Waiters/servers in teahouses during ancient China...

[Yuri]

Uhm, this question concerns waiters/waitresses/servers in teahouses during ancient China. What would be the appropriate name/equivalent term in English? I've tried Googling but there are simply too many results to filter out the relevant pages.

I hope I haven't posted in the wrong forum as I don't think this could be considered part of the "History" forum, could it?

[roddy]

I have no idea what the correct forum is either, so I'll leave it here

Serving girl / boy?

[skylee]

waiter = 小二 / 店小二

cashier = 掌櫃

waitress 嘛 ~ 姑娘 / 大嬸 / 老闆娘 (?) ... 古時候女人不太會拋頭露面的啦 ...

PS - oh you want the terms in English. I don't know them either.

[skylee]

Here is a relevant discussion -> http://fh.rolia.net/f0/c1200/all/page/8.html

[Jim]

Wasn't too impressed by that discussion skylee . I'm casting my mind back to characters stopping at inns in older English novels I've read.

Maybe younger staff as serving-maids/girls and serving-lads/boys, older as servant (there's also serving wench of course but sounds a bit fake to my ears). Very much depends on the time and the overall style of the piece, but I'd say those would work for teahouses in the pre-modern era. Have you got a particular passage in mind?

[Yuri]

Huh? Passage? Look below. It's badly written, yes. Perhaps during the timeline of say... err... 500 and 1500 AD. I don't know. Would "serving girl/boy" best depict the description of a teahouse for commoners while "male/female attendant" for a teahouse for the rich people? At the present, I'm trying to avoid words like "waiter/waitress" 'cos it's a very modern term, isn't it?

"Madam Lu was a very superstitious woman. At a teahouse, she was mistakenly served four buns instead of three. Screaming hysterically about Heaven and death, she ran off in fear. The serving girl later contracted insanity; surely, a sign of the deities' disapproval."

[Jim]

I'd say that reads quite naturally Yuri. Serving girl would fit a similar time-line in England and even later, e.g Shakespearean; in fact I think it's still quite common usage in the 19th century if I remember my William Hazlitt and Cobbett.

[Yuri]

Oh, dear... so "serving boy/girl" is out. Hmmm...

Edit: oh wait, that's my mistake. I think I was kinda sleepy earlier on.