The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

The adage, "No coincidence, no story," from China's Akha minority serves as the backbone for this latest offering from See (Shanghai Girls). Coincidences abound in this illuminating novel that contributes historical and social insight into the Akhas, an animistic people who lived modestly and virtually untouched by modernity in the mountains of China, and tea production in an increasingly globalized world. A growing taste for pu'er, a rare tea, has led entrepreneurs to seek out the ancient crop cultivated in remote Yunnan. Li-Yan, the intelligent but rash daughter of a village midwife, serves as the link between one such entrepreneur and her people, transforming their way of life. Against tradition, she later bears a daughter out of wedlock and gives up the child for adoption at her mother's urging. Banished and broken, Li-Yan tries to navigate modern Chinese life while her daughter is raised by loving Caucasian parents in an upper middle-class California home. Neither time nor distance can vanquish their yearning to be reunited.