The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(121)

One day, out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Arris Han, asking to interview me, as a Chinese American, about my personal interest in tea for a project she was working on. We then pursued a lively correspondence, talking all things tea. Online, I found interesting articles about Yunnan’s tea plantations, huigan, and cultivation, posted by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Bev Byrnes, and Peter Peverelli. The May 15, 2015, issue of Bon Appétit explored the booming interest in tea in the United States. At the World Tea Expo, I attended a tasting hosted by the Hunan Tea Company, where I learned about yellow-hair tea. Then it was on to seminars on the chemical mysteries of Pu’er (presented by Kevin Gascoyne), the social history of tea (presented by Bruce Richardson and Jane Pettigrew), and mixology (presented by Abigail St. Clair).

The scientific writings of Jeffrey B. Blumberg, Bradley W. Bolling, and Chung-yen Oliver Chen greatly contributed to those sections of the novel devoted to the purported health aspects of tea. Dr. Selena Ahmed, an ethnobiologist, has been gracious and helpful. I’ve heard her speak several times and was fortunate to attend her lecture at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, which included taste tests of cocktails using tea and other plant-based bitters and infusions. She and photographer Michael Freeman traveled the entire length of the Tea Horse Road and produced a stunning book called, not surprisingly, Tea Horse Road. The abstract for the multidisciplinary and multisponsored study on the effects of global climate change on ancient tea trees of Yunnan, of which Dr. Ahmed is a part, is the clear inspiration for Haley’s work. I thank Dr. Ahmed for her brilliant mind, her dedication, and for answering my countless questions.

I am hugely indebted to the writings of Paul W. Lewis, who served as a missionary to the Akha with the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in Burma from 1947 to 1966, and then went to northern Thailand in 1968 to continue his study of the Akha as an anthropologist. His Ethnographic Notes on the Akhas of Burma and Hani Cultural Themes (written with Bai Bibo) were invaluable resources. The writings of Deleu Choopoh and Marianne Naess (“Deuleu: A Life-History of an Akha Woman” in Development or Domestication? Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia), Thomas S. Mullaney (Coming to Terms with the Nation), Chih-yu Shih (Negotiating Ethnicity in China), and Zhang Weiwen and Zeng Qingnan (In Search of China’s Minorities) further developed my understanding of the Akha. If you’re interested in learning more about the Akha’s culture, I can recommend the following websites: the Akha Heritage Foundation (with special thanks to Matthew McDaniel, whose article on Akha beliefs, lifestyle, and their concept of seeing themselves as one link in the long chain of life I used almost verbatim), Akha Minority—Facts and Details, Ethnic China, Virtual Hilltribe Museum, and The Peoples of the World: Akha.

Many years ago, I met Xinran, who has collected hundreds of stories from women in China. I am a huge admirer of her work, and I’m honored that she’s helped me on various projects over the years. Her book, Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother, is powerful and heartbreaking, and a must-read for families with children adopted from China. Articles by Barbara Demick and Laura Fitzpatrick provided information on Chinese babies who’ve been stolen from their families for illegal adoption and other aspects of the dark side of the One Child policy. Shifting to the American experience, I’d like to acknowledge Kay Bratt for Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage, and Jenny Bowen, founder of the Half the Sky Foundation, for Wish You Happy Forever. After I finished writing the novel, someone recommended that I watch Somewhere Between, a powerful documentary about teenage adoptees, one of whom goes to China and finds her birth mother. I would like to recommend it to all of you as well.

Early in my career, I was invited to speak around the country at various chapters of Families with Children from China. To the many moms in that organization and to all the moms of adoptees I know personally, my heartfelt thanks. For special mention, I’d like to acknowledge Martha Groves, who shared with me not only her own story but those of many others during our interviews and e-mails. The articles she’s written for the Los Angeles Times were particularly insightful. Over the years, I’ve also met several young women who were adopted from China, but for this novel I wanted to reach out more broadly across the country to find those willing to share their experiences with me. I’d like to give enormous thanks to Charlotte Cotter and Kathryn Holz, both adoptees and board members of China’s Children International, for the hours they spent answering my questions. For nearly a decade now, I’ve had an e-mail correspondence with Terrence May, who lives in Colorado. He and his adopted daughter, Lianne May, shared with me very different perspectives from different periods in their lives. Lillian Poon wrote to me about her experience as a Chinese American adoptee, while Juli Fraga’s New York Times article about being an adoptee who has now given birth to a daughter gave me additional insights. To be clear, the character of Haley is not representative of all Chinese adoptees. Haley is her own person with her own set of problems. That said, many of the things that she feels and the words she speaks (as well as those shared in the group therapy session) come from young women traveling on the interesting road of Chinese adoption. Haley’s story wouldn’t be what it is without their help.

I spend a lot of time in the San Gabriel Valley, but I relied on friends and family with specialized knowledge to help me with details. I ate my way from block to block with foodies Holly Hawkins, Sandy Law, and Angelina Shih. My cousin, Mara Leong-Nichols, gave me the lowdown on what it would have been like for Haley growing up in Pasadena. Nick Mook, truly the tree whisperer of Southern California, advised me on the drought and the parasites attacking our weakened trees. The writings of Andrew Khouri, Tim Logan, E. Scott Reckard, Frank Shyong, and Claire Spiegel helped me capture the details of the Chinese influence on Southern California real estate and the issues affecting Asian American high school students.