tea and leather

As the winning group of our “Beijing Race” we had the great privilege of traveling with our teacher to a teahouse across town. Our culture teacher met the tea house owner who sings in the choir at the local church about seven years ago. The picture shows us enjoying our prize: we experienced a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. Our teacher said, “Be prepared to drink a lot of tea!” We started off drinking Oolong tea. There is an entire procedure/ritual about pouring the hot water in the tea pot, straining off the tea into the public pouring vessel, smelling the aroma from the aroma cup, then sipping the tea from the drinking cup.

The tea ceremony (cha2 yi4) is performed in seven rounds where each round symbolizes a distinct step in the cleansing and washing of the physical body and of the soul. During the last round, our tea instructor emphasized that we need Living Water to sustain us – without it, we are empty and cannot live. When we do allow the Living Water (metaphorically and literally the tea) to pour into us, we must let what goes in come out, or our bodies will pass away. Therefore, we must share/live out/and pour this Living Water into others.

One afternoon, after class, we and two others left the hotel. After much train hopping and map deciphering, we arrived at the “Silk Market and Pearl Market.” The eight floor market was directly connected to the subway terminal.

We were on a mission to get Hui a purse (this is a first, usually I dump my cell phone, wallet, and knick knacks into a backpack). As we weaved through the halls, we looked up and we saw stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls of bags! We squeezed by all the foreigners (we've never seen so many foreigner's in China before!) and managed to smile and ignore all the sales people telling us, “take a look at a bag.” “What kind of bag would you like?”

“Would you like a watch?” Gordon replies, “No, no, I like my watch thank you.”

“Would you like a pen?” “No, no, thank you, I have a pen and I like it very much.”

“Would you like a wallet?” “Actually, I have a wallet and I don't need another one, thank you.”

“A belt sir?” “The belt that I am wearing is a nice belt, see? I'm very pleased with my belt. Thank you.”

Sensory overload.

We stepped in one of the stalls and told the lady that we wanted a small black purse. She showed me a potential bag and said, “the price used to be ¥360, but because you're my friend, I'll let you have it for ¥260.” I couldn't really decide if that purse was the style I wanted, so I started walking away. As I walked out of the stall, I heard a faint, “here, best price is ¥100.”

We walked to the stairwell to talk about our plan of action and we decided how much we were willing to pay and what bag I wanted. Finally, I figured out that the Chloe purse I saw would suit me and I found it in another stall. The saleslady there started: “Usually, the price is ¥360, but because you speak Chinese, I'll make it ¥280.” I smiled at her and said, “no, no, how about ¥80.” She said, “How did you jump so low, here ¥185 is the best price.” Meanwhile, Gordon is laughing and saying, “We could get this purse for ¥100 next door!” I continued, “Mmm, I could get that price for ¥90 in another stall.” She continued, “come on, add a few yuan,” Meanwhile, I'm looking at Gordon next to me, and smiling, enjoying the moment. I look at her and say, “90Y.” She said, “¥100.” I came back at her with ¥90 and then she finally said, “¥95.” I smiled and said, OK. As I'm pulling my ¥100 bill out of my pocket, she asks us where we're from and we tell her we're from America and that I'm a Chinese American. She also told Gordon, “You drive a hard bargain.” We gave her the 100 and told her to keep the change – the fun was in the bargaining, and Gordon's a softie. We walked away with everybody smiling.