The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

  Today, in what seems like the worst torpor and stickiness of the summer, we drive to Dinghushan, another popular mountain resort, to see the Tang and Ming dynasty temples. Although it feels like half of Guangzhou is also here, trying to escape the swelter of the city, we stroll along the trails, and Jin takes several photos of me.

  “Would you rather live in a villa park surrounded by fields and drive to your shop every day or would you prefer to have an apartment in the city and visit nature on weekends?” he asks.

  “As though I would ever get to live in a villa!” I manage to get out through my laughter. “Or own a car! Or have an entire weekend without work!”

  “But what if you could live in the countryside, would you want that? A villa park is not far from the city . . .”

  He’s so earnest, and this excursion reminds me how much I love the purity of clean air, birdsong, and the calming sounds of bubbling brooks and waterfalls. Driving back to the city, I feel refreshed and ready to start the new week, but I also feel homesick. How can I explain to him that while Dinghushan is lovely, the mountains are not as beautiful or as tall, isolated, or pristine as my childhood home?

  He reads my mind, and remarks, “Maybe one day you’ll take me to where you grew up and I’ll get to meet your family.”

  I don’t even know what to say. What if he came to Spring Well and experienced what I love—the mossy cushion of the forest floor, leaves fluttering in the breeze, and birds and monkeys chattering in the trees? Or would he see my village—and my family—as backward and crude? So much of my time with Jin, I realize, is spent with contradictory thoughts like these. His comments and questions make my heart feel both sweet and bitter and leave me confused, but not so confused that I ever say no to his invitations.

  I’ve never told him about my marriage to San-pa or our trip across Myanmar and into Thailand, but the following Sunday when he announces, “You should have a passport in case you want to travel to another country someday,” I go along with the idea. Of course, it’s not easy to get a passport. He seems to know people who know people, though. He introduces me to one cadre and bureaucrat after another. “She’s a businesswoman,” he explains to them, following up with “Do you like Pu’er? Naturally! The health benefits alone! Please accept her gift . . .” And so on.

  Once I get my passport (amazing!), he advises me to get a single-visit visa to the United States, because “You never know what can happen in this country.” He isn’t aware that I have a daughter in America, but I fill out the forms, go to the interview, and quietly begin to save money for a plane ticket. After I get the United States of America visa stamp on my passport, I take it out every night just to stare at it. If I went there, could I find her? Jin remains ignorant of the gift he’s given me—hope—but I’m indebted to him for it nevertheless.

  I often remind myself of what Mrs. Chang said: those who suffer have earned contentment. Maybe I have earned it. Although Jin and I are getting to know each other, as Mrs. Chang asked, I worry what will happen if I share my life story. Maybe a time will come when we’ll want to tell each other everything, but maybe not. He seems to feel the same way, because our conversations look inward and forward but never backward. Every word exchanged reveals something—from the insignificant and even silly to the more profound admissions that get to the core of who we are. Who knows? Maybe we are less interested in infatuation or romantic love than in understanding, compatibility, and companionship unmarred by the past.

  “I like yellow,” he answers when I ask his favorite color. “I don’t have many good memories of being in the countryside as a boy, but I did enjoy the spring when the rapeseed was in bloom.”

  “I’ll always love indigo,” I tell him. “One might think I’d be tired of it. I wore that color every day until I went to Kunming, and every person I knew as a girl wore that same color. Instead, it reminds me of tradition and the comforts of home.”

  He asks if I like dogs.

  “I prefer cats, because they’re useful and mind their own business,” I explain. “Dogs are only good for omens and sacrificial eating.”

  “Promise me you won’t eat my dog.”

  “You have a dog? I love dogs!”

  It’s not a concession. I’m not changing who I am to please him. I’d walk a dog and clean up its poop, like I see people do here in the city, because I like Jin and I want to spend time with him. (Turns out he was joking. A relief!) But every revelation is weighed. Could I bear that? Could I live with it?

