The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

  I shake my head. “No, we should go to Spring Well right away. We’ve come so far, and I have to make sure—”

  “All that can wait another hour or so—”

  “I have to go home,” I plead. “Please, Jin.”

  The muscles in his jaw tighten as he considers his response. Finally, he says, “We’ll go to Spring Well first, but sometime while we’re here, we’re going to the orphanage. You’re in a different position now than you were when you went there with your baby’s father. And you have me.”

  * * *

  Despite promises that this is now an easy drive, the torrential rain has turned the unpaved road into slippery muck. We get stuck in the mud, tires spinning, the driver cursing. Jin and I get out and fill the sludge with stones and thatch. The tires catch, we get back in the car, and we’re on our way. But it’s not far before we get bogged down again. Then more skidding and shimmying. On a particularly steep curve, the car slides to the edge of the precipice. I scream as one tire slips out into space. For a moment, we sit absolutely still, desperately hoping the other three tires hold. Carefully, we all get out of the car. The driver moans and groans about his most prized possession, Jin promises to buy him another car if this one goes over the cliff, and I feel as sick to my stomach as when I left Nannuo Mountain in the back of the tea delivery truck.

  We’re grateful to be alive, but we’re three drenched cats, soaked clean through, muddy, indignant—and very funny to look at. How do I know? Because the road is busy, although no one but us would be fool enough to drive an automobile or motorcycle in this weather. But even in the misery of the monsoon season, farmers have plots to work, mothers and their babies go visiting, and children have school to attend. We’re a hilarious diversion. At last, a tractor rumbles up the road. Jin flags down the driver, and I speak to him in our local dialect. A few minutes later, Jin and I climb on the back of the tractor and hang on to the rain-slick steel. Our driver remains with his car with promises that we’ll send the tractor back to help him.

  A half hour later, we come to another obstacle. A portion of the road has washed out. Jin and I decide to walk the last few kilometers. At least the rain is warm. We pass through Bamboo Forest Village and turn onto the trail that will lead home. To our right, on the construction site I remember from my last visit, rises something I never thought I’d see on any tea mountain: a villa as huge as the ones Jin and I used to see outside Guangzhou. It has a tile roof, large patios extended on massive retaining walls, and bright lights blazing from every window on this dark and rainy day.

  I peel off onto a smaller path. Jin follows behind me. We each have to catch ourselves several times from falling down the slippery embankment. Soon we pass through Spring Well’s spirit gate. The track that divides the two sides of the village is deserted and dismal. Dogs and chickens have found shelter under the remaining bamboo and thatch houses. The gray brick and stucco structures look bleak, already old somehow. Rain streams down the glass panes of the tea-drying sheds. An odiferous smell seeps from them. Yes, they’re fermenting tea here.

  Jin veers toward my family’s new home. Not me. I go straight to Ci-teh’s house. The door is open, and I enter without announcing myself. Ci-teh sits alone at a table with a cup of tea and a pile of papers before her. She’s dressed in the same outfit she wore to fly to Guangzhou for my wedding. Rain batters the roof but otherwise I hear only echoes of emptiness. It’s just the two of us.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to get here,” she says, not even bothering to look up.

  Passed class note from Haley to Jade, May 18, 2007

  Jade,

  Why are you and Jasmine being mean to me? You won’t even look at me in class, but I see you passing notes with Jasmine. You said you, Jasmine, and I would go to Old Town together and hang out next weekend. You said we’d all buy matching outfits so we could be samesies. You said we should ask our moms and dads for Tamagotchis for sixth-grade graduation presents next year, so we could take care of them together.

  You said I was fresh off the boat, because I wasn’t born here like you. I said Jasmine wasn’t born here, and you said it didn’t matter because her parents are real Chinese, not like mine. All three of us look Chinese, and you know it. You and I have been best friends since kindergarten. When we got into Westridge School in fourth grade, you said we would always be best friends. At our sleepover, you said you and I were like twins. You’re a big fat liar.

  And I’m not a midget. I’m not a dwarf either. You are the meanest person ever.

