Tea

It's dipping below freezing tonight. So I put a pot of water
on the stove to boil and go to my cupboard to get some tea. I
take down a crumpled, beat-up box of Red Zinger tea bags, and
looking at the worn cardboard, again hear my mother's voice in
my mind, saying with incredulity, "Only my son would take tea
to China!"

There aren't many tea bags left. Once they're gone I will
discard the empty box, and there will be no reminder left of
my taking tea to China.

The box held as many bags of tea when I returned as it did on
my departure. Not because I drank Chinese tea instead of my
own, although that is what I did. I never intended to drink
Red Zinger in China.

I wanted to take something to give the Chinese people as a
gift. I figured, they had probably never heard of Red Zinger
tea before. Yet, tea was something they understood, as common
as coffee is over here. What a great, inexpensive way to get
their attention, make them remember me, show my appreciation
by giving a Chinese person a foreign tea bag, an exotic red
tea they had never seen or even suspected.

That was my idea. In practice, however, I discovered that
traveling in a foreign country as big and different as China
was intimidating in many ways. I didn't find a moment when it
felt right to give someone a gift of foreign tea. I would
have needed time to explain, and that opportunity never
materialized. So I packed the box of tea with my luggage as
we went from city to city, and it got more worn and dog-eared
with every move and set of Chinese baggage-handlers.

So this, Mother, is my explanation.

January 4, 1989