The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

  HALEY: I came home with an A- on a history test, and my mom went all crazy. She’s like, “If you want to get into a good university program you have to work harder.” “And if I don’t?” “Then you’ll end up like . . .” Well, it isn’t anyone you would know. Anyway, I said, “Mom, I’m in the sixth grade. I got an A-. That’s all. I promise to do better next time.”

  DR. ROSEN: It sounds like you all are talking about two different things. Academic pressure—

  JESSICA: It’s more like expectation, like I said before. We look Chinese so we should be completely obsessed and working our asses off like those kids with Chinese parents.

  DR. ROSEN: I stand corrected, Jessica. My other point has to do with social pressure.

  JESSICA: Like, who has richer parents?

  TIFFANY: It used to be the old-money Pasadena girls, but now it’s the children of millionaires and billionaires from China.

  JESSICA: Who gets a car right when they turn sixteen? And what model is it?

  TIFFANY: A BMW or a Volvo or a Nissan?

  ARIEL: I got a car when I turned sixteen—

  HEIDI: Really? What kind—

  JESSICA: Who has the best house?

  TIFFANY: A mansion on Oak Knoll. One of those big brick ones. Old money.

  JESSICA: Let me guess. That’s where you live, Haley.

  HALEY: Nearby on Hummingbird Lane. My dad inherited—

  DR. ROSEN: Let’s try to stay focused on the social implications. The effect all that has on you—

  TIFFANY: Okay. So are you in a house where a bunch of Chinese immigrants are still living out of plastic bags or in one of the gaudy castles the Chinese billionaires have purchased? You mean like that?

  DR. ROSEN: Hmmm . . .

  TIFFANY: Father says the poor immigrant Chinese are feeding off our American hospitality, while the rich are probably a bunch of criminals—like Chinese mafia or something.

  JESSICA: What a bunch of narrow-minded bullshit.

  TIFFANY: I didn’t say I believed that—

  HALEY: My mom and dad say that, rich or poor, those people worked really hard to get here. Everyone wants the American Dream, just like my birth mother wanted for me. That’s why she gave me away.

  DR. ROSEN: I’m hearing everything you girls are saying, but can we think about social pressure in a more personal way? Jessica, earlier you cautioned Haley and Heidi about what’s coming for them. What did you mean by that?

  JESSICA: Oh, you know, the usual. It’s all about who’s popular. Like, what girl is the most stylish? And that changes all the time. Did you come from Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Singapore? Those girls? Wow! Rich and mean! Or did you move here from West Hills, Chino, or, like, the real boonies?

  TIFFANY: And, who’s getting invited to house parties? Who’s being left out?

  ARIEL: Who’s hooking up? Jessica, you might know a little about that one.

  HALEY: I have a friend named Jade. The kids in school now call her Jaded.

  ARIEL: That’s harsh! And you’re still just a kid.

  HALEY: I heard my mom tell my dad that Jade earned her nickname the old-fashioned way, whatever that means.

  JESSICA: Blow jobs.

  ARIEL: Geez, Jessica. Can you lighten up a little? Even I don’t need to hear—

  TIFFANY: For the Chinese girls in my school, no question is more important than the color of their skin. Who has a complexion as pale as the moon? One girl, a Red Princess and the great-granddaughter of someone who walked side by side with Mao on the Long March—Okay, we get it. You’re a big deal!—wins that prize hands down. I know lots of girls whose mothers take them to doctors for treatments to lighten their skin.

  HALEY: Lighten their skin? How do they do that?

  TIFFANY: And all the American-born and Chinese-born girls make fun of us adopted Chinese girls, because darker skin marks us as the daughters of peasants.

  HALEY: My skin is darker, but I also look different than the other girls—not Chinese enough, they say.

  DR. ROSEN: So we’re talking about perception . . .

  HALEY: It makes me so mad. I guess that’s why my mom and dad sent me here.

  HEIDI: Dr. Rosen, aren’t those stereotypes, though?

  JESSICA: Oh, God, not another brainiac. How old are you again?

  DR. ROSEN: What do you mean, Heidi?

