ordering. In fact, the final time I ordered, I spoke to the employee while her back was turned, and she responded, still turned away from me, without any hesitation or acknowledgment that I was a foreigner. While I’d like to think this was because my Chinese was so good, I realize that was almost certainly not the case. Instead, I believe she was used to dealing with foreigners and wanted to make them feel welcome. Tea shops, a byproduct of tea itself, are everywhere. Which means that they attract international audiences wherever they may be. This speculation stems from one of the most interesting facets of the café.

          Strewn throughout the sitting area were little notebooks full of notes and drawings left by previous customers – journals of all those who’d come before us. Reading through these, Janeve and I were able to create a rough picture of all the people the café catered to. We were shocked at the amount and diversity of foreigners that appeared to have come to the café – largely because we never saw anyone                                   we could tell was an outsider during any of our observations. Japanese, Korean, Russian, German, and English were all interspersed throughout                                                   the books–mixing with Chinese left by novice learners (me) and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

chatty natives. It wasn’t always easy to determine where someone was                                                         from though, as a lot of people wrote notes in Chinese or English that was obviously not at a native speaker’s level. This led to Janeve and I                                          coming to a realization that astounded us at first, but then made us feel stupid for not it realizing sooner. When we weren’t sure where someone was from, we could figure out their relative location by looking at how they dated their notes or drawings. With this, we were able to distinguish between Asian, European, and American – a feat that left us both feeling rather accomplished. Using this information, we determined that the majority of foreigners were Asian, and the rest was pretty evenly split between Europeans and Americans. Seeing as we didn’t see any other Caucasians the whole time we were conducting our observations, this conclusion seems to be in accordance with the actual demographics.

          Focusing more on our actual presence in the store, as I said earlier, I didn’t feel like an outsider. However, that doesn’t mean the store was lacking in Chinese. It was friendly to foreigners and offered signs and a menu in both Chinese and English. If you couldn’t speak one of those two languages though, you’d be out of luck. However, all the customers we saw appeared to be Chinese.

          The space itself was utilized in a variety of ways, and we saw different patterns during different times of the day and week. Our first observation was conducted on Monday the 14th from 6:30pm-7: 45 pm. There were a decent amount of people in the sitting area, about eight, but we noticed no one was actually ordering from the café. Instead, it was being treated as a resting spot or workplace. We assumed this was due to it being close to the time people usually get off work or eat dinner. Tea is not necessarily a popular drink during that time. We also observed a trend that we continued to see throughout our observations – people were napping in the shop. They weren’t laying on the floor, but a number of people throughout our observations would sit at a table, cover their heads, and take a nap. Perhaps it’s not the most unusual behavior, but it did demonstrate a degree of public comfort we weren’t used to seeing. During these observations, we also noticed a group of old men sitting in a line outside the café, talking amongst themselves. We didn’t think too much of it at first, but our continued observations left us with some questions.

Our Second observation took place on Wednesday the 16th from 11:45am-12: 50 pm. This was a particularly interesting observation, as made us question possible cultural differences between the US and China. We started our observation at a time we supposed would be at the beginning of rush hour. However, when were got to the café, we were surprised to find it void of life. It was by far the least busy of the observations we conducted. For the first 40 minutes, Janeve and I were the only people besides the employees in the café. Then around 12:25, several people came inside and milled about for a little while, looking through the books and at the displays. It was during this observation that we split customers into two categories. There were those that walked in and looked around for about 5-10 minutes, usually not buying anything (these made up the majority of people seen in the shop). Then there were customers that would come in, sit down, possibly order something from the café (usually not), and start working or resting – these customers would be there for quite a bit longer, sometimes longer than the period of time Janeve and I were observing. After the first group of people came in at 12:25, we saw an influx of people and the place started to fill up. What interested us most though was that it wasn’t until about 12:30 that people started showing up. In the US, 12:30 would be considered smack dab in the middle of rush hour. Thus, we were wondering if this difference was culturally based, or due to other factors, such as store location or weather.

          Our third observation was conducted on Monday the 21st from 1:30pm-3: 45 pm. We noticed right away that compared to our previous observation, there were a lot more people in the store. Not only were there more people, but there was an abundance of children – something we had not seen during our previous observations. The old men, who had been absent on the 16th, were back in full force. The mall was full of life, and the store reflected as such. Renovations were completed, and a new display was plopped down in the middle of the sitting area, bringing more traffic into what had previously been a space separated from the shopping aspect of the store. With the increased traffic, more people were purchasing food and beverages from the café and the employees were busy making drinks and helping customers. The melody still danced from the music boxes, and the cat-themed merchandise still smiled at customers, but we were in a changed space. Over the course of our observations, we’d seen the physical layout change, but we’d also seen a change in our own perceptions. No longer were we gazing at displays or drinking tea merrily from tiny cups. Instead, we were questioning everything we saw, trying to understand all aspects of the shop, from the people inside to the sign out front. Were the old men sitting outside the café waiting for their wives to finish shopping? Or was it just a popular meeting spot? Had school ended for the New Year by the time we performed our last observation and was that why we saw children when we hadn’t before? How did the approaching New Year affect the flow of traffic in the store – did the influx of people on the last day have any direct correlation? Overall, while we were able to gain knowledge about people and the space within the café, our observations often left us with more questions than we’d had before. We lacked an understanding of how outside factors impacted the café across all aspects of its living and breathing self. In a situation where information was actually critical and pertinent, to gain a better understanding of the environment, our first step would have been to interview as many people as we could. Then, taking that knowledge and connecting it with other factors, such as weather, holidays, time of year, etc., we’d create a comprehensive view of our café. Even with all of that though, there would be no way to fully understanding what we were dealing with and where we’d sit within that space. The world is constantly changing, and a little café is affected just as much as everything else. By recognizing this and then taking confidence in what we do know, we can solidify our stance as ethnographic researchers and more fully come to understand and appreciate our environment and practices as a whole.