker 1: And this is true for tea. It comes in such
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  Speaker 1: a wide variety of flavors, green, black, herbal mint. It
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  Speaker 1: has iterations that span an equally wide variety of cultures.
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  Speaker 1: English breakfast tea, Darjeeling chai. They say more about the
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  Speaker 1: people who prepared them than they do about their own history,
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  Speaker 1: which makes you wonder where did tea come from in
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  Speaker 1: the first place. We know it originated in East Asia
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  Speaker 1: and slowly spread to the rest of the world. But
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  Speaker 1: once you go far enough back in history, you find
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  Speaker 1: yourself in a realm where myth and history intersect. In
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  Speaker 1: the early two thousands BCE, Yan emperor shen Nong was
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  Speaker 1: traveling with the column of Servants, a mythic figure in
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  Speaker 1: Chinese folklore. It said in some stories that he was
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  Speaker 1: born after his mother inhaled the breath of a dragon.
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  Speaker 1: By the time he had grown into adulthood, he was
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  Speaker 1: a polymath, an herbalist, and a scientist with an extremely
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  Speaker 1: curious mind. In fact, it said that he journeyed all
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  Speaker 1: the way across China to record every herb that grew
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  Speaker 1: in the wild and what medicinal effects they might have.
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  Speaker 1: As the story goes, during his travels, he stopped in
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  Speaker 1: order to catch his breath. His servants dutifully began to
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  Speaker 1: boil some water. Now shen Nong had learned a while
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  Speaker 1: back that boiling water makes it safe to drink. While
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  Speaker 1: the emperor sat patiently waiting for that, enjoying the summer air,
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  Speaker 1: dried leaves from a nearby plant fell into the boiling water,
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  Speaker 1: and the smell caught shen Nong's attention. Immediately, he experimentally
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  Speaker 1: sipped the leaf infused water and was delighted by the
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  Speaker 1: taste as well. He called his servants to gather around him,
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  Speaker 1: and he declared that the drink made from these leaves
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  Speaker 1: was healthy and refreshing and must be remembered. This plant,
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  Speaker 1: according to the legend, was the camellia bush. Future botanists
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  Speaker 1: when named this the Camellia sinensis or tea tree for short.
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  Speaker 1: The drink made from this plant, tea would become a
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  Speaker 1: global sensation. Although it started as a purely medicinal beverage,
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  Speaker 1: historical records of tea started to appear some three thousand
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  Speaker 1: years later in three hundred CE, where it was still
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  Speaker 1: primarily used for medicine. It was during the Tang dynasty
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  Speaker 1: from the six hundreds to the nine hundreds that tea
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  Speaker 1: became a ubiquitous beverage to enjoy socially rather than just
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  Speaker 1: for the health benefits. This period would become known as
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  Speaker 1: the Classic Age of tea, and curiously, it's around this
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  Speaker 1: time that we find another legend about the origin of tea,
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  Speaker 1: this time from a Buddhist perspective, the man who would
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  Speaker 1: bring Buddhism to China was an Indian monk called Bodhidharma.
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  Speaker 1: The real man who bore that title likely lived in
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  Speaker 1: the four hundreds, and the legend is without a date.
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  Speaker 1: It is, like so many fables, timeless. It begins with
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  Speaker 1: Bodhadharma meditating while staring at a cave wall. He would
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  Speaker 1: stare at this cave wall for nine whole years in
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  Speaker 1: an effort to clear his mind and focus on achieving enlightenment. However,
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  Speaker 1: as soon as he'd begun, he became frustrated. His eyes
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  Speaker 1: kept drifting clothes, and he kept dozing off. In order
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  Speaker 1: to keep himself awake, the monk tore off his eyelids
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  Speaker 1: and threw them to the ground where they had fallen.
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  Speaker 1: A strange plant began to grow, a tea plant. Now,
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  Speaker 1: these two origin stories of tea, where the plant came
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  Speaker 1: from and who discovered the drink are incompatible if you
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  Speaker 1: think about them as history, because it certainly wouldn't be
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  Speaker 1: possible for the first tea plant to grow three thousand
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  Speaker 1: years after the drink was discovered. But if you think
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  Speaker 1: about them as culture, the stories seem not just possible
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  Speaker 1: but inevitable. Tea is such a humble drink that it
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  Speaker 1: only makes sense to attach its discovery to great figures
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  Speaker 1: of myth and legend, characters that represent curiosity, discovery, and thoughtfulness,
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  Speaker 1: all the qualities one would hope to cultivate while having
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  Speaker 1: a peaceful cup of tea on a quiet afternoon. If
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  Speaker 1: a cultural practice becomes common enough and inevitably becomes a legend,
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  Speaker 1: all it needs is the right amount of time to steep.
