茶和知识

Drinking tea must be a big thing in China. German researchers recently figured out that adding milk possibly eliminates some of the healthy effects of black tea. Was this big news overseas (overseas refers, by the way, to places outside China)? Lately, every time I try to put a little milk in my tea someone chastises me and goes into a lengthy explanation of how I’m nullifying all of the beneficial qualities of the tea. Then said person proceeds to eat a sausage, smoke a cigarette, cook food without washing their hands, talk into a cell phone, or engage in some other unhealthy activity.

I often wonder why some things get big press over here and some do not - why some historical events are well known and some are not. I suppose I learned random shit in school, and Chinese students do, too. I remember junior high school history (or was it called social studies) being mostly about Otto Von Bismarck and the Prussia (Euro history), Eli Whitney and the cotton gin (the industrial revolution), Harriet Tubbman and the underground railroad (American history, when Columbus came, then white people came, then slaves came, and then the Civil War happened, but mostly it was all about Eli Whitney), and, of course, World War II. These things, although important, aren’t the only important things. I’m sure we learned about the Vietnam War (although I think I learned about that mostly from my grandpa Morty and my own reading), The Cultural Revolution, Africa and stuff like that. Did we just gloss over the recent stuff? The touchy subjects? I’m probably not being completely objective. I’m sure we did learn a lot more, but the focus always felt a little off.

Chinese people seem to always know about Martin Luther King, slavery, the civil rights struggle. Was it taught in school because it reflects something bad about America? Not sure. It always seems strange that people here are so knowledgeable about some stuff, and ignorant about others, although I’m sure Americans are more familiar with the works of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan than they are with the works of Mao Ze Dong and Deng Xiao Ping - so maybe it should come as no surprise. Chinese people all know who the president of America is, and I’m sure most Americans don’t know who the president of China is. Spotty knowledge is an interesting thing.