午睡

It is half past twelve, right in the middle of the day. I walk over to the door of my shop, and I turn over a small wooden sign, and on it are three characters: on a break.

I am Xiao Yue, and I run a tiny dessert shop in Hangzhou. Every day at noon I close the door for one hour and go to the back to take a nap.

A lot of foreign friends coming to China for the first time go out to do something at noon and notice something strange.

Why are so many shops closed? Banks, little restaurants, the small supermarket on the corner, as soon as noon comes, there is nobody there.

The owners are not lazy, and nothing has happened. It is because a lot of Chinese people take a nap at midday.

A midday nap is exactly that - the sleep you take in the middle of the day. It is usually not long, about half an hour.

There are two more very useful expressions about napping, and you can write them down.

One is da ge dunr, which means sleeping for a very short while - even a few minutes counts.

The other one is mi yi huir, which means lying down and resting for a bit, without necessarily really falling asleep.

For a lot of Chinese people this habit starts in childhood.

When I was in primary school we did not go home after lunch, we slept right there in the classroom.

The teacher turned off the lights and drew the curtains, and the whole class, dozens of us, slept lying forward on our desks.

In the classroom in summer, all you could hear was the fan turning. Sometimes, the teacher fell asleep at the front desk too.

Pa means putting your upper body down on the desk, with your head resting on your own arms.

Back then I always thought the desk was too hard and my arms went numb. But somehow I could still fall asleep.

We grow up, we start working, and the habit is still there.

At twelve o'clock, a lot of offices turn off half the lights. Some people lie forward on their desks, some tip their chair back and just lie there like that.

Some people even buy a special little nap pillow and keep it in a drawer at the office.

So if you call a Chinese friend at midday, they might not pick up. It is not that they are ignoring you - they are asleep.

Some small shops tape a note to the door that says: lunch break, back at two.

Schools, banks and some hospitals have a break at midday too. When you plan things in China, it is best not to put them between twelve and two.

All right, let us go back to my shop. Before I close up there are three things I have to do.

First, put the cakes I have not sold into the fridge. Second, wipe the tables clean. Third, turn the sign at the door around.

Once those three things are done, I go into the little room behind the shop.

That room is tiny - there is only space for a small sofa, a cabinet and one potted plant.

I pull the curtain across, and the room goes dark all at once.

The phone goes on silent, but the alarm has to stay on.

Because the most important thing about a nap is this: you must not sleep too long.

Twenty minutes to half an hour is just right.

Sleep more than an hour and you wake up with a headache, feeling even more tired, and then you cannot sleep at night.

So I always set my alarm for twenty-five minutes.

The moment I lie down my cat Xiao Hua comes over too and curls up by my feet.

In summer I turn the air conditioning on a little, but I always put a thin blanket over myself.

Chinese mothers all say the same thing: no matter how hot it is, you have to cover your stomach with something.

To be honest, once I lie down I do not fall asleep right away either.

My head is still on the afternoon: a customer is coming for a cake at three, we are low on strawberries, I have to go to the market again tomorrow.

And while I am thinking, everything slowly goes quiet, and I fall asleep.

Actually, I never used to nap. I always thought sleeping in the middle of the day was a waste of time.

Back then, once it got to three or four in the afternoon I was so sleepy, everything took longer and I got things wrong.

Once I was so sleepy that I mistook the salt for the sugar and put it into a big bowl of cream.

That whole bowl of cream had to be thrown away, and that afternoon I did not finish a single cake.

Ever since then I sleep twenty minutes every day at noon. My whole afternoon is completely different.

The alarm goes off. The first minute after waking is the worst, and I do not want to move at all.

Do not stand up straight away - sit for a moment first and let yourself come round.

I drink half a glass of warm water, splash cold water on my face, and slowly I come back to life.

At two, I turn the sign at the door over again. This side says two characters: open for business.

The afternoon customers come in one by one. The funny thing is, between half past one and half past two coffee sells better than anything else in my shop.

Those young people who do not nap at midday are all getting through on a cup of coffee.

My favorite kind of nap is a nap on a rainy day. Raindrops hit the window, the room is dark, the blanket is a little cool, and that is when I sleep best of all.

So if you come to China one day and see a door at noon that says on a break, do not worry, and do not get annoyed. Just wait - as soon as it turns two, the whole city wakes up again.