Tea on Taikang Road

I keep joking with my friends in Shanghai how Taiwan is my second home, my 老家 (laojia).

Today, I am walking with a friend at the Taikang Art Center in Shanghai, a lane full of the kind of art galleries that Westerners love. We enter the lane and ask an old Shanghainese lady who is working a stall there if this is the lane where the art galleries are. "It's a place where foreigners drink coffee," she answers in her thick Shanghainese accent. I laugh to think that she's probably been on the corner there longer than all the art galleries, and she doesn't even know what all the fuss is about.

French people sit around a table at cafes charming bystanders with the melodies and rhythm of their French, drinking wine or espresso. We walk around browsing the shops for a while and I think we've seen enough of the galleries and the French people, too and I want to check out the nice tea shop that we saw on the walk over here. My friend notices that I'm not thrilled by it all. "No, I am, I am," I protest, but she's right--it doesn't feel juicy.

We leave the artsy cafe quarter and turn around the corner to find the tea shop. A half-minute later, we are there. I look in and ask the laoban (owner) and his partner if we can join them for some tea. It looks like they already have a guest. "Of course," he says, and invites us to have a seat. This is the kind of place you would see in Taiwan that I miss. There are a lot of teas, all the implements needed to drink them, old Chinese furniture, and sentimental Chinese music in the background. It's cozy and aesthetically pleasing.

I ask the laoban if he has any gaoshan (High Mountain) tea, from Taiwan. He says he does and he goes to the back to get some. Gaoshan tea is my favorite wulong from Taiwan, fragrant and slightly roasted. It always gets me "drunk", which is what tea connoisseurs say is the effect of drinking a few rounds. They are definitely right.

He comes back with the tea, and then he lays on me the revelation that will make this night: He is from Taiwan. From Taipei. From the Xinyi district. My old stomping grounds.

Let the fun begin.

I don't speak Taiwanese, but I know enough to make Taiwanese people laugh, and so I tell him, "I am Taiwanese, I am not a foreigner! (wa shee daiwan leng, wa um shee adoa!"). We start having a conversation, although I don't really understand.

I tell him that I lived in Muzha (he explains to me that it's makza in Taiwanese) and that I know the Xinyi area well. Being a true Taiwanren, he starts making fun of me. "So you lived near the zoo? Did you live in the zoo?" Everyone is having a good laugh.

I forget the winding paths our conversation took in the next hour or two, the five of us, but like a good hike, it was beautiful and refreshed the soul. That gaoshan tea didn't hurt either.

I tell him I know a Taiwanese song and ask him if he wants to hear it. "Which one?" he asks."望春風," I reply. He asks me to sing it, and then we begin a duet for our friends.

It's time for us to leave and have our dinner. We all give each other hugs and he welcomes us to return anytime, and I finally realize why it is we visited the Taikang Art Center tonight.