Chapter 4: Serving Tea

The morning after a wedding, the bride serves tea.

Lin Zhi had learned the rules from Pei Wen, who had learned them from a website.

You carry a tray of cups into the family room and kneel to the elders in order of rank.

Each one drinks and gives you a red envelope.

You say the name for each of them in the right voice.

If you get one name wrong, the family remembers it for ten years.

"The groom usually pours the first cup himself," Pei Wen whispered, in the corridor.

"But he can't, so you do it, and you put a drop on his lips, for luck."

"A drop of what?" asked Lin Zhi.

"Tea," said Pei Wen.

"And the others?"

"You kneel."

Lin Zhi looked at the double doors of the family suite, where twenty relatives were already seated on carved chairs.

He had slept two hours, and he had not eaten, and his knees remembered every one of his father's debts.

"Go on," said Pei Wen. "You'll be wonderful. I mean, you'll be adequate. No. Wonderful."

The room was warm, and heavy with sandalwood.

Old Madam Xie, the groom's grandmother, sat at the center in a dark green jacket, with a black cane across her knees.

Second Uncle sat on her right with his hands folded.

The Second Aunt sat on her left, and she was the one who held the tray.

"Welcome to the family," she said sweetly, and put the tray into Lin Zhi's hands.

"I made the tea myself. A new daughter-in-law should start with respect."

The tray carried seven small white cups, and a pot, and a folded cloth.

Lin Zhi took it.

The porcelain was so hot that he flinched, and he set his jaw and held on.

Through the open door of the inner room he could see the bed, and the long shape under the white sheet.

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