The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

A-ma is Li-yan’s mother. She presides over the family “with a stern but fair hand” (290), and she is a wise and kind woman. Throughout the novel, she is Li-yan’s anchor and role model: Even in the hardest circumstances, she manages to find a solution. A-ma is also a keeper of Akha traditions. When progress reaches the Spring Well Village, people start to forget about their Akha heritage. While the other villagers don Western-style clothes, A-ma is the only person to still wear her traditional Akha clothes, including the headdress. As a premier mother figure, A-ma bends her strict upholding of the Akha Law to allow Li-yan to grow and flourish.

A-ba is Li-yan’s father. He, like other fathers in the Akha culture, doesn’t spend much time with his children, and especially with Li-yan. He doesn’t support her idea to get an education because “what husband wants a wife who thinks she’s smarter than he is” (52). Yet when Li-yan, having learned a lot about tea, comes back to Spring Well to teach the villagers how to harvest and process their tea leaves, he feels very proud of his daughter.

Jin Chang is Li-yan’s second husband. He is a kind and intelligent man, who loves Li-yan deeply. Although he belongs to the Hang majority, he embraces Li-yan’s Akha heritage and supports Li-yan in her search for her daughter.

First Brother, Second Brother, and Third Brother are Li-yan’s siblings. They are a little older than her and, as sons, are more respected in the family. Although in the childhood Li-yan is not very close with her brothers, as she gets involved in Pu’er business, they help her sell tea from their village.

First Sister-in-law, Second Sister-in-law, Third Sister-in-law are the wives of Li-yan’s brothers. They teach Li-yan embroidery and help her with house chores. They demonstrate the obedience of Akha wives, an example that Li-yan chooses not to imitate in her quest for independence and personal growth.

The ruma is the spirit priest in Spring Well; he is the second most important person in the village after the headman.

The nima is the shaman; he has the ability to go into trances and helps resolve the village’s disputes.

Ci-teh is Li-yan’s best friend and neighbor. Although the two girls have different personalities and priorities, they remain close friends for many years. Their friendship ends when Ci-teh, whom Li-yan asks to oversee her tea shop while she is on honeymoon, betrays her friend and sells counterfeit Pu’er at inflated prices.

Ci-do is Deh-ja’s husband and Ci-teh’s brother. Deh-ja gives birth to twins, which is a curse in the Akha culture. The village exiles Deh-ja and Ci-do and forbids them to return. After some time, Ci-do abandons Deh-ja, forcing her to live alone in extreme poverty. When many years later Li-yan sees her begging on the steps of the Social Welfare Institute, Li-yan takes Deh-ja to their new house in America and treats her as a family member. Ci-do’s fate is different from Deh-ja’s because his sister pays for his cleansing ceremony so that he can return to the village and remarry. The villagers’ different treatments of the two demonstrate how the Akha culture values men over women. Li-yan rejects this worldview when she goes against Akha Law and brings Deh-ja back to Spring Well, where the villagers no longer recognize the woman they banished. 

Teacher Zhang is an instructor sent from Beijing to Nannuo Mountain to teach the local children. He supports Li-yan in her studies and helps her get into a trade school. Even though his own fate is full of suffering, he always finds the words of encouragement for Li-yan and helps her throughout her whole life. Zhang represents the intellectuals banished from China during the Cultural Revolution.

San-pa is Li-yan’s first husband and Haley’s birth father. When he and Li-yan get married and move to Thailand, he soon becomes an opium addict. He neither works nor hunts, and instead spends all Li-yan’s savings on drugs and blames her for ruining his life. When Li-yan, scared that he might sell her into prostitution, decides to leave him, he follows her into the jungle and protects her from a tiger, sacrificing his life to save her.

Mr. Huang is a tea buyer from Hong Kong. He teaches the villagers of Spring Well how to harvest and process their tea, and eventually helps local people earn money by popularizing their tea and bringing other buyers into the village. Huang demonstrates the power of outside influences on remote villages such as Spring Well.

Xian-rong is Mr. Huang’s son. In the last chapter, the narrative introduces Xian-rong under his Western name, Sean. He is a tea connoisseur who falls in love with Haley and helps her find her birth mother. Haley’s connection to Sean leads her to Spring Well, completing the cycle of fate.

Haley Davis (Yan-yeh) is the daughter of Li-yan and San-pa. American parents adopt and raise her in Los Angeles, California. Haley is a bright and ambitious girl, who studies Biology at Stanford. Despite growing up in a loving home, Haley, like many other adoptees, struggles with a sense of belonging. She finds peace of mind only when she travels to Yunnan province and finds her birth mother.

Constance and Dan Davis are Haley’s adoptive parents. Constance is a biology professor, and Dan is an arborist. They are caring and loving parents. Even though they realize that they will never be able to replace Haley’s birth parents, they do everything they can to give her the support she needs. The Davis parents represent the loving yet forceful adoptive American parents who expect their Chinese child to excel in all aspects of academics. 

Tea Master Sun is one of Li-yan’s teachers at the Pu’er Tea College. He teaches her how to harvest, process, and brew tea, and he later helps her find her first job. Under his tutelage, Li-yan is able to grow into a confident and capable businesswoman.

Mrs. Chang is a former teacher of English and Jin’s mother. During the Cultural Revolution, she and her husband went to the rural area “to learn from the peasants” (36). There, she lost her husband, but after a few years, the authorities allowed her to return to the city with her son. Her fate mirrors that of Teacher Zhang and shows the suffering that educated people had to endure during the Cultural Revolution.

Paul Chang is Li-yan and Jin’s son. He is a playful and clever boy, and even though they live in Los Angeles, he grows up with an understanding of his Akha heritage.