“And your age?” he asks.
“I’m twenty-six.”
“Married then? With a child?”
“Unmarried,” I answer.
“So old!” a woman wearing a red sweater observes.
How am I supposed to respond to that?
The questions shift to my educational background.
“I didn’t finish third-level school,” I confess, altering my voice to sound as though I’m speaking to a hotel guest. I’ve found that this—and the way I’ve taught myself to move as though I’m a maiden painted on a ceramic vase from Ming times—helps people forget that I’m from a hill tribe. “But at my trade school I learned how to organize files, create a spreadsheet, and send e-mail.”
I make it sound easy, but I struggled with so many things. Learning how to use an indoor toilet? Do you squat facing the wall or the door? Taking a shower? Waaa! And the idea that I could turn an electric light on and off? In my dormitory, we had electricity for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, but I flipped the switch on and off so many times in the first week that the matron threatened to shut down the power to the entire building for a day if I didn’t stop. My roommates made sure I didn’t touch the switch again, but they let me watch them turn it on and off at the beginning and end of the morning and evening allotted hours. Yes, I was very tu back then.
The man in charge stubs out his cigarette and gives me a hard stare. “Teacher Guo claims you’re proficient in English, but are you really?”
I respond by switching to English. “I can’t be sure why English came easier to me than to the other students. Maybe it’s because I grew up hearing the different languages of the hill tribes. Or maybe—and this phrase I learned from a hotel guest just yesterday—I was in the right place at the right time.”
The other two men snicker, which causes the man in charge to lose face. He writes something on a pad of paper.
No position or educational spot is possible without answering political questions, and they can be tricky. My interrogator thrums his fingers on the table.
“How do you feel about the changes in Kunming?”
I smile, showing enough teeth to appear friendly but not so many that I’m tempted to cover my mouth. “Ten years ago, a man from Hong Kong came to my village.” I lower my eyes to illustrate my modest personality. “We didn’t know what was happening in the rest of China. He told us about the new era of Reform and Opening Up. Everything he said would happen has happened, and more. Tourists have come from all over to see the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and the terra-cotta warriors in Xian. We can be grateful that later the central government enacted the Opening the West Campaign. As you know, it was intended to boost foreign tourism to the western provinces.”
I pause to weigh how they’re reacting. I feel like I’m not impressing them, which is strange because I’ve already lasted longer than any of the other candidates.
“Then,” I hurry on, “just three years ago, our beautiful province was given permission by the central government to change the name of the city of Zhongdian to Shangri-La—”
“Beating out Sichuan and Tibet for the honor!” the man who sits at the far right finishes for me. “We can now claim the world’s paradise as Yunnan’s!”
The boast is greeted by indifference as the others stare out the window, suck their teeth, examine their pencils.
“May I ask a question?” I can’t help being curious. “Why have a college for Pu’er?”
“Ah! Trying to be a clever girl,” the man in charge says, scribbling again on his pad. Another demerit? He makes me wait as he finishes writing, lights another cigarette, takes a drag, and blows smoke toward the ceiling. “I suppose where you’re from Kunming must seem very modern, but it—and all Yunnan—has been slow in developing, while the world has rushed into Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.”
As he speaks, I remember the posters I used to study on the bamboo walls of Teacher Zhang’s classroom, believing what I saw in them had to be made up. Now I go to movies and watch television. And I do so with very different eyes; all those images—as unbelievable as they appear—must be real.
“The roadways have traffic jams, polluted air chokes babies and the elderly alike, and everyone is rushing, rushing, rushing to get rich,” he continues. “The people who live in those places? They long to visit Yunnan, because the streets are quiet, the air is fresh, and the day-to-day life is peaceful. All of that has become embodied in, of all things, Pu’er.”
