World Children's Story Classics: Family Stories

Chapter 60
Tapping on the table with your fingers is actually a way of thanking the person who poured the tea.Why is there such a way of acknowledgment?

It is said that many years ago, when Emperor Qianlong went to the south of the Yangtze River, he once took a few eunuchs in micro-clothes for a trip and went to a teahouse.I saw the waiter holding a large teapot with a long spout, standing far away, pouring out a white chain of tea, without leaking, and hitting the tea bowl.When Emperor Qianlong saw it, he was very curious and asked the teahouse for a copper pot, and imitated pouring tea into several other tea bowls.The eunuchs were terrified when they saw the emperor pouring tea for themselves. They just wanted to kneel down and kowtow, but they were afraid that the emperor's identity would be exposed by doing so.In a hurry, he quickly bent his fingers and tapped three times on the table.It means to kneel down and kowtow to the emperor, and worship three times in a row.

In this way, this way of acknowledgment quickly spread to the people and has been passed down to this day.

(End of this chapter)