  Haley

  ONE LONG CHAIN OF LIFE

  Ci-teh stares at me coolly. She looks as tu as ever, but for the first time I see her differently. “You’ve always underestimated me,” she says. “Ever since we were girls, you acted like you were smarter than I am.”

  “And you were richer, but I thought we were friends.”

  “You know nothing, Li-yan—”

  She’s interrupted by the spirit priest’s shouts.

  “Ci-teh! Li-yan! Everyone! Come out!”

  Akha Law wouldn’t allow me to confront Ci-teh alone, but I’d hoped for a little private time with her. Ci-teh nods. She slips on a rain jacket, steps outside, and opens an umbrella. I follow behind her. As wet as I am, I’m grateful for the constant washing of the rain. Beside us, in the mud, stand the ruma and the nima, my a-ma and a-ba, my three brothers, their wives, and all their children, and everyone else who lives in Spring Well. Some are dressed in Western-style clothes and, like Ci-teh, have umbrellas. Others—A-ma and A-ba included—wear their capes made of leaves. The ruma and the nima haven’t donned their ceremonial garments, although the ruma has brought his staff. I glance at my husband, who doesn’t understand Akha. He’s going to have to follow along solely by body language and mood. That realization saps some of my strength.

  “Whatever you have to say to each other needs to be said in front of everyone,” the ruma begins, “because your actions have tipped the forest and all who live in it out of balance.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” I object.

  Ci-teh points a finger at me. “She’s done everything wrong.”

  “That’s not—”

  Ci-teh interrupts. “She will accuse us of making counterfeit tea. But we made artificially fermented tea like Mr. Huang showed us so many years ago.”

  I put up a hand to stop her from speaking. “Please don’t put words in my mouth. There’s nothing wrong with fermenting leaves as long as you do it correctly and make a good product. That’s what Laobanzhang did and what you used to send to me. But to put a label on inferior tea made in Spring Well, say it’s from Laobanzhang, and sell it as a fake to customers at an inflated price . . . while I’m away. And now you blame me?”

  Ci-teh waves off the suggestion. “Everyone’s been doing it, not just our village.”

  “Yes, plenty of villages have made false products,” I reply, “but that doesn’t make it right. We’re Akha. We don’t deceive people.”

  “Li-yan,” a man calls out, “not everyone did what she wanted.”

  “We turned down her request too,” the woman next to him adds.

  “Our family refused to sell our maocha or lease our land to her,” First Brother says, and several other heads bob to let me know they too held out.

  I knew that Ci-teh had been subleasing land, but I didn’t know how widespread it was.

  “If Li-yan hadn’t asked us to send an unreasonable amount of tea to her shop,” Ci-teh says, “then we wouldn’t have done what we needed to do to fill her demand. She just wanted to get rich!”

  I wish it hadn’t come to this, but I’m seeing something new about Ci-teh. She’s savvy and selfish. I hope I can find the girl inside her who I used to know.

  “Ci-teh,” I say, touching her arm. “You know that’s not what happened. I trusted you, my oldest friend, to help me. We have something valuable to sell, but you corrupted that.”

  She pulls away just as someone in the crowd shouts,
“Who are you to tell us how to do business?”

  People murmur. I worry they don’t trust me.

  “We’ve all benefited from the popularity of Pu’er,” I say. “I tried to share my good fortune with you—”

  “She’s an outsider,” Ci-teh tells them, defiant.

  “Yes, I’ve lived outside, but answer me this: How much did she pay for your artificially fermented tea that you then wrapped in counterfeit paper, knowing your finished product was also not from Laobanzhang?”

  A faceless voice reveals “Two thousand yuan a kilo.”

  “A lot of money. But do you know what she told me she paid the farmers in Laobanzhang? Three thousand yuan. At the very least, she was stealing one thousand yuan from me per kilo of the fake Pu’er. As we stand together now, only one person knows how much she asked customers to pay for that same tea. Ten, twenty, fifty times what she paid you?”

  The grumbling begins again, but this time I sense the tide turning.

