Beginning ~ with First Brother's dream

Beginning

"No coincidence, no story," my a-ma recites, and that seems to settle everything, as it usually does, after First Brother finishes telling us about the dream he had last night.  I don't know how many times my mother has used this praising aphorism during the ten years I've been on this earth.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane ~ by Lisa See, 2017, historical fiction, 371 pages

  

Lisa See explores the lives of a Chinese mother and her daughter who has been adopted by an American couple.  Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea.  There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations.  Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate—the first automobile any of them have seen—and a stranger arrives.  In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people.

This is a history of the tea trade.  Lisa See shares the customs of a Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world will soon change.  Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence.  When she has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city.

After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life, while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl.  Despite Haley’s happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter.  They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for generations.

I got this book from the library because Helen of Helen's Book Blog rated it 4.5 of 5 stars.  Here's her review.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.