TEA TOTELER

On Thursday (9/28), my Brazilian Angel returned from her sojourn abroad in Europe. She’d left on Friday, the 15th and, frankly, I had really begun to miss her.

Bright and early Thursday morning, my phone rang and her soft voice eked through the phone line. Would I like to come to breakfast tomorrow, she asked.

I nearly leapt through my skin. Duh, of course!

I floated through the day, elated about seeing my Brazilian Angel and hearing the stories of “back home” (aka France). I promised myself I’d get some good sleep and be bright and fresh to see her in the morning.

However, the thing about the promises I make to myself is that I almost always find myself forced to break them. The reason I found to break my promise came in the form of my Chinese friend (of Muslim Quarter and massage fame) and an invitation to join he, some friends and his family for tea at the tea shop on the compound.
At first I resisted. He called and it was already 9pm. I knew that if I went out now I wouldn’t be home until late and I didn’t want to be overly tired for my meeting the next morning with my Brazilian Angel. But, my Chinese friend being my Chinese friend insisted. I must say, one of the things I am truly ambivalent about is how persistent the Chinese can be. When they are offering or demanding something wonderful, it is such a blessing as Westerns often demure at first blush and we miss so much because of that. The flip side to that is when they are offering or demanding something less-than-wonderful it takes a lot of energy to stand your ground. Coming from the West, where people tend to fear me considering my size and stern appearance, tenacity to sway me against my will is nothing I’m all that accustom to.

Nonetheless, truly ambivalent about going to the tea shop, I pulled my act together, put on my friendly face and went out to meet my Chinese friend. As I came around the corner of the row of apartment buildings to the main drag of store fronts, I was greeted warmly by his wife out front of the shop.

Up half a flight of stairs (as all shops on the main drag are) and immediately through the glass double doors sits the low tea table. Around the outer edge of the table are the traditional teacups (think porcelain shot glasses) sitting on their wooden tray. On three of the four sides of the table sit guests. On the forth side sits the tea hostess. Before the hostess and rather centrally located on the table is a large, butcher block-like wooden tray with a small plastic hose attached to it. The wooden tray is intricately carved with designs of trees etched in bas-relief around the outside of the tray. In the center of the tray is a slotted trap of some sort. Atop the tray is a teeny, tiny teapot; the sort you see in tea shops and wonder what the hell anyone could want with a teapot no larger than three inches in diameter. Next to the tray is a glass teapot (they type with the sachet column in the center) sitting on a Bunsen burner boiling away. The tea looks positively red-wine-like. Also, half a small gourd with a strainer sits by the teeny tiny teapot. At the far end of the large butch block-like tray is a cup of various carving and brushing implements, the likes of which I have not seen since the last time I took a sculpture class.

As I entered the tea shop, I was greeted with the Chinese warmth and the customary cloud of cigarette smoke. I took my seat between my Chinese friend’s wife (to my left) and a small boy (to my right). To my friend’s wife’s left was another woman (I later discovered was a doctor). To the little boy’s right was his father (a wealthy business man). To his father’s right was my Chinese friend. To my friend’s right was the husband of the lady doctor. Between the lady doctor and her husband sat the tea hostess. Everyone was charming and (to my eternal confusion) fascinated by me.

If I can make a broad generalization, it has been my experience thus far that large groups of Chinese adults consistently want to know about money and how it works in America while the kids want to know about American fashion and style. The very simple notion that, while the dollar is (at current) approximately eight times the yuan, America is also eight times as expensive as China is definitely hard to explain through a translator. In fact, in terms of buying power, the Chinese yuan in China is just (if not a tad more) powerful than the American dollar. So, in that respect, it’s sort of a one to one ratio. We spent much of the evening coming up with items and they asked me how much said items would cost in the States. After a while, I think the concept finally made it through translation as the parents made the firm decision to send their children to work in America and then we moved on.
Curious about all the implements on the table, I asked my friend just how they all got used. My friend (giddy and lovely as ever; I came to realize after watching him constantly touch and stroke his male friends that he’s just a toucher and I shouldn’t read into his touching) showed me the raw tea that we were drinking. It came in a disk about a foot in diameter and pressed hard to the point of sounding like porcelain when you tap it. He showed me how the tea hostess pries up pieces of tea and then dunks the tea in the large Bunsen burner teapot to boil.

The tea hostess then came over to show us the shop; a beautiful place with shelves full of fancy teas and tea accoutrements. She explained (and my friend translated) how the tea we were drinking was best when aged up to fifty years. She showed us different disks of tea in their original cheese cloth/rice paper wrapping and dated each one. A disk of tea that was fifty years old would be worth several thousand yuan.

She then showed me the statue of Quan Yin in the back of the store and I told her that the Jude at home has a statue of Quan Yin. You see, Quan Yin is the Bodhisattva of Compassion (a “Bodhisattva” is like a Buddhist “patron saint” only in Buddhism, once you attain “prajna” or enlightenment, only if you postpone Nirvana and return to help mankind are you a Bodhisattva; imagine a Saint who arrives at the Pearly Gates and says, “You know what, no, I’ve got go back down there and help. I’ll be back in a bit.”) and she is most directly linked with the care of children. I explained what I knew of Quan Yin and everyone seemed to be impressed. Thanks mom! Through my Tibetan fetish, I was able to place the chanting the tea hostess was playing and further impressed everyone with my knowledge of Buddhism.

We returned to our seats and spoke through my friend who acts, constantly, as a translator even though my Chinese comprehension is picking up and I’m able to follow many simple conversations. She poured me another cup of tea.

The tea pouring is certainly a sight to behold. She fills up one pot with water and pours that into the glass teapot atop the Bunsen burner. The tea boils and turns the color of a good cabernet. As the tea reaches the appropriate temperature, she places the gourd with the small filter in it atop the teeny tiny teapot and pours enough to fill the teeny tiny serving pot. The gourd filters out any fine particles left in the tea and you are left with a clear liquid.

I can truly say I’ve never had a perfect cup of tea before. It’s always been either too strong or too weak or over or under steeped. This was the perfect cup. The flavor was present without being demanding. It was pleasant and light and it is advertised as a tea that lowers blood pressure, settles the stomach and is good for weight loss (I think it was called something like “Po” or “Bo”). Frankly, it was not only the best tea I’ve ever had but it was also the most calming. We all joked around and chatted some more.

I must say, I am enjoying being teased a bit. There’s nothing quite like going to some place utterly foreign and being so accepted that they finally become comfortable enough to tease you. I’ve noticed that the attitude has gone from shock and awe that I can use chopsticks to teasing me at the fact that I am, while remarkably good for a Westerner, remarkably bad for a Han.

And as I write this, my favorite college student (remember the somber 18 year old still in love with a girl back home?) called me. In the park, we had spoken for a while about the mountain memorial to China’s only self-declared Empress that looks like a sleeping woman. Today is Chinese National Day (their 4th of July; October 1st) and so everyone returns home for a visit. My college friend returned to his home, climbed the mountain and called me from the top. He told me it was beautiful and he wanted to share that with me. I asked if the butterflies unique to the area he had spoken about were out and he said he saw one. He was so happy to be able to reach out and share that moment in English and once my high of getting that phone call wore off, I wanted to bitch slap my predecessor. There’s so much beauty to be had here if you just shut the hell up, put aside your cultural hang-ups and listen but so many Westerners waste that opportunity with their assurance that they understand the one “real” way to get things done. There’s plenty of time to be Western at home; embrace the brief moment when you’re not!