tea = 茶 :D

18 – 3 –2011

Today is Friday!!! And as I said yesterday today there’s something  cool going on. After this morning’s APPG lesson which is on chapter 5 we met  our language partners at 1.45pm and took a public bus to a place called a tea club where people go there to drink tea. At that place we was actually introduced to the tradition of tea making which is a very interesting knowledge as you guys know how good china is at making tea. We actually had the chance to try out tea brewing by ourselves which was very fun but of course some of us burned our had as the tea was too hot ahaha but its okay because everyone had fun :D  we also learnt that the clay tea pots  actually has the ability to absorb impurities from the tea that is why traditional tea pots are made of clay interesting fact eh? And also when the tea pot absorb impurities they actually change the texture of the cup and color which makes it smoother and even nicer. One important aspect of tea brewing is patience because to make a good cup of tea you have to 1^st clear the 1^st round of tea as it is used to wash the tea leafs and on the second turn then the tea is drinkable.

After the lesson on tea culture we actually  went to bin jiang lu again to shop since its free time, on our way there we actually met students from Singapore Poly which also came over for OIP program.Ahhhh what a small world haha we stopped and actually taked about china and how its living here and also interesting fact is that their teacher leading is also Mr. Chua.  We actually went to the food street to have dinner and we bought many sort of food and we actually came across a kebab store the waiter was a Indian national  his Chinese was perfect which surprised me as his not a local Indian  but from India. We had a few chats with him and we found out that his actually only 600 RMB per month but apparently when the amount is change to India money its like $25000 over at  India which is a lot. We actually asked why did he prefer to work here than Singapore  he said that it’s because  Singapore is more strict and pressurizing but in china its easy and slack.

Reflection

Today I actually learnt that although everytime we see on TV people brewing  Tea seemed so easy it's not as it requires a certain skill to pour and brew a good cup of tea and the art of tea  culture  the main key point is actually patience as u have to do everything in order.Also im sold by the fact that the Indian waiter could actually speak perfect Chinese although his not born in China which really surprised me as his grasp on Chinese is impeccable.One thing I observed today is that China are actually quite social among strangers as they can just be sitting next to each other and they can start a conversation and become almost instantaneously this sort of thing never happens to Singapore  because in Singapore even if your sitting beside a stranger you still would not talk to the person  but in china if u have a common topic  they  always talk to each other and get to know each other.