Cherry Part II

I smiled at her.

Cherry's face lit up, and she asked, "Would you like to have a cup of tea with me?"

I'm one of those people that quickly warms to a person or never does.  The more time I spent in Cherry's presence, the more I wanted to know about her.  I could not resist.  I informed my driver that I would be having tea down the street and asked him to wait at the Pagoda entrance for me.  A quick glance at him revealed an uneasy look on his face.  Perhaps, he worried about this American girl being swindled in Mandalay.

Cherry and I walked down the road to a typical Burmese tea shop that looked like an open garage with coffee table height plastic tables and chairs in the "driveway".  Burmese tea shops always have "Chinese tea" free of charge (FOC, as they say), which is a lukewarm clear brownish liquid that comes out of a thermos suspiciously resembling a bug spray can (or it just had the remnants of a bug spray label on it).  The tea you order is brewed very dark and bitter from dry Burmese tea leaves and comes with condensed milk.  It arrives at your table in a small clear glass, and you can see the brown layer on top and the white layer of milk at the bottom.  You stir blending the two components, resulting in a very strong milk-tea.  It does not taste the same as Hong Kong milk-tea.  I am not a milk-tea drinker by far, but I found myself craving this afternoon beverage at 3pm daily.

Burmese milk-tea

Cherry ordered two cups of Burmese milk-tea and an almond biscuit about the size of my hand.  We chatted for a few minutes mixing English and Burmese phrases.  She showed me an old photograph of a lovely young lady in a pink satin formal gown.  She asked me to guess who it was.  I had no idea as the woman in the picture was young, beautiful, and obviously a princess.  Cherry laughed.  It was her!  She is a former Miss Burma (Myanmar).  Currently, she is a private English teacher, but barely anyone can afford a private teacher these days.  She made her "living" coming to the Kuthodaw Pagoda every day.  I ventured to ask her if the situation in Burma was any better after the recent November 2010 elections.  I knew this was a topic that should not be discussed in public, but I needed to find out for myself.  She answered an unequivocal, "No, it only gets worse."

Suddenly, my driver pulled up to the tea shop and warned me that I would miss the sunset viewing at Mandalay hill if we didn't leave soon.  I had to bid Cherry a premature good-bye.  We "fought" over the bill, as is the custom, but obviously she let me win.  As we parted, she forced the partially eaten almond cookie on me, but I pushed it back to her.  This went on for a few moments, until she said, "I'll just take it with me to feed to the dogs."

And we said good-bye.