  HEIDI: Well, Chinese used to be seen as low, right? Working on the railroad, in laundries, and stuff like that. Now they’re seen as smart and wealthy. I mean, isn’t there the stereotype of the model minority? I read an article for school that said people like us—not you, Dr. Rosen—are now labeled as inquisitive, persistent, and ambitious. With ingenuity, fortitude, and cleverness.

  JESSICA: Jesus, kid, you won’t even have to take that stupid SAT prep course. You’ve already got all the big words down cold.

  HEIDI: All I’m saying is that there’s no underestimating how cruel girls can be to each other. I’ve been reading about it, because I’m scared of . . . Oh, Dr. Rosen, I don’t know if I should say this.

  DR. ROSEN: Please go ahead. I want you to think of this as a safe place.

  HEIDI: I’m afraid of girls like . . . well . . . like Jessica. Is that why my parents sent me here? To toughen me up? I can be tough. Really I can. Or is there another reason, Dr. Rosen? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?

  DR. ROSEN: Each of you is here for her own reason. What I feel comfortable sharing with all of you is that each of your parents wants you to be happy. Now . . . We’ve talked about a lot of different things today, but I’d like to circle back to a couple of themes that have emerged.

  HALEY: Like none of us can sleep.

  DR. ROSEN: I’m happy you picked up on that, Haley.

  HALEY: I’ve always crept around the house in the middle of the night, which is how I’ve heard my parents arguing about work, about this one woman who’s Dad’s client, and what to do about me.

  ARIEL: For me, it’s stress, obviously. At school and at home. It seems like my whole life I’ve spent the hours from two to six in the morning awake—staring at the muted TV screen, obsessively doing my homework, and trying to learn to knit to “do something productive,” as my dad said. He bought me knitting lessons for one of my birthdays! Knitting lessons! And Jessica isn’t the only one who drinks. I sneak gulps from the wine left over at dinner. My parents are so stupid, they’ve never even noticed. I’ve smoked weed in the backyard. I had another doctor before you, Dr. Rosen, who prescribed me Ambien.

  HALEY: I just can’t sleep. My mom says it’s because I’m still on China time.

  JESSICA: Hardy-har-har!

  DR. ROSEN: What happens when it’s time for you to sleep?

  HALEY: Sometimes when I turn off the light, I feel myself start to wake up. I’m flying out the window and across the ocean to my orphanage in China. I see rows and rows of cots and Chinese ladies, like the waitresses at Empress Pavilion who push the dim sum carts, walking up and down. I imagine the moment when I was loaded onto a bus or a truck and brought to the hotel. I bet I was scared. I bet I was crying already. Mom and Dad say it was like plop, plop, plop as each baby was dropped into a new mother’s arms. Did I go to the right mom and dad? Is there something wrong with me, and that’s why I look different from the other babies given out that day, different from the other girls in Families with Children from China, different from my friends at school? Then I have to turn the light back on.

  ARIEL: Dr. Rosen, I don’t get this. I know a lot of girls from Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families who don’t have a single problem. They’re all happy. Or they look that way to me.

  HALEY: She’s right, you know. I’ve known the girls in FCC since we were babies. They don’t let the stupid things people say get to them. I remember this one girl. We were, like, eight years old. A stranger asked her if she was a foreign exchange student. That kind of thing really bugs me, but you know what she answered? “Most exchange students are not eight years old!”

  ARIEL: Have you ever been asked w
hy you don’t speak English with a Chinese accent? I have.

  HEIDI: I hate when people ask if I know English or if I’ve adjusted to America yet. Come on!

  TIFFANY: In our church, we have a group that’s special for girls like us—adopted, but from Russia and Romania and places like that. We had a meeting where we were supposed to learn how to respond to jerks who ask things like “When did you know you were adopted?” Most people picture a scene where the parents sit you down and you “find out who you are.” I didn’t need that meeting to know how to answer, because all I had to do was look in the mirror. When people ask me that question, I always say, “When did you find out you weren’t adopted? How do you know your mother is your birth mother?”

  ARIEL: That seems a bit snarky. I’m just saying.

  HALEY: You could try something like “The phenotypic differences between my parents and myself were always evident. I can only guess at how it would feel to be a biological child or be born white to match my parents.”

  TIFFANY: Phenotypic differences?

