Cherry and tea

 Cherry worked at the EF centre in sales and aimed to improve her English, though it really was 'elementary' level. I accepted her invitation to take me to lunch on one of our Monday's off, at 11am, which I didn't really consider the time for lunch, but Chinese usually take it fairly early in comparison. 

We started with beef noodles at one of the local restaurants where we mostly sat in silence and resorted to using WeChat translate to communicate. I explained that I was interested in culture, art and museums, and so she took me by bus to a local library where I could peruse all the books I wanted, some huge, some small, and although an insight into genuine Chinese art from these books, I couldn't read or understand anything. 

When a Chinese person suggests to do one activity, they don't mean 'one', it can continue for the entire day, which could often get exhausting, especially when struggling to communicate. The walk back to the bus stop seemed to take around 40 minutes, as opposed to the 15 minutes it took for us to find the library, only to learnt that Cherry was using Baidu maps and she kept getting lost on the way to the stop. At this point, I noticed the Chinese reliance on technology and APPs that Brits simply didn't have, that was predated upon a high degree of 'trust', generally with no thought to a 'back up' plan, like a map, that Europeans might consider in the event of failing technology, such as the phone crashing or losing power. A phone losing power was difficult to imagine for a Chinese, especially with restaurants, shops, and outdoor alcoves being equipped with around 50 electricity banks that could be rented for a small fee of around 2RMB to swiftly charge a phone while 'on the go'. This system meant that life always remained linked to the phone and was 'convenient'. 

Indeed, everything in China was all about 'convenience'. APP's were designed to solve 'inconvenient' problems facilitating an easy life, which always involved reducing human interaction-something that especially in Yorkshire, which has a predominantly older population, would actually be inconceivable. APP's were designed to call taxi's, pay water and electricity bills, as well as ordering coffee from Starbucks to be ready for pick up on arrival. This reliance, specifically, on phones was a cultural difference. Customer service and verbal interaction with 'people' is integral to many parts of British culture, especially to those elderly folk living alone. To a scrupulous British mind, this level of trust in technology would be difficult to reach, especially due to the increasing numbers of security breaches. 

After getting back to the training centre, eventually via bus, Cherry bought what she described as 'tea'. It didn't look like tea to me. I assumed Chinese only drank green tea so that's what I was expecting to see, but it wasn't, it looked like British tea with cream on the top. She asked how much sugar I wanted, either 70%, 50% or 20% and I replied 'no sugar' or the lowest amount possible, which seemed to confuse her. This was 'yi dian dian' 一点点, also known as "A Little", which was a famous tea franchise all across China, on almost every street corner. We took a ticket and waited in the queue for around 35 minutes, because they were always busy and never empty. Cherry told me that if a restaurant is busy in China, that means it's a good place to go, and people were willing to wait. My colleague, Chris Yu, also told me that if there was ever only one of anything left in a shop, such as a c-store, then that means its good because its shows that its in demand; a concept I never considered, but certainly made sense, and I still carry this idea with me today when buying products, especially in supermarkets. 

The concept of 'waiting' to eat at a restaurant is commonplace in China. Restaurants in shopping malls would be lined with chairs specifically there for people to wait to be seated to eat, and were often provided with hot water, tea and various snacks to just keep people queuing 'satisfied' while waiting. The tea Cherry ordered was amazing, it was the same as British tea with a thick layer of sweet cream on top-she had tapioca balls in hers, which I never really understood, but she said she liked the 'chewing' motion. I kept the order ticket and translated the Chinese characters into pinyin so that I could start ordering this myself in Chinese. Cherry kindly helped me with my pronunciation and how to order exactly what I wanted. At 15RMB, I started ordering a '红茶玛驰多’ 'Hong cha machiduo', or in English 'Tea Macchiato', everyday, along with a herd of Chinese. 

I even became more adventurous and went to HeyTea where I ordered a sweet cheese topped matcha tea, and was my 'treat' on days off. I started to forget Costa and Starbucks in favour of Chinese beverages and became part of my journey to becoming more 'Chinese'.