My favourite cafe closes next week, which is very sad because not only will I not have a place to go and enjoy my coffee and have my lessons but I will no longer to be able to chat to Pei Jun, the owner of the cafe. She is from Taiwan but she spent her high school years in the UK studying and so she has a grasp of the UK culture, language and so I can be very vague at times when I’m talking about the UK because she has quite an understanding of the subtlety of the place. We have many common denominators which is not what I expected to find in China and even more surprising is the fact that she is a Chinese and not western. Well she is actually from Taiwan which makes her views a bit more liberal and of course she knows what life is like outside this vast country.

I had been going to the cafe for about two months or so every week to have a lesson with Amy. One day a women asked me if I spoke Chinese and I said that I could speak a little. She then started on a very fast monologue of which I caught very little and of course my face must have said as much and it was at this point Pei Jun came up and said to me that the woman was wanting an English teacher for her 10 year old child and then I quickly said no. I was taken aback when she spoke English to me and I was also very surprised because her English is way better than many of the so called English teachers that I have met here and some of them are native speakers. I was also very surprised because I had often come in and struggled a little asking for coffee or something else and not once did she let on that she could speak English so well. I guess she was sussing me out before she opened her mouth. Since that day we have had some great times having a laugh about life and the cultural differences and of course reminiscing about the UK.  

A new chapter begins for us both, she will be heading back to Taiwan for a while to figure out what to do and me I have to find a new place to go to have a good coffee. There are more and more cafe’s appearing around the place but the quality and the prices are not good. At the Bliss Cafe the coffee is only 18 RMB and it’s good, there is of course a Starbucks on every corner but I wouldn’t be going there for any of that muck. There is a bakery called 85c which I often go to to buy bread and they have coffee which can be a bit hit and miss but it’s only 10 RMB. So I will have to go around and see what I can find. I still make my own coffee at home but I do enjoy going out and sitting in a cafe reading or just generally chilling for a while.

And so when I find my new haunt I will let you know and share my thoughts of course.