The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

After the dinner, Jin and Li-yan go to the house in Monterey Park, and Li-yan likes it so much that they check out of their hotel and spend the rest of their honeymoon there. When they go to look for a new house, the topic of children comes up, and they both agree that they want kids. Li-yan keeps thinking about Yan-yeh and pays attention to every passing Chinese child who has white parents, even though she understands that her daughter can be anywhere in America.

Jin and Li-yan buy a new house and decide to stay in America for a little longer. Ci-teh assures Li-yan that her business is thriving and that she will “make [them] rich” (240), so Li-yan is relieved that she left her tea shop “with the exact right person” (240).

After they move into their new house, Li-yan and Jin befriend their Chinese neighbors and celebrate the Chinese New Year together. The newlyweds enjoy their new life, but Li-yan calls Ci-teh every day to make sure that her shop is doing well in her absence. Ci-teh assures her friend that the business is going even better than usual because prices for Pu’er have gone up. During one of the calls, Ci-teh tells Li-yan that she spent a lot of money on buying more product, but she assures her that she will sell the tea for even more money. Li-yan decides that Ci-teh is a gifted businesswoman and no longer worries about her shop. Instead, she embraces her new life with Jin. They enjoy the companionship of their neighbors, and one of them, Rosie, even gives Li-yan her Western-style name: Tina.

Although Jin and Li-yan are very happy, it bothers them that after four months of trying, they still haven’t conceived a baby. One night, Li-yan hears on Chinese TV that Pu’er prices are inflated and that many teas sold as Pu’er are fake. The reporter, who claims that more Pu’er is being sold than harvested, stands in front of Li-yan’s shop, Midnight Blossom. Li-yan doesn’t want to believe that Ci-teh has been selling counterfeit tea, but when she repeatedly calls her, Ci-teh doesn’t answer, so they decide to fly back to China right away.

When Li-yan comes to the tea market two days later, it’s deserted: no people, no goods. Xian-rong greets her and tells her that he has been trying to reach her for weeks, but Ci-teh refused to give him Li-yan’s contact information. When they go into the shop, Xian-rong gives her one of the tea cakes that Ci-teh had been selling: It is in an original stamped packaging, but as soon as Li-yan tries it, she realizes that it’s fake. Xian-rong explains that Ci-teh likely bought a lot of unused wrappers, and Li-yan feels as if “everything [she’s] worked for is being swept down the river” (245).

In the next few days, after more news reveals counterfeit tea frauds, the Pu’er market collapses completely. Li-yan is forced to close her shop and throw away almost all her stock. When Jin and Li-yan return to their home on Shamian Island, Li-yan is overwhelmed with “sadness, regret, and guilt” (247). She blames herself for being a bad Akha and for not noticing bad omens, such as the dog on the roof. Li-yan doesn’t worry about her finances because she has a wealthy husband, but she is very concerned for her family because they lost their only source of income.

Jin and Li-yan decide to go to Spring Well Village to talk to Ci-teh. Their trip is long and hard because it’s monsoon season and the roads are almost completely washed out. When they reach Menghai, Jin tries to convince Li-yan that they should visit the orphanage and ask about the baby before they head to the village, but Li-yan insists on talking to Ci-teh first. Drenched and tired, they arrive in the village, and Li-yan goes straight to Ci-teh’s house. She finds her sitting alone at a table as if expecting her.

The chapter ends with an angry note that Haley, who is now in sixth grade, passes to her best friend, Jade. In the note, Haley blames Jade for saying that her parents, unlike Haley’s, are “real Chinese” (254), and for calling Haley “midget” (254) and “dwarf” (255). 

Although Li-yan wants to talk to Ci-teh in private, Akha Law doesn’t allow her to confront Ci-teh alone. When the ruma and the nima come, the women go outside, where the whole village has gathered. Li-yan blames Ci-teh for putting authentic labels on inferior tea from Spring Well, claiming it’s from Laobanzhang, and selling it as a counterfeit at an inflated price. Ci-teh, in return, tries to put blame on Li-yan, saying that they were just trying to meet the demands of her shop and calls her “an outsider” (256).

Li-yan tries to convince the village that if they still want to make tea, then they should do it the right way, and gradually they will be able to make money again. Instead, Ci-teh announces that those who are subleasing the land to her will soon be growing rubber and coffee instead of tea, so she plans to get rid of all tea trees. Li-yan argues that this way Ci-teh will “deprive the people of the only thing they have—land with their special trees” (258). Village people are hesitant about who to support: Although they rely on Ci-teh for their income, they agree with what Li-yan is saying. The ruma decides to hold a special ceremony and afterward announces his verdict: The birth of twins a long time ago changed every person in Spring Well, and now they must continue to deal with the consequences. Ci-teh, who lost her brother and her family’s wealth, has since had to work very hard to restore her family’s reputation and possessions. Li-yan, who realized that she couldn’t be a midwife, began looking to the outside world. The final decision is to let Ci-teh live right outside the village, in the big house she built for her family, while Li-yan is allowed to stay and help them make good tea again.

Li-yan and Jin decide to stay in the village for a while to help revitalize the Pu’er business and help people bring back their income. At first, they sleep in an abandoned newlywed hut, but then local men help Jin construct a bamboo house. As soon as they move in, Li-yan gets pregnant. She hopes that since she already had a daughter, now she will have a son.

