Lisa See, the bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love and Shanghai Girls — among others — now brings forth a stirring tale spun around the lives of two women, Li-yan and her daughter Haley. The Tea Girl from Hummingbird Lane takes us into the culturally rich world of the Akha tribe from Nannuo Mountain, where Li-yan lives with her family: her parents, her three brothers and their families. Li-yan’s A-ma, the most respected woman in the village because of her midwifery skills, introduces young Li-yan to her trade, and at the same time bequeaths her a secret grove of ancient tea trees dating back hundreds of years; a grove that has been passed down from woman to daughter in their family for centuries. Thus begins a story of love, heartbreak, superstitions, cultural stigma and what ties it all together: Pu’er tea.

See includes two notes as preface before the story starts. The Author’s Note provides a brief introduction to and the economic history of Pu’er, a fermented tea produced in the Yunnan province of China, while the epigraph quotes a short poem from The Book of Songs (an ancient collection of Chinese poetry dating from the 11th to seventh centuries BC) that explains how a son should be raised in the lap of luxury, as opposed to a daughter, who should be prepared to always deal with the hardships of life.

Both the Author’s Note and the short epigraph provide us with an insight to the story of Li-yan, the protagonist. Known only as ‘Girl’ to her family, Li-yan proves to be more ambitious and headstrong than her nondescript familial identity predicts. See shows us from the beginning that Li-yan is not only intelligent and eager to learn, but has strength of character and courage to boot. Backed by her mother, Li-yan decides to give her secret, illegitimate child up for adoption when San-pa, her lover and the father of her daughter, disappears after promising marriage. Making a secret trip to the city, Li-yan drops off her baby at an orphanage filled with unwanted children, mostly because of the one-child policy put in place by the government of Mao Zedong.

A story that depicts the strength of women and the desperate attempts to retain cultural identity in the face of erasure

Li-yan’s life takes a complete turn following the adoption. Although San-pa comes back and they get married — against the wishes of their families — they are unable to locate their child. Chasing hopes of a better lifestyle, the couple moves around, living off scraps as refugees in Thailand until, one day, a freak accident brings about yet more turbulence in Li-yan’s life and she finds herself back in her home village without any prospects. With the help of her mother and an old teacher, Li-yan starts a career as a tea connoisseur, eventually moving to the United States, selling Pu’er tea.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane records the journey of not just Li-yan, but also her daughter Haley, her mother A-ma and other women connected to Li-yan. There is also a historical lesson: Li-yan belongs to the Akha tribe, one of the 55 ethnic minorities in China that Mao categorised as being part of the Hani tribe. Since at the time of categorisation, the Akha — along with the other 54 ethnic minority tribes — were mostly undiscovered, they were all categorised as Hani in the prevalent fashion of hiding mistakes. This essentially erased their history, language and culture from official records. See brings not only this historical erasure of minority cultures into context, but also the metaphorical erasure of women and their identities, both cultural and familial. Li-yan, and the other women See writes about in her novel, fight every step of the way to retain these identities, sometimes even just to survive in the most primal sense. Within the culturally historic context of Mao’s China and then the onset of globalisation, See weaves a tale of tea-infused drama: a tale of estranged mothers and daughters all struggling to find a way to reclaim the lost threads that connect them.

Baby Girl #78 arrived with part of her umbilical cord still attached. It looks four to six days dried. For this I am giving her a birth date of November 24, 1995. … [W]e have catalogued and stored her possessions ... one cake of tea, one blanket, one shirt, one pair leggings and one cap with charms. ... The charms on the hat and the indigo colouring of the hand-woven blanket and clothing suggest that the child was born of an ethnic minority woman. — Excerpt from the book

As an avid fan of See’s work, I found The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane a satisfying read. However, there were parts within the novel that, as a reader, I found slightly irksome, such as the forced development of the character of Haley, Li-yan’s daughter. Haley did not receive the fair treatment that Li-yan’s character did — where Li-yan was given the freedom to choose her actions and realise her way on her own given the circumstances surrounding her, Haley’s actions seemed forced to the reader. Too much detail about why she chose to do something, or felt the way she was feeling, spoiled any illusion of free will on the part of the character. Haley’s development as a character did not have same depth as Li-yan’s, and was, in places, two-dimensional. Even so, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is an enjoyable as well as educational read, and is thus highly recommended.

The reviewer is a finance support specialist at Yale University

The Tea Girl of
Hummingbird Lane
By Lisa See
Scribner, US
ISBN: 978-1501154829
384pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 1st, 2017