  By fall, my feelings for him have grown and changed. He hasn’t tried to kiss me. I understand we’re from different cultures and that it’s unusual for Han majority people to kiss or hug in public or for the most traditional couples even to show physical affection in private. Still, every time he uses the tip of his finger to slide a loose strand of hair behind my ear or takes my elbow to help me into his car, I feel the warmth that got me into so much trouble with San-pa. But I’m not a young girl anymore. I go to a Family Planning Office for birth control pills. If we ever decide to steal love, I’ll be ready. But when? I consider how much time we’ve spent together, and that’s when it hits me he’s holding something back far worse than his family’s tribulations in the countryside. Of course. So am I. Many things . . .

  Haley’s Fifth-grade Spelling Words

  Scrape

  Cruel

  Millionaire

  Criminal

  Annoy

  Spain

  Plastic

  Boycott

  Cauliflower

  Tragedy

  Homeless

  Communicate

  Imagination

  Career

  Youth

  Professional

  Ghost

  Desalination

  Groundwater

  Sponge

  1. Office buildings scrape the sky.

  2. Friends can be cruel.

  3. Most parents are millionaires.

  4. If you ask a criminal what kind of job he has, he will say a government job.

  5. I wish I had a sister to annoy me.

  6. Will you send me a sister from Spain?

  7. Grandma’s face looks like plastic.

  8. Dad says people can boycott things they don’t like.

  9. I want to boycott cauliflower.

  10. A tragedy is when my violin teacher passes gas.

  11. Homeless people must feel terrible.

  12. I want my own phone to communicate.

  13. Grandpa says I have an imagination “this big.”

  14. All girls should have a career.

  15. Youth in Asia is different from euthanasia.

  16. Every year my mom hires a professional photographer to take pictures of me.

  17. I wish I had a ghost to play with.

  18. I will never use desalination in a sentence again.

  19. I’m learning about groundwater in Miss Gordon’s class.

  20. If I had a little sister, I would wipe her mouth with a sponge.

  PART IV

  THE BIRD THAT STANDS OUT

  2007–2008

  A CHICKEN, A GOAT, AND A COIN

  To celebrate Western New Year’s Eve, Jin takes his mother and me to a restaurant at the top of a fancy hotel, which allows us to see the fireworks—giant blooms of light and stars—bursting over the city. He orders champagne, which I’ve spoken about to my customers but never tasted. Once it’s poured, he toasts us, wishing all prosperity, happiness, and golden health in the new year.

  My toast is to Mrs. Chang. “Thank you for befriending a stranger.”

  “May this be the first of many New Year’s celebrations—Western or lunar—we share together,” she says when her turn comes.

  Her words are so bold. She’s a wishful mother of an unwed man in his late thirties, but I worry her pushing could drive him away. I try to compose myself—hiding my embarrassment behind a pleasant expression—before glancing in Jin’s direction. When I do, he’s right there, staring at me
with such intensity that I immediately lower my eyes to the salted prawn on my plate.

  A week later, on the first Sunday of the new year, Jin flies to Los Angeles for a series of meetings. When Mrs. Chang and I visit in the park during the week, we don’t discuss the awkward moments after her toast, but my mind is full of unspoken truths. I’ve fallen in love with Jin, but I’m not sure the feeling is reciprocated. I could try to shield my heart and say I don’t want to see him—or her—again, but what would that bring me? Immediate loneliness. I want to prolong this emotion as long as I can, even if it will cause me pain in the future.

  That’s when my a-ma comes into my mind. Two years ago and now nearly ten years after San-pa’s terrible death, A-ma cautioned me, “You shouldn’t be alone.” She also said I shouldn’t let memories of the past turn me into someone I wouldn’t recognize, and I guess this proves I haven’t, because I’m as foolish and reckless as ever. But she also said, “The right person will find you and love you,” and I have to believe that’s happened, because, truly, won’t Jin have a moment when he realizes what he feels for me? What if he proposes, we go to Spring Well Village, A-ma and A-ba like him, and we’re married in a full Akha wedding—the kind I should have had all those years ago? What if, when we come back to Guangzhou, we find an apartment together? He certainly won’t have a crossbow, but what other possessions might he bring to our home? How will our lives unfold? What if we have a child? Just the thought of that . . .

