Chapter 1: The hundred club war
Note: All conversations are originally in Chinese, and are translated to their best fit English by my personal experience*
Spring is a good season for mating.
It was the mid of March, the temperature was getting a tee bit warmer compared to the freezing hell of winter in Shanghai. On this particular day, the sun decided to take a rare stroll accompanied by a breeze of cold air. Beneath the blue tapestry of the sky lies a green soccer field littered with thousands of people and table stands. This was the 'Hundred club wars' with each club showing off their speciality in order to gain numbers to strengthen their forces:
The anime club had 2 girls in cosplay dancing to some weeb songs with some sweaty otaku with two glow sticks dancing in the back as well.
The weight lifting club were lifting dumbbells in sync with the heavy metal music in the background, and they looked like they could rip a muscle any moment.
And then there was this one guy sitting on the ground looking like a beggar with a bunch of club handouts sticking out his pockets, his acting was so good I feel like Oscars owes him all the little gold man.
"Hey! Do you want to try some tea?" came a female voice from behind.
I turned to the owner of the voice at once.
She had a short petit build, long dark hair, warm brown eyes, black rimmed glasses, and wore a white pink dress and sneakers.
It was a real life legal loli.
"Are you talking to me?" I pointed to myself.
"Yes, I asked if you wanted to try some tea!" she giggled.
Well personally I am not really interested in tea, since I really only drink cold drinks. But since a cute girl is inviting me, and I got nothing better to do. I don't really see the point of refusing now...
"Sure." I replied. "But wait! What club is this?"
"Oh. We are the Chinese tea club." She replied with a casual smile.
"So when does the club meet?"
"Our club meets every 2 weeks, on the 10th floor of the library, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm."
"I see."
"Oh the tea is ready! But the water is kind of cold now." She nodded her head towards the glass kettle to the side.
"Oh yeah, what's your name?" I asked.
"Fang-jing." She replied, as she placed the tea leaves into one of the cups.
"I am Tao." I answered, as I watched her pour the water from the kettle into the same cup again.
"Ok." She then turned to a short guy in red shirt next to her and said: "Can you go help me get some new hot water?"
"Why me again..." The guy said with a tired voice as he slowly climbed out of his chair and picked up the large stainless water bottle at the side, then jogged away with haste.
"Who was that?" I asked.
"Oh, that was our vice president, Qi-xuan." She said, as she poured the tea water from the cup to a different cup.
"Wait, are you the club president then?"
"Ah, no. I am the treasury. The president didn't come today."
"When will I see him or her?"
"This Friday when we have our first meeting."
Tomorrow huh...
"Let me just make sure, its 6:30pm at the 10th floor of the library right?" I asked.
"Yep." She replied.
"One meeting every 2 weeks?"
"Yep. But we would usually gather and drink tea together every weekends outside of the regular tea meetings and you can join if you want." She said as she poured the tea water from the big cup into two much smaller cups.
"Huh...Sounds good." I responded.
"Here, try it." She made a gesture.
I picked up one of the tiny cups and took a small sip of it.
"A little cold now." I said, as I quickly downed the rest of the drink.
"Yeah."
"Does your club have a wechat group I can add?"
Wechat is a social app widely used in China and pretty much anywhere that has Chinese people.
"Yeah, just scan here." She held out a piece of paper with a 2D bar code on it.
I opened my wechat app then scanned it, a moment later it connected me to the group chat.
"Alright thanks. I will think about joining." I waved, then turned and began to leave.
"Feel free to join us whenever you want!" she said with an enthusiastic voice.
Tea club huh...
***
While on my way back to my dorm, the cross road of fate surfaced in my mind:
Psychology club, international students club, tea club. The times of all 3 of those club were on the same time on Friday.
I am done with my chunnibyo times, so no more psychology stuff for me...
I don't like parties, plus I want to make Chinese friends, so the international student club...Ehhh...
The tea club...
Hmm...
Well I certainly can make new Chinese friends there and I do feel like it's time to try something authentic now...
Hmm...
I rubbed my chin.
Well...
We will go once and see how it goes...
Q: What school clubs are you interested in?
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