Green tea and cigarettes
(Good quality green tea: this is drunk all the time here, each time I arrive somewhere, I am offered tea or water almost immediately)
I accompanied Sisi and the kids to Sisi’s hometown, Nanxun, an hour’s drive from Suzhou. We went to meet her brother who owns a traditional painting gallery and to join him for some tea. Paintings here are still expensive, each altering in price dependent on quality, size and artist. The variety of paintings was fascinating, but the children were more intent on emulating Jackie Chan’s moves than paying attention to the brushstrokes. (You can see the paintings hanging and a child in madrange above)
In the picture, you can see the cigarette packet on the right sitting with an ashtray. I heard around 50% of Chinese smoke and I fully believe it. There are ashtrays everywhere; restaurants, shops, the street, hotel rooms, toilets. In Britain, we’re used to the smoker’s line, “mind if I smoke?” Here, people just light up wherever, and it’s entirely possible to find someone with a cigarette in one hand and chopsticks in the other.
