Tea Chat

This article was written on April 9, 2014.

Author: Lü Jianfeng

Drinking and tasting tea often involves chatting, and the topics are diverse, ranging from astronomy to geography. Usually, one or two people talk enthusiastically, while a few quietly sip and listen. I usually fall in between, but there are exceptions.

For instance, that time.

We started chatting about real estate, from international finance to the 'National Five Regulations,' from housing to shops and office buildings, and then various boasts about how many properties one had and how much they had appreciated. I have always rented, owning not a single brick, with no fixed abode, and I wasn't interested, so I quietly drank tea.

Then we moved on to stocks, with grand tales of legends: someone started with a few hundred thousand and over a decade turned it into over ten million; another said that wasn't impressive, he knew someone who started with a few thousand and doubled every year for over a decade, now having several million. Then various individual stock cases were presented. For someone like me who had nearly 40,000 in 2005 and now has only a little over 10,000, I dared not even make a sound, only drinking tea.

Next came discussions about officialdom and unspoken rules, where I couldn't get a word in. Finally, the topic turned to women, and I perked up, finally able to speak. But just as I took a sip of tea, cleared my throat, and was about to speak, the topic shifted from women to daughters. Then it was about whose daughter was well-behaved, whose was talented, and whose had won awards in international competitions...

Well, let's just drink tea. Sipping Pu'er and listening to a thousand tales is just fine.