After that, it is time for a cup of tea, green tea that is, and we travel to Hangzhou, the tea capital of China. (BTW ‘zhou’ at the end of the name of a city means ‘big city’.) We visit the Tea House (famous for Longjing Tea) at Meijiawu Tea Village located in the hinterland of West Lake Park. The hills surrounding the Tea Village are clothed in neat rows of manicured, emerald green tea hedges. Very impressive, but now it is time to be herded into a thankfully air conditioned room to understand the benefits of green tea.
Our very pretty master of tea ceremonies speaks good English and is introduced as having some medical training - whether Western training or TCM I am not sure. Her very efficient attendants have set out enough glasses for everyone. Green tea leaves curl patiently at the bottom of each glass. With dramatic flourish from a great height, hot water is added continuously to each glass hardly spilling a drop . We are told not to add boiling water but to let it cool two or three minutes before adding to the tea leaves. Now, here’s an interesting tip for those of you who suffer dry-eye syndrome and also for my optometrist and doctor who will be informed of this amazing fact. Cover half the top of the glass with the hand and place your ‘offending’ eye over the remaining space. Allow the steam to drift up into the eye. This will cure dry eye syndrome. Not sure how often it should be repeated but may be worth a try for those who suffer this annoying disability.
Having lifted our eyes from the glass, we are now invited to drink. Obviously, it is not unpleasant and quite refreshing but the health benefits are apparently remarkable. I didn’t quite get clear the scientific constituents that assist with overcoming a wide range of ailments but you might want to Google Polyphenyls. (Might have the spelling wrong.) Green tea prepared and drunk regularly an hour after meals will aid in removing toxins from the body. Of course Longjing green tea from the pristine hills around West Lake Tea Village will be particularly effective. Sealed packages of this Govt approved product can be purchased and flown home and orders can be taken and delivered.
Terry is our tour guide for the next few days. He is Chinese but has excellent English, trained through the University in tourism, and clearly very experienced (14 years). As we board the bus for the first tour with him he is careful to check we have left nothing behind in the hotel. He tells the story of a Malaysian man some years ago. After the bus had gone some distance, he received a phone call from the hotel in which this man had stayed to report they had found some dentures that had been left behind. It was too late to be able to turn around. He asked if they could be posted to the next stop. Terry was not sure that the internal mail system was all that reliable and suggested they be mailed back to Malaysia. He paid the postage and crossed his fingers. A week later Terry got a distressed call from this man’s son in Malaysia who thought his father had died and his only remains were his dentures.
Terry carries a glass jar with green tea which he sips as he conducts our tour; but M caught him smoking and asked how that fitted with drinking green tea for its health benefits. He gave this explanation to the entire bus. It seems that smoking can be excused because it is a critical part of Chinese social culture in the same way when you greet someone in Chinese, you ask, ‘Have you eaten?’ because food is so important to Chinese people. So too with smoking. When you meet someone, it is customary and polite to offer them a cigarette and for that to be reciprocated. It is impolite to refuse a cigarette. If one does not smoke, or does not want to smoke, accept the cigarette and place it behind the ear. Cigarettes come in various brands - some cheap, some expensive. Always have a pack of expensive cigarettes to offer even if one usually smokes the cheap brand. There was no talk of the potential health risks of smoking which suggests that the Govt is reluctant to give up the tax revenue. For all the progress China is making, this is clearly an area of failure to protect its citizens. When M suggested to Terry that sipping green tea or going to the gym yet smoking was a strange thing to do, he said, “You sound like my mother!”
But let’s not be too quick to judge this artifact of Chinese culture. Let’s not forget the political opposition to plain paper packaging of cigarettes in Australia and to the millions of dollars spent by tobacco companies to fight Govt legislation aimed at curbing this addiction. Let’s not forget Australia’s drinking culture of which many are so proud, or of our gambling culture that ruins the livelihoods of many, or perhaps of a ‘white Australia’ which we once maintained. Cultural norms are devised by communities and emerge over time as being distinctive to a group of people whether they be artifacts of language, dress, cooking, food, drink, dance, religions and so on. Cultural beliefs can be a source of conflict within and among communities but have the capacity to change over time. Let’s just hope that Chinese culture will soon understand that the health costs of smoking far outweigh the tax revenue received.
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