Having spent five months in Spring Well, Jin and Li-yan feel confident to leave the village and return to Guangzhou. On their way back, they stop at the Social Welfare Institute, and as they enter a building, they see a beggar woman sleeping under the cardboard sheets. Jin gives her a few coins.

Once they are inside, the smell of urine is just as overpowering as it was all those years ago when Li-yan came there with San-pa. Li-yan notices her A-ma’s dragon bracelet on one of the women’s wrists and recognizes Director Zhou. She and the other two women who work there assume that they are looking for a baby to adopt, but Li-yan tells her that she is looking for her daughter. Director Zhou recognizes her and tells her that she only knows that her daughter’s adoptive parents took her to Los Angeles. She also adds that all her paperwork went with her to the Social Welfare Institute in Kunming, but there was a fire seven years ago that destroyed all their records. Li-yan is very upset, but before leaving, she offers to buy a washing machine and a dryer for the orphanage. As they exit the building, the beggar woman tells Jin that she has something that might interest him: She has been “waiting for the right buyers” (268) and hands him her headdress. As soon as the woman begins to speak, Li-yan recognizes Deh-ja. Deh-ja also recognizes Li-yan after she begins to speak. Li-yan tells her that she is not going to buy the headdress because Deh-ja is going with them.

When Li-yan brings the washer and the dryer to the orphanage, Director Zhou gives her back her A-ma’s dragon bracelet, saying that Li-yan has a “big and generous heart” (269). Afterward, Jin and Li-yan bring Deh-ja to their new home in Guangzhou, where she soon adapts to her new life and starts to take care of them, making sure that Li-yan behaves according to Akha customs.

The chapter ends with a transcript of a group therapy session for Chinese adoptees. The participants of the session are five teenage girls: Jessica, who is 17; Tiffany and Ariel, who are 16; and Haley and Heidi, who will soon turn 13. They all struggle with similar issues: high parental and social expectations, as well as academic pressure. Haley says that her adoptive mother has a habit of pointing at a prominent figure and telling Haley that “that could be [her] one day” (273). All five girls have similar experiences of their parents wanting them to become like Sarah Chang, Yo-Yo Ma, or Lang Lang. That’s why all their parents force them to play a musical instrument, in addition to excelling at their academics and doing many extracurriculars. Their parents expect them to get into the best and most prestigious colleges.

Although Haley admits that she loves her adoptive parents, she also feels that even though she was not “precious enough for [her] birth parents to keep” (275), she is too precious for her parents, “their one child” (275). All the girls agree that their parents treat them like “the object and focus of all attention and love” (276). Haley also admits that she often thinks about her birth parents: Do they have a yearning for their daughter, or did they forget about her? Other girls also express concern over their relatives treating them differently because they are not white, and Tiffany shares that they even call her “our little yellow one” (278). Haley adds that she read an article about others labeling Chinese people as “inquisitive, persistent and ambitious [...], with ingenuity, fortitude, and cleverness” (282), and she feels very pressured to live up to this stereotype. 

Jin, Mrs. Chang, Tea Master Sun, Deh-ja, and a six-month pregnant Li-yan return to Spring Well Village right before the start of a tea-picking season. Li-yan was ready to pay a fee for the cleansing ceremony for Deh-ja, but no one except A-ma recognized her: before being banished from the village, Deh-ja had only lived there for a year, and she has been gone for 20 years, so now no one remembers her.

On the first day of picking, early in the morning, Li-yan is asked to say a few words before everyone in the village, and she feels as if “this worthless girl has overcome her past” (288). She understands that the stakes are high because if she fails, Ci-teh will take over and destroy the tea trees. All villagers, including Teacher Zhang, work hard picking tea leaves. After a few days, they have an unexpected visitor: Mr. Huang. He announces to everyone that he has come to help, and Tea Master Sun warmly greets him.

During the next eight days, as everyone picks tea leaves, Li-yan tries to pass what she’s learned at the tea college to the villagers. She wants to separate their leaves into two batches: one will be semi-processed and can age naturally, and the other will be artificially fermented. Li-yan enjoys spending time with her family, but her favorite moments are those when the women gather outside to sort every tea leaf into different grades, exchanging stories and laughing. In the evenings, Li-yan asks her sisters-in-law to help her prepare a proper Akha cap for her baby, decorated with embroidery and coins.

The men also rebuild Spring Well Village’s spirit gate to protect the villages and their tea. Following Li-yan’s recommendation, they also build an electronic gate with a sentry post, where all vehicles must be inspected to make sure that the tea brought from outside can’t be wrapped in the Spring Well Village label and transported elsewhere.

On the day before she has to leave, Li-yan and A-ma go to her tea grove. There, Li-yan asks her A-ma to deliver her baby because she wants to give birth in Spring Well. Although A-ma admits that she is honored to be asked to do this, Li-yan should have her baby in America so that maybe her daughter would intuit she has a brother.

When Li-yan reopens her shop, business goes very well, but only two weeks pass before she must leave it to Mrs. Chang and fly to America with Jin and Deh-ja to have her baby. Li-yan’s labor goes smoothly, and she gives birth to a healthy baby boy, whom they name Paul William. Jin and Deh-ja are always by her side, and Deh-ja continually makes sure that the family follows all Akha traditions. Li-yan considers the months that follow as “the happiest of [her] life” (299).