"Whenever I think of oolong tea, for some reason I always recall the time I landed at the Beijing Airport in winter. In the 1980s, the Beijing Airport was much smaller than it is now. Landing there at the time, you became aware of a smell faintly wafting in the air of something like burning briquettes or coal used for heating. From then on, each time I caught a whiff of that scent, the feeling of quiet delight at coming back to China again would effervescently rise up in me. As I gazed absentmindedly through the glass window in the old lobby that was there in those days at the misty white horizon far in the distance, the words "faraway feeling" rose naturally to mind and then I would always quietly murmur those words somewhere in my heart. [...]
The unforgettable scenes I saw on train trips are also lodged deep in my memory. All of them are everyday scenes often seen and not at all remarkable. One time, from the window of a train crossing the Yangtze River, I saw from behind an elderly man leaning forward and looking intently outside. As I watched the man with his eyes fixed on one thing in the way a child would do, an overwhelming emotion welled up inside me that almost brought me to tears. I wonder what he looking at and why it is that the presence of someone motionless and free from thought is unexplainably beautiful? At the time, the soft light enveloping him that shone in from the window and the scenery of the Yangtze River passing by in the distance outside the window also no doubt contributed to what I was feeling.
Another time, I was sitting in the deserted dining car in the afternoon idly gazing out at the landscape of the countryside passing by the window and happening to switch my gaze to the front of the car, I saw a young man and woman attired in what looked to be immaculately white chef's uniforms sitting on small chairs near the entrance to the kitchen peeling potatoes. It was evident that they got on well and talked cheerfully together as they worked quickly, thoroughly peeling the skin off the potatoes. I wondered whether they must be secretly in love or perhaps beginning to fall in love. Having these imaginings and feeling a little envious as I watched this charming couple, visions of human interactions and beautiful scenery I wanted to photograph for the oolong commercial spontaneously began to run through my mind.
In China at that time, such very typically human scenes were everywhere to be found. I would see people here and there interacting in situations that for me were somehow nostalgic and heartrending, which made it an extravagant journey of the heart. It was a miracle age in which the next romantic episode could be imagined at leisure. I am deeply grateful to the people at Suntory who allowed me to experience those trips and take those photographs as well as to the people I encountered in China, and my heart overflows with joy at having been able to work together with all of them to produce the commercials. And I believe all of us who worked together brought commercials into Japanese living rooms that met Suntory's expectations.
I described that time as a miracle age, but even now I'm hoping to hear people casually say, "No, look! It's an even more miraculous age right now."
Yoshihiko Ueda （Extracted from the foreword "Suntory Oolong Tea Journey to a Faraway Land"）
- Pages: 584 Size: 257 x 182 mm Cloth hardcover Colour