  See? Foolish and reckless.

  * * *

  On Saturday, I work in the tea market but my mind is elsewhere. Jin returns today, and we’re set to meet this evening at our favorite café on Shamian Island. My shop is busier than ever. I work—pouring, measuring, and selling tea, listening to the conversation between my three favorite tea men. Mr. Lin brags about how many kilos of a twelve-year-old Pu’er from Laobanzhang he’s stored. He points to his laptop screen. “Come see how much money I made—overnight!” Mr. Chow says, “Only on paper.” Mr. Kwan jokes, “Only on screen, you mean!” Then they shift—as they often do—to the size of their temperature-controlled vaults. It’s a normal day, except for the thoughts about Jin that keep me from joining the banter.

  It’s a normal day, that is, until two new customers enter the shop. The sight of the older man jolts me out of my daydreams. Mr. Huang! Next to him, a teenage boy, who has to be his son, Xian-rong. A little more than a decade has passed since I last saw them. I’d recognize Mr. Huang anywhere, but these days he doesn’t look so startlingly different compared to the other men in my shop. He’s still well fed, but here in the city he wears white pants, a striped shirt, and white patent leather shoes. The boy—thin, gangly, with a mild case of acne spotting his face—slouches, keeping his eyes on the floor. They don’t recognize me, of course. But seeing them brings back all the ways I failed as an Akha, as a mother, and as a wife: selling the leaves from the mother tree, abandoning my daughter, and San-pa’s addiction and death.

  “I’m looking for something truly unique—the more artisanal and rarer the leaf the better,” Mr. Huang announces, proving that his desires are the same as ever.

  My trio of tea men take up the challenge.

  “I have tea picked from thousand-year-old trees,” Mr. Lin brags.

  Mr. Chow goes a step further. “I have tea picked from a single thousand-year-old tree.”

  Mr. Kwan can top either of those. “A farmer in Fujian province sold me tea picked by trained monkeys.”

  A bemused expression spreads across Mr. Huang’s face. He raps on my table with his knuckles, commanding attention. “But does anyone here have tea picked by the lips of doctor-certified virgins?”

  My tea men murmur among themselves. Who hasn’t seen articles on the Internet about this tea? Not only do they have to be virgins, but they’re required to have a C-cup bra size as well. Some reports claim that the girls even sleep with the tea on their breasts to infuse the leaves with vitality and virility.

  “No one believes those stories,” Mr. Lin scoffs. “If you do, my friend, then you’ve been duped. Do not feel bad. Even I have bought a counterfeit on occasion from a dealer who claims the material came from forest tea trees, but was not, or was naturally fermented but was sentenced to extreme wet storage, with high heat and high humidity to achieve the proper color but not the depth of taste. We must always remember what Lu Yü, the great tea master, told us thirteen hundred years ago: The quality and goodness of a tea are for the mouth to decide.”

  “How to authenticate . . . That’s the question!” Mr. Chow chimes in. “Is the seller telling the truth about the vintage? Is the rice paper wrapping original? But like Mr. Lin says, you must know by taste. Your body will tell you. If it doesn’t taste right, it isn’t right.”

  “Buyer beware!” Mr. Kwan concludes.

  Hearing Mr. Huang’s laughter transports me back many years. The skin on my arms reacts, contracting beyond my control, as though I’ve stepped on a bamboo pit viper. He’s a physical manifestation of all my mistakes, even if he wasn’t at fault for everything I associate with him.

  “I like wise men,” Mr. Huang says, “and everything you say is true. We’re like art collectors, no? We taste every day. We know our own teas. No one believes in tea picked by the lips of virgins, because are there any of those left in China these days?” He tucks his chin as he asks, “But will you doubt me when I tell you I was the first to return to artisanal methods to create Pu’er?”

