The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(56)
If I was thankful to A-ma for my monthly stipend, I was even more indebted to her for the loose tea she gave to Teacher Zhang to mail to me in pretty homemade packets each spring. I gave these gifts to my teachers in the same way I once gave our humble homegrown tea to Teacher Zhang: as a sign of respect and gratitude. Those instructors are my friends to this day, and we still get together to drink tea—sometimes in one of their apartments, but mostly in tea shops. It is to them that I must give my thanks for this new opportunity. Yunnan Agricultural University here in Kunming is opening a Pu’er Tea College, and they’ve suggested me as a candidate.
“It is to be the first such program in the world,” Teacher Guo told me last week. “They’re going to offer two tracks: one to learn the art of tea—brewing and etiquette—to become a tea master; the other to become a tea evaluator—so you’ll be able to oversee tea production, as well as advise collectors and connoisseurs on what to buy. We’ve heard that over two thousand people have applied, but they’re accepting only sixty students for each program. When we were asked to recommend a pupil—present or past—we knew exactly who that would be: you, because you’re the only one we’ve taught who comes from the tea mountains.”
I pull through a gate, park in the open courtyard, and enter a nondescript building. I follow signs that read: INTERVIEWS THIS WAY. I’m one of fifty people in the waiting room. A woman with a clipboard calls applicants in one by one. Some of the interviews are as brief as ten minutes. I try not to be nervous. When my name is called, I follow the woman down a hallway painted pea green and into a large room, where a single chair faces a table with five examiners: two women and three men. The man seated in the middle position motions for me to take my place. Once I’m settled—my ankles linked and tucked modestly to the side, my hands resting delicately in my lap—he goes over the basics, confirming my name, ethnic status, and where I was born.
“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.