A story steeped in tradition
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane By Lisa See Scribner 384 pp; $ 36
“No coincidence, no story.”
Li- yan’s mother repeats this simple aphorism as she i nterprets her children’s dreams over a breakfast of thin broth in their bamboo house on a remote Chinese mountain. But this opening line of Lisa See’s new novel, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, is also a provocative challenge to the reader. See wagers she will carry our attention through every coincidence and twist of fate on a fantastic tea- infused trail, from the villages of Chinese hill tribes to the druginfested Golden Triangle and the glamour and wealth of Los Angeles.
The story begins small, plunging us into the immersive detail of a single gruelling day picking tea with the young girl, Li- yan, her mother, A- ma, and the rest of their ethnic minority Akha family. After work they must trek two hours to the tea collection centre only to be told that they are too late to sell their leaves for the official quota. “The sound that comes from A- ma is not so much a groan as a whimper. All that work at half price.”
What makes life bearable for the Akha is their belief system, which infuses their daily lives. The full sweep of their practices is flawlessly embedded in See’s prose.
Li- yan has been taught blind obedience to tradition, but her faith is soon tested. A- ma is a midwife, and as Li- yan assists at a birth, she must watch her mother enforce the Akha’s harshest rules when a serious taboo is broken. Her outrage at this incident leads Li-yan to question tradition, and the story is propelled forward when she falls pregnant out of wedlock, breaking another taboo.
This novel is largely Liyan’s story, but as she leaves her village to embark on a quest through many hardships, we also get to see, through a selection of official documents, doctor’s notes, family emails and childhood writings, the life of Haley, a Chinese orphan adopted by a well- off California family. Tea will become the theme that holds these two stories in orbit around each other as Li- yan finds her vocation as a tea dealer while Haley grows up obsessed with one gift from her unknown birth family: an old cake of dried tea with an unusual label.
The hardships that confront Li- yan are as compelling as the fog- shrouded secret groves where she and her mother cultivate a special healing tea. I could have hung out here in remote China forever, but See has wider ground to cover, including Chinese adoption, the international fine tea market and modern Chinese migration to the U.S.
It is harder to write with empathy about rich people, and as the story takes its biggest leap — from rural China to wealthy Los Angeles — I did chortle at the line “Three days later I’m in Beverly Hills having dinner in a restaurant called Spago.” But it is a testament to See’s ability as a writer and to her impeccable research that she commands our attention again immediately. “I’m still struggling with how to use a knife and fork,” says Li-yan.
As Li- yan struggles to fit in with the newly arrived Han majority Chinese mil- lionaires in Pasadena, her story circles closer to Haley’s. Li- yan hangs Han New Year decorations and accepts an American name. Meanwhile, Haley, now in high school, must deal with being Chinese among white friends and yet “not Chinese enough” for the Han Chinese.
She struggles with the pressures of being both an abandoned orphan and an adopted child treated as precious by her white parents.
Both Li- yan and Haley must reconcile where they come from with who they are now, and compromise with the flaws of family and tradition if they wish to reclaim their roots. A lush tale infused with clear- eyed compassion, this novel will inspire reflection, discussion and an overwhelming desire to drink rare Chinese tea.