Mingmei Yip - Song of the Silk Road

Tea is a way to make friends

to appreciate arts

to cultivate the Path

A way of enlightenment

One entire wall was covered by a huge Chinese painting of plum blossoms. In front of it was a small red-carpeted platform, and flanking the painting was a couplet:

Don’t make fun of my doggerel

Always, the best tea does taste like a beautiful woman

Wow. This unusual comparison suddenly made me feel very beautiful, giving me a sudden impulse to splurge on the best kind of tea.

A very young waitress led me to a small table.

“Miss, your first time here?” She smiled, revealing some regular teeth.

“Yes.”

“Tourist?”

“Yes, how can you tell?”

“You people look so different.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know, more Westernized, I guess,” she said, handing me the menu.

I glanced at the huge varieties of tea with poetic names: Iron Bodhisattva, Cold-Headed Oolong, ancient Pu’er, Yellow Mountain Hairy Peak, Big Red Robe, White Peony, Before Rain, Dragon Well, Cloud and Mist, Turquoise Spring, Blushing Lotus, Sorcerer’s Plum…. You name it and they had it. So, to hide my confusion as well as ignorance, I decided to order according to price. But then I discovered some tea, like the Big Red Robe and one special kind of Iron Bodhisattva, cost as much as two hundred renminbi a pot, which made me feel, alas, suddenly much less generous.

Probably seeing that I couldn’t make up my mind, the waitress said, her voice soothing like green tea, “Miss, just pick one. All our teas are first rate. But if you want my recommendation, try the aged Pu’er.”

I joked. “Is this to match my face?”

She jumped back. “Oh, no, of course not!”

I felt a little guilty that she actually looked very frightened.

“That’s not what I meant, miss. You look very young and pretty.”

“Thanks, and so are you.”

She blushed. “Maybe you don’t know since you don’t live here. Pu’er tea is getting more expensive each day. At auctions, collectors literally pay the price of gold for just a few pounds.”

“Is that so?”

She nodded. “And this particular one was just won in an auction by our boss. That’s why I recommend it.” She paused, then said, “If you go elsewhere, you might end up drinking fake Pu’er.”

I widened my eyes to show disbelief. “How can tea leaves be fake?”

She laughed a little. “Of course, the color is dyed and the fragrance sprayed on.”

“Oh, heavens!” This time I laughed. “How old is the Pu’er here?”

“Three years.”

“That’s old?”

“For tea, yes. There are some even older, but those are reserved only for our very special and distinguished guests.”

“How distinguished?”

“You should know, miss, that this is a very famous teahouse established in the 1940s. You’re lucky you got a seat today, because you arrived early. Even celebrities and movie stars have to order our tea in advance and reserve seats for our performances. We have tea ceremony, Beijing opera, pop songs, storytelling, magic shows.”

After another round of pleasant chitchat, I finally ordered the aged, eighty- renminbi -a-pot Pu’er. In five minutes, the waitress brought my tea on a large lacquer tray together with a hot towel and two small plates of snacks—an assortment of dried olives, kumquat, sugared plum, honey loquat, and watermelon seeds. After she left, I took a sip of the scalding amber liquid and let out a long exhalation. Despite all the recent, head-spinning happenings, I felt a strange sort of relief, even happiness. Maybe because some mysteries about my life had been brought to light, even though I hadn’t known about them in the first place.

Between sipping my aged tea, cracking dyed-red watermelon seeds, and popping the sweet-and-sour plum and the sweet-and-bitter kumquat into my mouth, I reflected on my relationships with my dead mother and my recently met about-to-die one. Of course, no matter what the dead one did to the still-living one, the one who raised me had been good to me, and nothing, not even the truth, would change my love for her.

However, now I also felt affection for my brave, mysterious new mother. Would I have the chance to peek inside the secret chamber of her soul and eavesdrop on some of her forbidden thoughts before they vanished forever?

As my mind was wandering, so were my eyes. I noticed now the place was gradually filling up with customers. Groups of men talked animatedly, probably discussing business and politics. The women, looking well off in nicely cut suits and dresses, leisurely sipped tea and deftly cracked watermelon seeds with long-nailed fingers as they gossiped animatedly.

Although the teahouse had become quite noisy, the earthy-tasting, pleasant-smelling, amber tea relaxed me. The place’s warm red and gold glow wrapped me in a cocoon of reminiscence and nostalgia.

After another hour of more tea sipping, reflecting, and watching people come and go, I finally felt some acceptance that Mindy Madison was my mother and sensed myself connected to her with subtle qi flowing between us. I didn’t want her to die. But what hope was there for her?

After the waitress refreshed my third pot of tea, a savvy male’s voice spilled through the amplifier and snaked into my ears. I looked and saw a small man holding a microphone on the big stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, attention please! Now our tea performers the Gao brother and sister are going to stun your eyeballs with their impossible tea ceremony. Let’s give them a big welcome!”

A round of loud applause exploded in the hall, followed by the entrance of—to my surprise—two teenagers. The duo’s lean bodies were wrapped in bright red and gold-rimmed kung fu outfits. With their smooth faces and sweet expressions you might wish they were your own children.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. How could these two thin, pubertal sticks be tea masters? From what I knew of tea ceremony, it is performed by people at least in their fifties, with calm countenance, dignified posture, and elegant, ritualized hand movements choreographed in a quiet, meditative setting. So how could these two youngsters have anything to do with “menopausal” tea ceremony? Worse, a loud kung fu music sound track started to boom to accentuate the duo’s presence.

A fiftyish, plump woman at the next table leaned toward me. “Miss, don’t underestimate these little people. We’re all here for them.”

The woman next to her at the same table chimed in, “I paid someone to babysit my grandson so I could come watch them.”

“Are they that good?”

“You’ll see.”

“But they’re just kids!”

“Believe me, miss, kids do amazing things.”

“Believe us, miss, be ready to be shocked,” her friend added.

Just then the duo made a deep bow to the audience followed by some warm-up martial arts movements—high kicks, fist strikes, legs stretched on the floor in the Chinese “one” character, all accompanied by their Bruce Lee-esque battle cry, “Hhhhaaa-Ahhh!”

I leaned to my neighbors and lowered my voice. “You’re sure they’re going to perform tea ceremony, not martial arts?”

The plump one whispered back amid the noisy commotion, “Oh, you must never have heard about it. This is modern tea ceremony, nothing to do with those performed by the white-haired folks with arthritic hands and constipated expressions. Shhh… pay attention and watch.”

Two female assistants pushed a cart to the middle of the stage, then quickly left. On the cart was a metal teapot with a three-foot-long spout, several small teacups, and a big kettle of water boiling on an electric stove.

The brother picked up the vessel and poured water into the long-mouthed teapot. Then the girl arranged all the cups—about five or six—on her head. After that, they began to move around swiftly, stretching their limbs in various gymnastic movements with the girl balancing the teacups the whole time. In about five minutes, suddenly the boy thrust at the girl with the teapot’s swordlike beak, and the girl fended off his attacks with her bare hands. All the time, the cups remained absolutely still. After that, the girl grasped the long beak and the two spun around in quick circles. Loud applause and the shouting of “Hao! Hao!” burst out from the captivated audience.