Tea Chat

This article was written on April 9, 2014.

Author: Lü Jianfeng

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

For example, that time.

At first, we chatted about real estate, from international finance to the 'National Five New Measures,' from housing to shops to office buildings, and then various boasts about how many apartments one had and how much they had appreciated. I have always rented, owning not a single brick, with no fixed residence, and not interested, so I quietly drank tea.

Then we talked about 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 went from nearly 40,000 in 2005 to just over 10,000 now, I didn't even dare to make a sound, only drinking tea.

Next, we discussed officialdom and unspoken rules, where I couldn't get a word in. Finally, we talked about women, and I perked up, finally able to speak. But just as I took a sip of tea, coughed a few times, and cleared my throat, 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.