  HALEY: I did a project for my school’s science fair on that. I won—

  DR. ROSEN: I hate to interrupt, Haley. Do you mind? Jessica, you’ve been unusually quiet. Would you like to share what’s going on with you?

  JESSICA: I’ve been thinking about what Heidi said earlier about me. Does everyone here think I’m a bully or mean or—

  HALEY: You act tough, but I bet you’re as scared as the rest of us.

  JESSICA: I’m not scared. Of what?

  DR. ROSEN: I’m going to step in here. I know from listening today that you girls don’t like labels. I don’t particularly like labels either, but my profession—like most professions—uses them. So let’s take a moment to consider one that’s being applied to Chinese adoptees like the five of you.

  JESSICA: Great. Just what I need. Another label. What are you going to call me?

  DR. ROSEN: Does the phrase grateful-but-angry have resonance for anyone? You can be grateful you have your mom and dad, because they love you and they’ve given you good lives with all kinds of privilege.

  JESSICA: Some more than others—

  DR. ROSEN: So the grateful part seems pretty obvious. And, as Ariel pointed out, there are many adoptees who are perfectly happy—

  TIFFANY: Most of them, I bet.

  JESSICA: That’s probably because they weren’t born with brains—

  DR. ROSEN: But, often, adoption is about loss: loss of your original family, loss of culture and nationality, and, of course, loss of a way of life that might have been. This is where the angry part comes in. Just today you’ve shared lots of variations on anger and why you might be angry. My profession narrows it down to this: anger that your birth parents abandoned you. So the label is grateful-but-angry, but in our private sessions you’ve heard me talk about anger in a different way. Haley, do you remember what I said?

  HALEY: You said anger can be a cover for something deeper.

  DR. ROSEN: Do you want to share what that was for you?

  HALEY: Sadness. Really bad sadness, because somewhere out there I had a mother and a father who didn’t love me enough to keep me. They gave me away. They got rid of me. For their one child they didn’t want me. I’ve never had a way to grieve for that. I mean, how can I be around Mom and Dad, who I love a ton, and cry for my birth mom and dad because I don’t know them or have them in my life? At the same time, why wasn’t I good enough for my mom and dad in China? Now I have to work really hard—and not just with my classes—to be someone they would have been proud of, if they’d known me. And for Mom and Dad to be proud of now.

  JESSICA: You mean I’m sad because my birth mother cared so little about me that she left me in front of a train station . . . By myself . . . In the middle of the night . . . In winter . . . That she didn’t even want to know me . . .

  TIFFANY: Who wouldn’t be sad when you put it like that?

  JESSICA: I’m not sad. I’m pissed.

  ARIEL: Youth in Asia.

  JESSICA: Fuck this. God damn it.

  HALEY: I’m sorry I made you cry.

  JESSICA: That’s okay. I think that’s what we’re supposed to do in here. And by the way, Haley, don’t pay any attention to what I said earlier. You’re probably gonna do a lot of the stuff I do—the drinking and all—but take it from me on the true down low. Keep up with your homework, don’t forget to do some extracurriculars, and don’t get caught. Okay? Don’t. Get. Caught. And, Heidi, I’ll try to be nicer to kids like you. It’s just kinda hard for me.

  DR. ROSEN: All right, girls. I’m afraid our time is up. This was a good first session. Can I count on all of you to come again next week?

  BREATHE, BREATHE, BREATHE

  Jin, his mother, Tea Master Sun, Deh-ja, and I return to Spring Well Village at the beginning of March 2008, just before the start of tea-picking season. My mother-in-law, who has not one good memory of life in the countryside, makes quite an impression on A-ma and the sisters-in-law when she volunteers to haul water on her first morning. Mrs. Chang will do anything to be with her son and the child growing inside me. I’m six months pregnant and my baby—Let it be a son—rolls and kicks and jabs. He stretches against my lungs, pushes a foot on the inside of my rib cage, and leans on my bladder. A-ma makes sure I eat her special soups with pig’s feet, dates, and peanuts to nourish him and me. As for Deh-ja . . .