I wonder what would happen if I told him how all the changes he mentioned have affected me. Since the Shangri-La renaming, the government has been talking about rechristening the city of Simao to Pu’er. I bet that will happen in a year or so. These new labels, though subtle, telegraph messages to China’s Han majority people, which they embrace as they are meant to do. Today, many of the words that were once used to degrade the province are used as praise. Yunnan is no longer considered a backward province, where the people are tu. That’s not because Yunnan or its people have changed. Rather, the meaning of tu has changed. Now tu means untouched by the evils of civilization. Tourists—Chinese and foreign—started visiting Kunming, Lijiang, Dali, and the Tiger Leaping Gorge. They even wanted to encounter the hill tribes! They begged to participate in the Dai people’s Water Splashing Festival, see Jinuo women’s teeth painted black with the sap of the lacquer tree, and buy Miao weavings. Men—young, with backpacks and few brains—sought directions to Mosuo villages, because in that matriarchal culture, the women choose their bed partners . . . and those women choose a lot of different lovers—whether Mosuo, Han, or foreign—just for their own pleasure. Tu is now so valued that this year on National Day, the government announced a countrywide search to find a set of twins from each of China’s fifty-five recognized ethnic minorities to be paraded four years from now at the Olympics. Since we Akha are grouped together with the Hani, I suspect the government will look to them to find a set of twins old enough to represent us.
“To answer your question in a different way,” the woman in the red sweater comments, “visitors to Yunnan—whether Han majority, German, French, or American—need souvenirs to take home. What better souvenir could there be than Pu’er? A tea cake is small and fits easily into a suitcase. For Chinese people, tea is always an appropriate gift. For foreigners . . .” She sniffs. “They like things that reek of the hill tribes.”
For some, intolerance and discrimination are just a part of their natures.
“Had you heard before of Pu’er?” she asks in her superior way.
“I grew up drinking it, even though we didn’t call it that.”
The man in charge clears his throat. “The program will begin after Spring Festival. The Year of the Monkey will start early, on January twenty-second in the Western calendar. Applicants will be notified on January fifteenth. If you are accepted . . . Well, we have applicants who have good guanxi—connections—and you don’t have those. We have applicants who come from prominent families. You don’t have that either. You’re a climber. This we can tell from the way you sit and from the soft quality of your voice. You may have learned to illustrate self-possession, but you don’t have a chance—”
The door swings open, and a whirlwind of people and objects sweeps into the room. Five young women, carrying papers, a kettle with a cord dangling from it, a tray, and bundles in different sizes, orbit around a small man: older, with baggy pants bloused at the ankles with elastic, kung-fu slippers with no socks, and a flowing shirt.
“Are you the girl from Nannuo Mountain?” His eyes glitter with mischievousness. A single long hair sprouts from his right ear—a sign of wisdom . . . or poor grooming. “You look very young. Maybe too young.”
Since I’ve come to Kunming many people have accused me of this. Even I’ve wondered why all the things that have happened to me don’t appear on my face. Mostly it has worked in my favor—the manager at the hotel wants only pretty girls at the front desk—but other times, as now, i
t makes me feel less worthy. And that is an emotion I do not like. I manage to find my voice.
“I’m not young. I already told the others I’m twenty-six.”
“You look like you’re fifteen.”
“I’m not.”
“Then tell me. Why do you look so young?”
He’s beaming like a fool, while the people behind the table exchange irritated glances and I feel humiliated.
“I’m Tea Master Sun.” He scuttles behind the table and motions for the man seated in the middle to move. The tea master sits down, and the man I thought to be in charge stands with his arms folded, a new cigarette drooping from his lips, trying, unsuccessfully, to cover his annoyance. “Let us drink tea. What have you brought?”
“I wasn’t told to bring tea.”
“But you carry some with you always, I hear. What we have in our cafés and teahouses isn’t good enough for the Akha lass.”
“I prefer to drink what my mother sends me,” I admit.
“Good. Then let us taste it.”
“Do you have springwater?” I ask.
