A Staple In My Tea

I just found a sta­ple — a used, bent sta­ple — in my loose leaf Mao Feng tea from Nihao Tea House. I don’t know if I can trust Nihao any­more, which is unfor­tu­nate, as it’s the only tea house in the vicin­i­ty.

The girl who works there is some­what of an anom­aly; a Canadian-born Chinese, I’d say only a few years younger than me, wear­ing a Mickey Mouse shirt. My gen­er­a­tion of CBCs usu­al­ly adapt to the Canadian way of life, eschew­ing the cutesy cul­ture of Hello Kitty, design­er sta­tion­ary, and stuffed car orna­ments. An impos­tor, by banana1 stan­dards, like a rogue sta­ple among some tea leaves.

  1. yel­low on the out­side, hol­low on the inside []

6 comments

  1. I should give that a shot some time; the selec­tion leaves some­thing to be desired at Nihao. The only prob­lem is that I don’t get to smell the leaves before buy­ing, but at least I’d get to try some­thing new and unavail­able around here. That bloom­ing flower tea looks amaz­ing.

  2. I thought it was yel­low on the out­side, white on the inside. To mute it with any­thing but a race ref­er­ence would be unfair to the bite of the ini­tial insult, would­n’t it?

  3. Banana” (yel­low on the out­side and white on the inside) is the more com­mon term, espe­cial­ly among CBCs and Caucasians. “Jook-Sing” or “Hallow Bamboo” is the term in Cantonese, which is a term I do find insult­ing, as opposed to banana. I’m not hol­low, I have an iden­ti­ty.

  4. man bet­ter to be yel­low on the out side and white on the inside then white on the out­side and fat on the inside lol ;)
    but i mean go back with the sta­ple if ur there alot and u com­plain maybe u can get some free stuff i com­plain all the time and i get alot of free stuff i know its not ur style but try a lil rob tac­tic once and a while

  5. Hahahaha…being fat on the out­side is much worse when you’re yel­low. It looks waaaaaaay weird­er cause peo­ple don’t expect it.

    I was think­ing about going back with the sta­ple, but it would­n’t be worth the effort/time for me. I’m not look­ing for any gra­tu­ities, I just want peace of mind that I won’t end up swal­low­ing a sta­ple. Maybe I’ll give them a call about that.

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