  “Ci-teh’s made a lot of money by acting against Akha Law,” I press on. “I made a lot of money too. Your lives have been boosted as well. New houses. Electricity. Motorbikes. We can each take some responsibility. But these fakes have caught up to all of us. Outside, the price of Pu’er has fallen by half and is continuing to tumble.”

  “It can’t be true.”

  “How can we trust you?”

  “You can’t,” Ci-teh jumps in. “We have a ton or more of fermenting tea in our sheds. Think about that. Tomorrow she’ll be gone, but I guarantee I’ll pay you one thousand yuan per kilo.”

  That’s half what she previously paid but still the equivalent of a little over $130,000 for Spring Well’s ton of tea at today’s exchange rate. That translates to around $3,250 for each of the village’s forty households, and that doesn’t include teas made from the lesser pickings throughout the year. I remember when my family was lucky to earn 200 yuan a month—$300 a year—and we were thankful for it.

  “If everyone wants to make fermented tea,” I say, “then let’s do it the right way. I’ll pay you well—maybe not one thousand yuan to start, but we could build back to that and higher. Let’s never again try to pass off our tea as something it isn’t—”

  “I’ve promised to sublease land from every family here,” Ci-teh interrupts. “Let’s say what she’s told you about the price of Pu’er is true, then your tea trees and the land under them have no value. I want to help you. Don’t let an outsider who’s been influenced by bad spirits trick you.”

  “Do you realize what she’s doing?” I ask Spring Well’s families. “She’s trying to steal your land!”

  “I’m not stealing,” she answers. “I’m subleasing. I’m volunteering to take responsibility for every lease until the next renewal of the Thirty Years No Change policy.”

  “You’re trying to become a landowner!” It’s the worst accusation I could make.

  I search out Jin. He gives me a subtle nod. Say it. Go for it. You’re strong.

  “Your family was always better off than others in Spring Well,” I say, “but now you would take the leases of every family here? At the bottom of the market? Betting that the price of tea will come back?”

  She laughs derisively. “You don’t know a thing about it. I’ve decided to tear out the tea trees once and for all. I’m going to help the people convert their land to rubber and coffee.”

  “But we’re at too high an elevation to grow rubber! And it destroys everything around it. As for coffee—”

  “Starbucks and Nestlé have already approached me,” she says smugly. “Everyone here will make money, because the worldwide demand for coffee—”

  “You’d deprive the people of the one thing they have—land with our special trees?”

  “But you’ll have money,” Ci-teh says, speaking again to the villagers. “I can pay you more than you’ll ever earn from tea.”

  “You’ll have money for a couple of years, but then what?” I appeal to the crowd. “Will your sons and daughters have to go out as I did? You can look at me now and say, Oh, she’s an outsider. Or, Oh, her fate has been easy. But I know what’s out there for Akha who have no education or opportunity.”

  How can I make them understand?

  “There’s more to us than cash,” I say, “and there’s more to our tea trees than profit. We Recite the Lineage, but our lineage is in our trees too. We can start again, but we should do it the right way, by treasuring what is most valuable to us. Every tree has a soul. Every grain of rice. Every—”

  Ci-teh opens her mouth to object, but before she has a chance, A-ba calls out, “Listen to my daughter. She is still the only person from our village to go to second- and third-level school. She went out, just like Teacher Zhang said she would. We need someone who can represent us and look after us.”

  I’m overwhelmed that he would speak this way on my behalf, but I have the sense to add, “But only if we can behave as proper Akha—”

  “Look around,” A-ba continues. “My daughter’s entire clan is here, but where is Ci-teh’s clan? Where are her husband and her daughters? Who—what—is an Akha without family?”

  A man who defended Ci-teh earlier steps forward. “She leased my land three years ago. It’s the closest to Bamboo Forest Village, where her husband is from. She built herself a house on it.”

  That would have to be the monstrosity Jin and I saw on our walk here. Whatever improvements have been made in Spring Well—as dramatic as they are—are dwarfed by the riches suggested by Ci-teh’s new home. All of this makes me feel like a fool. If Ci-teh had been anyone else, I would have asked questions, but I never looked beyond the surface of our friendship. Ci-teh was right when she said I underestimated her.

