Teahouses

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Teahouses

Public Accommodations. In Song times (960-1279) many teahouses were established. After people went into a teahouse and chose their seats at a tea table, a waiter immediately asked: “What kind of tea would you like, Sir?” Customers requested steeped tea; spicy, sugared ginger tea; or other teas. Beverages, such as sour plum drinks, spring water, and warm wine, were also served. On each table there was a bowl of salted pine nuts, walnuts, or melon seeds, which were free to customers because eating them resulted in a thirst that promoted the purchase of more drinks.

Delicious Food. Every teahouse served snacks and light meals. The prices of such food varied depending on the culinary talents of each cook, but generally teahouse food was outstanding, the most delicate and tasty food in Song China. A hundred different dishes, such as piping-hot bowls of noodles, meat, and fish; hot steamed buns; date pudding; and a variety of imaginative pastries were provided by the teahouse.

Business and Social Center. People might spend the whole day in the teahouse, which functioned as both a business and social center. Teahouses were well known as places where people could relax and have a wonderful time. Friends met in a favorite teahouse, spending many hours chatting or playing dice, dominoes, Chinese checkers, or chess. Traders met customers at the tea table and discussed business over steaming cups of tea. Fortune-tellers, marriage brokers, and dentists were frequent clients of large teahouses and often ran their own businesses there. Criminals liked to meet in teahouses when the owner let them rent a private room in the back of the building for conducting illegal deals. Teahouse owners were paid a lot of money by criminals, especially if they informed them of the coming of the police in time for them to escape.

Unofficial Bank. Most teahouse owners always had plenty of cash on hand, and they functioned as unofficial bankers to guarantee gamblers’ bets; provide loans at usurious interest rates for wedding dowries, to purchase a house,

or to open up a new shop; or to give financial support to business deals, such as trading in tea, valuable metals, or real estate.

Generosity. When customers were leaving the teahouse, they usually said, “Charge the tea,” no matter what they had eaten or drunk. An arrogant businessman might shout, “Charge his tea to me!” generously paying for another’s food and drink to show that he was wealthy.

Credit. Since teahouse owners often had close relationships with the criminal underground and could hire money collectors, they extended credit to loyal customers. They might also give credit to new customers after a regular customer had vouched for them. It would be an insult to a steady customer if the teahouse owner rejected credit under this situation.

Entertainment. In Song times teahouses also functioned as entertainment and cultural centers, especially in smaller communities. Almost every teahouse employed gifted storytellers to attract audiences, and many entertainers enjoyed the same standing as their counterparts in Medieval Europe. Teahouse storytellers’ memories were unusual, and most of them could remember more than three hundred stories. In addition, like actors, some gifted and famous storytellers could change their voices across a wide scale while adapting their facial expressions to mimic innumerable rapidly changing characters and emotions. Teahouse storytellers did not become rich but earned enough money to support their families, and a few of them became well known.

Street Stories. Many teahouse storytellers not only worked for teahouses but also developed their own businesses in the street. They first bought some tea, a kettle, a small stove, a few pieces of charcoal, and several cups and then found a place on a busy street where there was enough room for people to gather. The storytellers then encouraged the people to listen to unbelievable tales for the price of a cup of tea.

Topics of Interest. Any topic that interested people or captured the imagination provided a worthy story for a teahouse tale, and many stories told in Song teahouses continue to be told in modern China. Song literature was written in the street dialect that best expressed the universality of human sentiment. Song short stories, epics, and dramas were similar to modern ones, making people laugh, cry, love, hate, and feel anger and injustice just as modern entertainments do.

Drama. Theater was another fashionable passion in Song-era China, and plays performed in teahouses provided entertainment. Tragedy, comedy, and scenes of daily life were common dramatic themes; favorite characters were the irritating wife, bribed policeman, bad official, immoral monk, suspicious criminal, corrupt tax collector, and stupid scholar. Teahouse dramas were often divided into two parts because during the first act noisy spectators often did not pay attention to the actors, so after a short break the audience would calm down to watch the second act, which all patrons knew to be the best part of the drama. Most teahouses could be changed into theaters by setting a stage at one end of the room. Since audiences were interested primarily in dialogue, there was no scenery, curtain, or costuming. Most actors wore their own street clothes to perform a play.

Actors. Teahouse actors, as well as storytellers, were self-employed professionals working for established circuits. They stayed at one teahouse for a while and then moved to another place; often they worked several teahouses in the same big city or traveled to other cities in order to attract larger audiences. A good actor could play more than one hundred different roles, although most were character parts, performing the dialogue extemporaneously rather than reciting it from memory.

Problems. Conflict concerning tea was always regarded as a serious matter. Its seriousness is exposed in the proverb, “Murder can be pardoned, but affront over tea never.” Voices raised in anger and occasional scuffles were part of teahouse life, although there were almost certainly fewer arguments in Song teahouses than in modern restaurants. Teahouse customers were usually satisfied with the drink, food, service, and entertainment they found there, but dis-contented patrons sometimes might threaten the owner by saying, “Don’t make me mad or I’ll wreck your place and turn it ass over teakettle.”