“Only.” Tea Master Sun grins first to his left, then to his right, sending a message to the people on the panel that he’s pleased with my question. “But circumstances force us to accept some modern elements.” He snaps his fingers and one of the helpers plugs in the kettle, while the other young women unwrap the various packages: teacups, a bowl, and rounds of tea cakes.
I pull a packet of A-ma’s tea from my purse. When Tea Master Sun buries his nose in the bag to smell the leaves, his impishness departs. He piles about eight grams of leaves into the bowl of a gaiwan—a three-piece slightly oversize teacup with a lid and saucer—until they rise up and out of the vessel like a hill of threads. The room falls silent as we wait for the first sounds of simmering to come from the pot.
When the water lets us know it’s ripened, the tea master asks, “Do you see how I keep my left hand on the table at a forty-five-degree angle, while my right hand lifts the pot?” He pours the hot water into seven tiny cups to warm them. Then he pours water over the leaves in the gaiwan. “As I set down the pot, I resume with my left hand. If you’re accepted into the program, you’ll need to develop strength and agility on both sides of your body.” He rotates the edge of the gaiwan’s lid along the surface of the water-soaked leaves to clear the bubbles. Then he covers the cup with the lid and tips it so that the water flows out and into the discard bowl while keeping the leaves in the cup.
“Why am I disposing of this liquid?” he asks.
“To wash the leaves,” I answer.
“Why?”
“Do you know where Pu’er comes from? And how it’s processed?”
He cackles at my questions. “Exactly! Hygiene matters. But we’re also opening the aromatic properties of the leaves. Now watch what I do. You must look at serving tea as though it’s a dance. Every movement must be fluid. See how my actions flow from my right hand to my left hand, with everything smooth?” As he talks, he pours more water over the leaves and covers the gaiwan with its lid. “Brewing will last fifteen seconds. How will I know when those seconds have passed?” I have no idea, because he isn’t wearing a watch. “By my heartbeats! I can teach you to tell time this way too.”
He pours the tea into a glass pitcher, symbolizing that every person is equal and together we can all view and drink the same brew. While we appreciate the honey-yellow color of the liquid, he uses tongs to pick up each tiny teacup and toss the warming water into the discard bowl. He finally pours the tea into the cups. “Notice how I’m moving counterclockwise. This is called the welcome style. Now I’ll put every object back in its original position.” All this he does with ease, ending by graciously drawing his arm from left to right, taking us all in. “Please enjoy.”
Then I sit there as the others discuss the maocha made from the sister trees.
“I can taste the ions,” the man I’d thought was in charge comments. “The longer the liquor rests on the tongue, the more I taste the fresh air of the mountains.”
The woman, who’d previously been so disdainful of me, agrees. “The warm and fragrant flavor strokes every cell in my mouth. The huigan—the returning flavor—comes quickly.”
“Your tea is better than satisfying,” Tea Master Sun observes. “There’s some astringency and a good amount of initial bitterness, but overall I like the clear purity of the flavor. Collectors prize tea from Laobanzhang, calling it the king of teas, because the taste is musky, masculine, and daring in the mouth. They call tea from Yiwu the queen of teas, because the taste is as alluring as a radiant woman awaiting her lover, but you can be proud of the tea that comes from Nannuo Mountain for its smoothness and subtlety. One day people will prize it as much as, if not more than, the king and queen of teas. Do you still spend a lot of time on Nannuo?”
“I haven’t been home in eight years.”
The tea master sucks in his cheeks as he considers my answer. What daughter wouldn’t return home for Spring Festival, a wedding, or a funeral? Instead of commenting on what is a clear breach of daughterly manners, he chooses to go in a different direction.
“I want to see what you think of these.” He tosses the leaves A-ma sent me from the gaiwan even though another ten infusions could be made. “Your maocha is good, as I said, but I personally prefer a naturally long-aged Pu’er. Man becomes wiser and more mature through life experience. The same can be said of tea.”