  Leave it to the women to know what’s happening with Ci-teh’s family members.

  “Her brother and his family are at Disneyland in Hong Kong.”

  “Her husband and their daughters are in Myanmar, buying rubies.”

  “Child of a dog!” someone shouts. Others call out even harsher epithets, but that doesn’t mean the tide has fully turned. Many people here earn their livelihoods from Ci-teh. If they abandon her, then what will become of them? The tension is palpable. I worry a physical fight could break out.

  The ruma stamps his staff. The crowd falls silent as he consults with the nima. After considerable whispering and gesturing, the ruma announces, “We’ll hold a ceremony in my house.”

  * * *

  We make a somber procession to the ruma’s home, where he and the nima slip on their ceremonial cloaks. The elders sit in a circle around us. Once everyone is settled, the nima beckons Ci-teh and me to kneel before him. He rubs soot from my forehead down to the tip of my nose. He repeats the process with Ci-teh.

  “These two with the marks are who you are to look at and examine,” he notifies A-poe-mi-yeh—our supreme god. Next, he ties string around Ci-teh’s and my wrists. “Let them be joined together for the journey to the netherworld.” Last, he pours a little alcohol on the floor, where it seeps through the bamboo to the ground below. “I call on you, ancestors, to help us look for the truth. What, if any, spirit has been chewing on these women’s souls and strangling our village?”

  His eyes roll back until we see only the whites. His arms and legs tremble, causing the coins and bones on his cloak to rattle. Unrecognizable words escape his mouth: “Ooh, aww, tsa.” The ceremony continues for three hours, during which the rain finally lets up. The absence of the constant clatter only amplifies the nima’s groans.

  When he comes out of his trance, Ci-teh and I are ordered outside so he can confer with the ruma and village elders. Every man, woman, and child of Spring Well Village still waits in the misty drizzle. The divisions are obvious: the group that’s most benefited from Ci-teh and the group that’s held on to their land and the old ways. I’ve been away for more than a decade, while she’s been a constant and influential presence. I’m promising something intangible for the future, while she’s already change
d many lives. I’m asking for honor; she’s guaranteeing livelihoods.

  The ruma, nima, and village elders join us. As is tradition, it’s the ruma’s responsibility to declare the outcome and announce the nima’s recommendations.

  “Accusations have shot back and forth like poisoned arrows,” he begins, “but we’ve weighed everything, including what the nima saw in the netherworld.” When he asks, “Could a spirit have entered Ci-teh?” I feel a touch of optimism. “If the nima told me that her spirit was gasping for breath, then I would take banana leaves stuffed with ash, husked rice, and coins and rub her body with them, but she is not suffering thus. If she’d become wild, tearing off her clothes or howling like an animal, I would ask three honorable women of our village to urinate on a broom, which I would use to brush away Ci-teh’s problems, but she is not suffering thus. If she had seizures, I would wrap her in magic vine, then sacrifice a goat, a pig, and two chickens, but again, she is not suffering thus. Ci-teh does not suffer from a spirit affliction. Everything she has done has come from her own hands, heart, and mind—”

  Relief floods through me, but Ci-teh is outraged. “How much did Li-yan pay you to say those things?”

  “Shamans and spirit priests don’t lie,” the ruma replies indignantly. “We can’t lie. If we were to lie, the spirits would vex us. Now please, let me continue. A spark lights a fire. Water sprouts a seed. The Akha Way tells us that a single moment changes destinies. Therefore, the nima and I have searched through time to find the instant that changed every person in Spring Well, but these two most of all. I am speaking of the occasion when evil spirits forced the birth of twins upon us.”

  Everyone instinctively recoils, but I’m thrown back in time not to the birth of Deh-ja’s babies but to my cleansing ceremony after the pancake-stealing incident. I’d felt the ruma had magically understood everything that had happened, but now I realize his gifts may have less to do with magic than with interpreting the world around him in a magical way.