Shanghai-ed by Tea in China

I had one day in Shanghai, so I took a cab into the center of the city to begin my day at the Shanghai Museum. I went first to the tea room and had a pot of green tea while two gay Asian businessmen drank espresso at the table next to me. I looked at the bronze collection… hmm… it was a rainy day and I had not a lot of energy after my trip to the interior. In the museum shop I bought a brush on silk painting of a little monk playing a flute while riding on the back of a charging bull—a depiction of the spirit of Buddhism, if ever I saw one!

I left the museum with my bags in one hand and umbrella in the other. As I headed for the taxi stand in the rain, a young man offered his umbrella, and asked if I had enjoyed the museum... and so began the adventure of the day. Soon we were joined in conversation by a friend of his who came out of the museum, then another young woman joined us. I shared my plans for the day and took advice on how to change them to get the best of Shanghai. As I was about to set out as directed, they invited me to come with them to a “tea ritual.” Off I walked with these nice English-speaking Chinese college students, in search of the tea shop. Of course, I did have half a thought to pay attention to my surroundings. Of course I knew the name of the street that I was on and approximately where it was in relation to the museum, of course. And I knew that I was walking off in a city that was entirely unknown to me, and with three very nice strangers, and, of course… but they were so nice.

I trundled along, chatting happily as turned in to the Champ Elysee, walked into a mall, found the tea shop, where we were led to a back room for the tea-tasting. The room was small and dim with a beautiful table made from slabs of a tree. The hostess wore a beautiful red silk jacket and stood behind the table, while the four of us sat on stools in front of the table. I asked to see a price list… ah, 38 yuen. I could afford that, I thought, while red-jacket assured me that they gladly accepted credit cards. So, the ‘tea ritual’ began, and it lasted for almost three hours, a progression from tea to tea, with demonstrations of making each tea and instructions for drinking each tea, sweet fruit tea with rose petals, bitter tea whose first taste is sweet, but whose second taste chokes, tea that sprouts flowers when boiling water is poured over it, tea that is good for digestion, or for heart health, tea for gender enhancement—ah, jasmine tea should make me feel like woman. I complimented my young friends on their unusually large vocabularies in English—phenomenal—a word they all understood! Even the young woman demonstrating and explaining the teas, who did not speak English, laughed at my jokes before they were translated. I noticed, too, how I was complimented on looking young for my age, and how they said that fair people age so much better than darker people, a patently ridiculous notion that may be soothing for some older white people.

I offered to pick up the tab as our tasting session came near to closure. Of course I was given the opportunity to purchase some tea to take with me, in a free canister! And, of course, I offered to pick up the tab. We were all tea-sated and happy from hours of conversation. We all selected tea to take away with us. Oh. I had not made that offer. But I got the bill! I asked for a calculator to be sure of what I was computing. Yes, indeed, my tea party was going to cost 327 US dollars. Now the fact that I was in a back room with four strangers in a city I don’t know and without a cell phone was central in my thoughts. I said I would like to take a moment to think, while they acted embarrassed, offering to return their teas. I did think and then I said, “I would like to pay for this and then I would like to take a taxi back to the ship.” Very nice. And I allowed them to walk to the taxi with me and translate my map and instructions to the ship which I had written in Chinese on a scrap of paper. Of course, I felt foolish, of course, taken for a ride, but at least I was on my way to the ship in a government taxi, or so I hoped!

When I returned to the ship, I met other people who had spent very expensive afternoons in parallel tea rituals. It occurred to me that it was up to me to interpret my experience, to notice how I had moved between pleasure and pain in my risk-taking afternoon; and then I thought, “Why settle on one interpretation of such a multi-faceted event? Let it be in all its complexity.” I had a lovely time with the tea and with the people and I was deceived and ripped-off; okay, then. But I also was able to “get off the bus,” the tourism bus on which everything is canned and prepared, “Stop here for photo, five minutes, best view.”

It may not have been the best view, but it was real and interesting… oh, yes, and expensive.