The Stroop Test is a psychological test designed to demonstrate how closely human attention is attracted to the written word.
For adult readers, textual information trumps other forms of visual information, including colour information, in provoking the brain. We could be reading banana written, in purple letters, but the colour we perceive is still yellow, because semantics somehow shout louder.
This affected me while in our new bathroom last month. Naturally, I was wondering what kind of tea I wanted to start the day with, strumming the spectrum of camellia sinensis in my mind, ignoring the actual taste of toothpaste completely. And then this hit my eyes:
FOAM
Except, of course, I didn’t see the word ‘foam’, because I saw it reflected in the mirror. Instead, what this over-priced German shaving-foam was communicating was:
MAOF
And, of course, that’s an invitation to drink Huangshan Maofeng [黄山毛峰], an excellent variety of green tea made in Anhui, not far from here.
The decision was made for me. You would have seen that instruction, too, right?
Yes, it’s a new bathroom. In fact, it’s a new apartment and a new district. And I didn’t have much tea in the house, having drunk up as much as possible before moving.
So out I had to go to score me some Maofeng.
Now this is where my luck is really strong, because our daughter’s new kindergarten is at the edge of a building called a “茶城” (tea market). It’s very close to where we now live, and I’m hoping it will be the location for some tea adventures.
But, although it’s new to me, there isn’t much about this market that’s new. On the glass exterior, the vinyl-printed names of the tea varieties are showing cracks at every stroke junction. About 15 years old, this building is slightly peeling. And here in the height of summer, it’s as if everything is on siesta. This is Shanghai, not Nanjing, and a hot summer is not all that’s affected people this year.
At this point, it’s difficult to know how many of the stores in these corridors will reopen, and whether or not as tea stores. I don’t know whether this dynamic economy and the resumption of education will restore life to this sleepy building-between-school building. But it’s already alive enough to sell me some green tea.
It’s not the best, the Maofeng I bought hurriedly that day. I’m mostly drinking it with lemon. But I do greet the seller, from Huangshan, on every day’s trip to the kindergarten. I look forward to sampling his Keemun [祁门红茶]. And I’ll be requesting some more expensive green tea from his freezer, too. Lots to look forward to.
By the way, I have to acknowledge that, in my everyday Stroop Test, Roman letters will always shout louder than Chinese characters, regardless of relevance or effort or sun-damage. I could be in a tea town, looking at the exact characters for the tea name in my head. But, for me, there’s always a conversion to pinyin happening, even on my favourite topic. And while that is happening, my brain is open to hijack.