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  Speaker 1: Some stories are curious because of how delightful they are. Others, though,
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  Speaker 1: have a bit of darkness, and today's tale is part
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  Speaker 1: of the latter. That said, there's always something to learn
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  Speaker 1: from history, so hold on and stay curious. The backdrop
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  Speaker 1: of this story is unavoidably tragic that takes place on
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  Speaker 1: the Islands of Hawaii during the late nineteenth century, when
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  Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Hawaii was in the process of being
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  Speaker 1: usurped by the Dull Pineapple Company in an illegal coup.
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  Speaker 1: But even during such a dark period of Hawaiian history,
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  Speaker 1: there is a glimmer of light, inspiring people whose tireless
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  Speaker 1: work preserve their culture even in the face of aggressive
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  Speaker 1: industrial exploitation. One of these was a member of the
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  Speaker 1: Hawaiian royal family, a young woman named Kayo Lani, the
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  Speaker 1: daughter of Princess Leke Leke and the Scottish businessman Archibald Scott.
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  Speaker 1: She was the fourth in line to the Hawaiian throne.
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  Speaker 1: Like any child in a royal family, she had responsibilities
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  Speaker 1: thrust on her from an early age. According to those
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  Speaker 1: who knew her, she loved to paint and she loved
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  Speaker 1: to surf, and this latter hobby was frustrating to the
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  Speaker 1: more conservative Christian residents of Hawaii, who disapproved of surfing
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  Speaker 1: as an uncivilized native practice. As a child, she also
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  Speaker 1: had a fondness for the peacocks kept on the grounds
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  Speaker 1: of the Royal Hawaiian State. She would earn the nickname
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  Speaker 1: the Peacock Princess due to the time she spent among
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  Speaker 1: these colorful birds. In order to protect her from the
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  Speaker 1: instability of the political situation in Hawaii, she was sent
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  Speaker 1: to a boarding school in England, where she became fluent
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  Speaker 1: in German and French on top of her native languages
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  Speaker 1: of Hawaiian and English, and then, at the age of fifteen,
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  Speaker 1: she was named Crown Princess of Hawaii by Queen Lily Ukulani.
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  Speaker 1: Even while studying abroad, there's some evidence that she still
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  Speaker 1: found time to surf, possibly become the first woman to
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  Speaker 1: write a surfboard in the British Isles. Her cousins had
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  Speaker 1: been the first men to do so, setting the record
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  Speaker 1: a number of years earlier. Her education, sadly, though, would
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  Speaker 1: be cut short by the political turmoil in Hawaii as
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  Speaker 1: the kingdom was deposed. She and the queen became strong
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  Speaker 1: advocates for Hawaiian independence, speaking out for the country that
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  Speaker 1: they believed was being taken from them. She traveled to
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  Speaker 1: Washington to make her case before Congress and President Grover Cleveland.
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  Speaker 1: As she traveled through America, newspapers followed her closely. She
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  Speaker 1: was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing Hawaii annexation and returned to
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  Speaker 1: her home in Hawaii to join Queen Lili Okolani and
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  Speaker 1: her father, and there she and the queen protested the
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  Speaker 1: annexation ceremony by wearing black funeral dresses and refusing to attend.
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  Speaker 1: You know, today we live in a post monarchy world.
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  Speaker 1: Most kings and queens that still exist are ceremonial roles,
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  Speaker 1: relics of great imperial past. Like the British Royal family,
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  Speaker 1: but dedicateations to the Hawaiian royal family have a different
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  Speaker 1: tone than Buckingham Palace. They were powerful monarchs, to be sure,
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  Speaker 1: and the legacy of the Kingdom of Hawaii has a
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  Speaker 1: purity to it before the sugar plantations and pineapple farmers arrived.
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  Speaker 1: The island spirit that survives today somehow is undeluded by
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  Speaker 1: its status as an American state. And as for Kaiolani herself,
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  Speaker 1: while she's a figurehead of the spirit, the surfing painting
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  Speaker 1: princess who traveled the world and then came home to
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  Speaker 1: fight for the dignity of her people. If you were
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  Speaker 1: on the island of Owahu in eighteen ninety you might
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  Speaker 1: have caught a glimpse of this image at sunset, a
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  Speaker 1: man and a young woman sitting beneath a banyan tree
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  Speaker 1: near the Hawaiian Royal residence. And this woman, of course,
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  Speaker 1: would be Princess Kaiolani, and the man, a Scotsman of
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  Speaker 1: about thirty eight years, was author and poet Robert Lewis Stevenson,
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  Speaker 1: writer of Treasure Island. He had made friends with the
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  Speaker 1: Hawaiian royal family, and Kaiolani was quite fond of him.
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  Speaker 1: Before he left the islands, he wrote a poem for her,
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  Speaker 1: referencing her travels and indomitable spirit. It goes in part
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  Speaker 1: like this fourth from her land to mine, she goes
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  Speaker 1: the island made the island rose, But our Scott's Islands
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  Speaker 1: far away shall glitter with unwonted day and cast for
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  Speaker 1: once their tempest. Buy to smile in Kyle Lani's eye.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.