Yesterday I took tea at Mouse Love Rice. This apparently random collection of words is intended by the proprietors to signify a Chinese tea shop on Manchester street. On conversation, it emerged that it was named after a pop song of the same name. I pressed for a brief summary of the lyrics, and determined that a more meaningful translation would be something along the lines of As Much As A Mouse Loves Rice (That’s How Much I Love You, Baby). It turns out that most everybody in the world apart from me had already heard of this song, downloaded it, and bickered about who recorded the best version. But none of this explains why a tea shop, decorated in a traditional manner, is named after a recent pop song whose lyrics do not seem to involve tea in any way.
There is a video, but it does not provide much in the way of explanation, as it contains only a simple narrative about a blind woman who buys many plants from a travelling plant salesman. He demonstrates his love for her by shouting into a mist-filled valley and giving her oranges, then she is run over by a car, and he is so upset he turns into a mouse and has himself mailed to her hospital bed. By some unexplored mechanism, possibly involving ancestral spirits or a compassionate Bodhisattva, this act of sacrifice causes her to recover her sight. She falls in love with her doctor and hey get married, apparently never knowing that they owe it all to the mousey plant salesman, whom she keeps as a pet. Nobody drinks any tea at all.
This is as far as I have thus far managed to get in exploring the mystery of the Mouse Love Rice Tea Shop. However, I can report that they serve excellent tea at reasonable prices, and I intend to return.
In addition, I can see a butterfly.