I'm in a different country with different habits surrounded by different cultures and beliefs as well as a language I don't understand. The one thing our people do have in common though is Tea. The people here love tea. I'm more of a coffee person myself. For them tea is a social event that has to take place numerous times a day. I've had so much tea now that if I were to be a cup, I'd be bottomless. Once I put my cup down, they take it as a signal that they should pour more tea into the cup. I have mastered their ways now. I hold my hand over the cup and take one sip every hour, thus preventing the ladies from refilling and keeping my cool. I have taken a lot of thought on this topic. What could possibly be so incredibly important about tea that you'd want to overdose yourself with it? So, without being to prompt, I asked. Turns out it's not about the amount of tea at all. It's about the conversation that gets to flow as long as the tea does. Basically, it's an excuse to "hang out" with people. There's this parable that my brother once told me: " You get to choose whether you want to see the cup as half empty or whether you want to look at it as half full." They choose to spend time actually sitting down with one another as friends and family and have long, meaningful conversations over a cup of tea. Their tea is never "not enough." Ours shouldn't be either. (Keep in mind that I like coffee.)
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