The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock, she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city.
As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each search for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries.
Review: Li-yan is a member of the Akha people, raised in a remote mountain village as one of the many ethnic minorities in China in the late 1980s. Despite the time period, her family lives a very isolated, primitive lifestyle aligned with the seasons and farming of tea. Life in her village goes on as it has for generations, until a stranger in an automobile appears in their village. Li-yan slowly becomes one of the most educated girls in her village. When she has a child out of wedlock, she rejects the tradition that would force her to give the child over to be killed and instead leaves the baby outside a nearby orphanage. Over the years, Li-yan leaves her village for more education and a life in the city, while staying true to her family's devotion to tea. But she longs for her lost child and for signs for how to move forward with her own inherited tea trees.
I just loved this novel from the very beginning. Beautifully written, a beautiful story, and it is meticulously researched. I learned so much about the Akha people and the ethnic minorities of China overall through reading this book, as well as the process of cultivating tea, none of which I had much knowledge about before reading this book. The best historical fiction helps you learn something as you also enjoy the story and that was certainly true of this book. Li-yan's story is deeply moving. Despite extreme odds and harrowing circumstances, she achieves so much. It was wild to think this book begins in the late 1980s given the primitive lifestyle she is raised in and the superstitions that still guide her village's lifestyle.
Li-yan is such a strong character and is deeply shaped by the strength, guidance, and love of her mother. But her father and the rest of her family is so thinly fleshed out. None of her brothers or fathers are given names or even any speaking roles. There is no sense of who they are. They aren't really essential to the storyline, but it was still surprising that there was no attempt to flesh their characters out at all. It made me wonder why they were even included as family members. But there are many other characters who do hold important roles in Li-yan's life including her childhood best friend, her first love, her teacher, etc. and they all take on more developed roles than much of her family.
The ending of this is somewhat too good to be true. But I absolutely loved it. I gasped and stood up from my chair when I got to the final pages. Li-yan goes through such devastating experiences so it felt good to see something good come to pass. It felt like a full circle, fated moment and was such a beautiful conclusion to a deeply moving novel. I just loved this one.
Stars: 5
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