  I was prepared to pay the fee to the headman, village elders, nima, and ruma for whatever sacrifices and ceremonies might have been required—as Ci-teh did for her brother—to allow Deh-ja back in the village. Although the birth of her human rejects was brought up by the ruma during the clash with Ci-teh, not a soul—by that, I mean everyone but A-ma, and she won’t say a word, knowing how Deh-ja cares for me—recognizes her. She had been married into Spring Well Village for barely a year when her twins were born, twenty years have passed, and her life has been very hard. She looks older than A-ma and stranger than anyone people have seen on their televisions with her new dentures. If we lived entirely by the old ways, what I am doing would be a violation of Akha Law. But if her human rejects had been born today, they wouldn’t have met their sorrowful ends and she and Ci-do wouldn’t have been banished. Deh-ja and I aren’t taking any chances, though. We will keep her identity a secret. Fortunately, Deh-ja is a common name, and Ci-do and his new family are on a trip.

  The ruma and nima announce the day to begin picking. Early on that morning, when it’s still dark, I’m asked to say a few words. What is stranger—that half the village stands before me or that this worthless girl has overcome her past? And the risks are great for all of us. What we’re doing has to work or else Ci-teh will take over. I begin with what Tea Master Sun taught me.

  “If you don’t love tea, you can’t make good tea,” I recite. “Our tea trees are gifts from God. We can see the Akha Way in them. If you have cloned terrace bushes, one gets sick, and they all get sick. Same with pollarded trees, which are so weakened by the brutality of constant trimming. But when we find a wild tea tree, we know certain things. It has been strong enough to survive and grow on its own. It has its own separate and unique genetic makeup. If one tree gets sick, others surrounding it are unaffected. We Akha understand this, because we have a taboo against close relatives marrying. This is why we Recite the Lineage.”

  People murmur their agreement, understanding what’s beneath my words. Purity, not counterfeits.

  “As we pick today, let’s remember our progress can only be slow—one bud set at a time. If we find perfect leaves, the tea we make will be the best. Together we’ll share the Akha Way with the outside world.”

  When I step off the platform, Teacher Zhang approaches. “May I help?” he asks. I hand him a basket, and he joins us as we walk up the mountain guided by the last of the moonlight. The sun comes out and still we work, breaking only to have tea and eat rice balls. Once our baskets are full, we return to the village, where Tea Master Sun oversees laying out the leaves for their first re
st.

  The next day is even longer. We pick leaves and lay them out for their sunbath. Then we spend hours tossing six-kilo batches of yesterday’s rested leaves over woks to kill the green. After fourteen hours, we sit outside together—families with families—eating meals prepared by those daughters-in-law who’ve remained in the village to care for the children too old to breast-feed and too young to help.

  On the third morning, who should arrive? Mr. Huang and his son.

  “I’m on spring break,” Xian-rong announces, peeling out of the SUV. He’s as skinny as ever and a little pale, the last probably from the ride through the turns, bumps, and ruts of the mountain.

  “And I’m looking—”

  I hold up a hand to stop Mr. Huang from uttering another word. “Don’t say it!”

  “To help,” Mr. Huang finishes with a grin. He wears a straw hat, a rumpled shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, khaki pants that he’s rolled up to his knees to keep cool, and plastic sandals.

  Tea Master Sun rushes forward to shake hands. “Old friend! Young friend! So good to see two such expert tasters.”

  The men exchange cigarettes—not that any of them smoke—as a gesture of friendship and cordiality. Mr. Huang is as disconcerting to me as he’s always been and I’ll always be uncomfortable around him, but if Tea Master Sun trusts him, then maybe I should try to trust him a little bit. As for the boy, A-ma has already pulled him inside and is probably serving him one of her special brews before they go picking, continuing the friendship they’ve had since he and his father first came to our village.

  The rest of us pick up baskets, sling them over our shoulders, and begin the long hike up the mountain to the tea trees.

  * * *

  The next eight days are our busiest, as we pick the first flush of leaves and process them. Once this is finished, Mr. Huang and Xian-rong prepare to return to Hong Kong. The boy looks better than when he arrived—less pale, and with a little weight from First Sister-in-law’s good cooking. And of course Mr. Huang asks about my hidden grove, and I complete our customary ritual by refusing to show it to him. Some things will never change.