SKY OF PAPER: AN ASIAN STEAMPUNK FANTASY

CHAPTER 18

In my old age, I remembered paying a visit to a young friend and walking with him into the shopping district of his home city. He was barely an adult and had just recently started attending a local university. Because he was studying contemporary history, he found a certain interest in me. And because I was genuinely flattered by his praises and comments about my past I could not help but give him a small insight into the world I was once a part of.

We were searching for a place to eat, and when I pointed to a small, rustic building, he said he was in no mood to dine in a tea house and suggested eating at a proper restaurant.

I told him about the incredible things that once happened in such places. That, in my time, to enter a tea house was to glimpse for the briefest of moments, a secret life. That was enough to convince him to dine with me there.

To my relief, I managed to distract him enough with other conversations, such that I never had to tell him as to the meaning of my words, for in my time, a tea house was much more than common people presumed it to be. Its origins dated back to a time when owners of air vessels would negotiate with masters and teachers for the right to borrow their chienkuu ko students. An air ship captain, his ship and his cargo were worthless without the skills of the chienkuu ko to navigate the skies.

Because of the need for secrecy, negotiations were held in places disguised as businesses. Such places did little more than pretend to offer the comfort of a place to sit and sip tea. Soon, high-ranking dignitaries and officials came to negotiate alongside their vessel captains and ship owners.

To the common man, all they saw were people of great power and wealth sipping tea at an otherwise humble, quiet place of business. Curious and inspired by the attention theses places were receiving, people of every kind began to gather and take part in this strange ritual of simply sitting and sipping tea in public.

It was not long before tea houses became popular. They soon expanded to even serve meals and host parties, becoming a place of relaxation and entertainment. Because of the need to service the growing number of customers, chienkuu ko were also trained in the arts of music and dance, expanding their uses beyond that of just air travel.

When common people started building true businesses, selling the same amenities as the tea houses, officials soon became confused as to which places were for negotiating and which were just normal establishments. The masters reached an agreement that they would name their houses after flowers, that whatever property they possessed would carry their crest. From then on, a vessel owner interested in discussing business had only to find a place marked with a flower emblem.

As convincing as they were to the average eye, behind it all, the tea house had always retained its true, hidden form; a place where chienkuu ko trained and sold their skills to those who needed them.

Miss Nishio was certainly no master or teacher of any sort, but she knew, as the head of the Tiger Lily House, how to settle a deal with prospective clients and how to properly sell the skills of the people she owned. Unfortunately, she was not as well off as her other counterparts. Unlike the Tiger Lilly, other houses owned three to four pairs of chienkuu ko and could make a prosperous living even without the income from their tea houses. Miss Nishio however, could not even afford to employ a full-time teacher. As for chienkuu ko, her house owned only one pair, and it was that evening, after we’d come back from the docks that they too arrived after performing their ritualistic duties and serving their clients.

I was cleaning out the dust in my room as Miss Nishio had ordered when I noticed from my window on the second story, a rickshaw pulling up to the tea house entrance. Meng came running up to the rickshaw, earnestly helped its two passengers disembark, then lead them through the gates. They wore extravagant looking robes and their faces were hidden underneath elegant, wide-brimmed hats made of red and gold satin.