We sample five teas. Each time, Tea Master Sun guides me through the flavors. “I can brew these particular leaves up to fifteen times. With each new infusion, the taste will change, coming from different parts of the leaf and invigorating different parts of the tongue. Terrace tea is cloned, so the flavor is very consistent, but tea from wild trees is complex and enticing.”
The more I taste, the more captivated I become. The tea itself is physically seducing me. The third tea, he tells me, would cost the equivalent of two hundred yuan for a cup if I drank it in Hong Kong. It’s delicious, but to me it’s not the monetary value that’s important. I know from living in Kunming that this is arbitrary. Do you want a yellow or blue T-shirt, when a decade ago I didn’t even know what a T-shirt was? Guests at the King World Hotel have a peculiar view of value. They refuse to stay in a room if it doesn’t have a sit-down toilet. This took me the longest time to accept, because who would want to sit in the same place where someone else’s rump has been to do your private business?
The tea master once again empties our cups, rinses them, and then brews a new tea. The huigan from my first sip opens my chest so quickly that I feel I might faint. Warmth washes up from my chest and flushes my face. What’s happening to my body feels as potent as those early days when I first fell in love with San-pa.
The tea master chortles at my reaction. “Is it smooth?” he asks. “Does it have good qi—life energy? Examine your emotions. You’re hearing nature sing through the leaf.”
“The taste is light—like dew on flower petals,” I say. “Elegant—”
“Elegant! You’re right! This is Truly Simple Elegant tea. Have you tasted it before?” When I shake my head, he continues. “I thought you might have. Eleven years ago, a certain Mr. Lü from Taiwan went to Luoshuidong, then an isolated village in the tea mountains.”
That was a year before Mr. Huang came to Spring Well.
“Mr. Lü wanted to make a batch of tea from old trees in the traditional style,” the tea master goes on. “He found a retired tea master. He—”
“Mr. Lü?” I interrupt. “Are you sure you have the correct name, country of origin, village, and year?”
Tea Master Sun gives me a dismissive look. “Yes, and I’ve met Mr. Lü many times, which is how I came to buy several of his cakes.”
Could there have been two men around the same time doing the same thing?
“Have you ever heard of another tea that was made—”
The tea master cuts me off. “The world of tea is very small, so I know the tea of wh
ich you speak. I have some of that too. If it had been the only tea made after so many years, it would have become iconic. But Mr. Lü used leaves solely from Luoshuidong. As I said earlier, leaves from Nannuo Mountain are good and one day they’ll be prized, but for now they cannot compete—taste to taste—with Truly Simple Elegant. However”—he leans forward to confide—“the creator of the tea you mentioned has a separate vintage which he has not shared with anyone. He made just two tea cakes . . .”
The ones I processed using the leaves from the mother tree.
“Rumor has it that the man who made them has not even tasted tea brewed from those cakes,” he says. “If they’re so special, then he should share them with people who’ll appreciate them, no?”
This topic is making ghost spiders crawl along my arms and legs.
“Now for one last tea,” he announces. “Before Liberation, our province had many private labels for making tea. After Liberation, we had just four state-owned tea companies. One of them was in Menghai.”
“The tea collection center where I grew up sent all of its leaves there—”
“This is called Hong Yin—Red Label—and it was the first batch to be made after Liberation,” he continues over me. “A single cake like this one, forty-five years old, sold this year for eighty-five thousand yuan. That’s over ten thousand U.S. dollars! Now we will try it.”
The color of the brew is rich and dark with mystery. The first flavor is peppery, but that fades to divine sweetness. The history of my people shimmers in my bones. With every sip, it’s as if I’m wordlessly reciting the lineage. I’m at once merged with my ancestors and with those who’ll come after me. I grew up believing that rice was to nourish and that tea was to heal. Now I understand that tea is also to connect and to dream. That seduction is deeper and more profound than could happen with any man.