  Xian-rong rolls his eyes, as though he’s heard the story a thousand times, but Mr. Lin responds with a bland “How interesting.” Then, because he can’t help himself, he adds, “Tell us more.”

  “If you’re a true connoisseur, then you’ve heard of me,” Mr. Huang says. “I started a new era—to make private-label tea again.”

  “Are you Mr. Lü, the creator of Truly Simple Elegant tea?” Mr. Chow asks in unveiled awe.

  Mr. Huang’s crowing goes mute, and his shoulders sag. Then his eyes get the steely look I remember so well. “Mr. Lü and I were in the tea mountains around the same time. My leaves also hadn’t been picked for forty years—”

  “Were they picked by virgins or monkeys?” Mr. Lin teases.

  Mr. Huang visibly bristles. I wish he’d leave my shop so tranquillity could be restored.

  “The tea I created is special, very potent—”

  “Dad,” Xian-rong interrupts, speaking perfect English. Then to the others, he says, “Please forgive my father.”

  “We have our stories too,” Mr. Lin says good-naturedly. He clasps a hand on each of his friends’ shoulders. “Come, let us leave the strangers to conduct business with our maiden.”

  Despite my begging them to stay, my three tea men pack up their laptops, cellphones, and cups.

  “We’ll return after lunch,” Mr. Chow announces, whether to warn Mr. Huang and his son or to reassure me, I’m not sure.

  As soon as they’re out the door, Xian-rong turns to me. “I apologize for my father. He’s like the fisherman who let a big one slip off his line. For him, it’s always the one that got away. Every year since he made his first blends, he’s traveled to other mountains, trying to re-create one particular tea, which he made into only two cakes—”

  “But I’ve been missing one special ingredient,” Mr. Huang cuts in. “The leaves from your grove.”

  A chill runs down my spine. They knew who I was all along.

  “How did you know I was here?” I ask.

  Mr. Huang laughs. “I returned to your village last spring. Didn’t your family tell you? And then there’s my old friend, Tea Master Sun.”

  My stomach lurches. He was back in Spring Well? And he knows my tea master? I thought Tea Master Sun had only tasted Mr. Huang’s tea.

  “Don’t let my father bother you, Auntie,” Xian-rong says, again in English, this time using an honorific to address me. “He made the mistake of selling most of the tea cakes made on Nannuo Mountain to a Korean collector. Can you imagine what they’r
e worth now? I’ll tell you: one thousand three hundred U.S. per cake.”

  Waaa!

  “Forget the fisherman,” Xian-rong goes on. “My father is more like Ahab in search of his whale.”

  All right, so that stumps me.

  I want them out of my shop. Sweat dampens my armpits, and I tremble despite my best efforts. It’s not a big room, and the three of us are standing together: the man staring at me, the boy embarrassed by his father, and me, feeling reduced to an inconsequential, uneducated, tu, hill-tribe girl. But rather than push them out, I elect to appear friendly and helpful.

  “Please sit, and we’ll have some tea,” I say, keeping my voice steady as I motion to the stools in front of my tea table.

  We spend the next two hours drinking tea and “catching up,” as Mr. Huang puts it. He still lives in Hong Kong, but he has so many construction projects in Guangzhou that he now maintains an apartment here. He sent his son to Andover, a prep school in America, where he was one of many overseas students. “But the boy fell in love with a white girl,” Mr. Huang complains. “I had to bring him home. Now he’s at the American International School in Hong Kong.” (Doesn’t Mr. Huang realize that his son will have an equal chance of falling in love with a foreigner at the American school?) “He’s a senior. Seventeen years old! We come here on the hydrofoil every Friday afternoon and stay the weekend, so I can teach him the business he’ll inherit one day.”

  The son in question looks about as interested in that prospect as in digging ditches.