The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane(60)
First he comments on the lack of beauty of the other women not only in the room but in all China. Then he sharply criticizes the members of his panel. I was raised never to say anything that would be humiliating to others, but when I recite, “If you strike with the right hand, you must soothe with the left,” the room goes stunningly quiet. In publicly chastising the tea master, I’ve put myself in his same category, either ruining or securing my prospects.
Haley Davis – Miss Henderson’s third-grade class, December 10, 2004
Things I need—huge
Things I need—big
Things I need—small
Liquid
Good education
Ski boots
Food
Parents
Friends
Sun
Peace
Violin strings
Earth
Body
Dress for Easter
Air
House
My stuffed bunny
Moon
Whiskers (my cat)
New Harry Potter book
THE WORLD HAS COME
I begin to wait. I want this. I lie awake at night, weighing my chances of getting into the Pu’er program, doubting the answers I gave Tea Master Sun, and questioning why I had to be so rude to him when all he had done was show interest in me. After five days, I’m distracted, impatient with guests, and sharp with the maids. I’ve never taken a vacation from my job, but I need one now.
When I first heard about vacations I was surprised, because the closest we Akha had to anything like that was rainy season—the months of darkness when spirits were considered to be mischievously active and we worked on our weaving, sewing, and embroidery. Hence, I’ve always turned down the opportunity to go on holiday. Even if I’d been forced to take one, where would I have gone? Home, to where people might still blame me for San-pa’s terrible death? To tourist sites, alone, to remind myself that I have no one to love me? So I’ve earned the gratitude of my co-workers, because I cover their shifts when they take time off. But now I need my family. I want them to see how far I’ve come, but I also need their good wishes. It’s a momentous decision and the outcome may not be what I hope for, but I ask my manager if I might return home for three weeks. “It’s spur of the moment,” he tells me, “but how can I say no? You’ve been an exemplary employee for many years, and you’ve never asked for a single favor.” I leave on the eve of what Westerners call Christmas, promising to be back in time to cover the absences of others who wish to visit their families during Spring Festival.
I buy a ticket for the evening bus to Menghai. The road has been improved, so the trip lasts just twelve hours. In the morning, after an uncomfortable and mostly sleepless night, I board a minibus, which takes me and about a dozen others into the mountains on a new, roughly carved, extraordinarily bumpy, and very narrow dirt road. After a few hours, I get off at the stop for Bamboo Forest Village. When I was a girl, the village was nothing—no better or worse than Spring Well. With the new road and the bus stop, Bamboo Forest has opened a small café and started a morning farmers’ market. About half the women wear their traditional Dai, Bulang, or Akha attire. The rest are dressed like me, in blue jeans, T-shirt, and tennis shoes. I’m taking in the surprising changes when a motorcycle skids past. The rider shouts at me to get out of the way. I’m stunned.
I swing my knapsack onto my back and head out of Bamboo Forest. Not long after I dip onto the trail that will lead to Spring Well, I pass a construction site with bulldozers moving earth and workers building massive retaining walls. The main structure is still a puzzle, shrouded in bamboo scaffolding on which dozens of men crawl like ants. I can’t imagine what it is or why it’s here. But soon enough the noise and ugliness are behind me, and I’m on a quiet forest path. People are out, tending to their trees. Songs come to me on wafts of air. It’s winter, but tea-picking season is around the corner and each tree seems ready to burst forth with emerald-green buds. Every leaf—so alive—reaches for the morning sun and sends forth a fragrance that’s light and brilliant. I pick a leaf and chew it. With each breath, another layer of huigan is released. I am home.
I know things are now better for my family. When I was first hired at King World, I worked to repay A-ma. Then I sent money to help the family. But two years ago, Teacher Zhang wrote to tell me that life was going so well at home—income from tea work had increased fiftyfold, an amount difficult for me to absorb—that I no longer needed to worry about my family. Still, I expect everything to be more or less the same, believing that our culture and traditions are so old and deep that they would withstand all attempts to transform them. I’m reassured when I arrive at the spirit gate that protects the entrance to Spring Well. But as I walk farther? Dogs nap in the middle of the lane that divides the village and chickens peck at the ground, but everything else is different. Many of the bamboo and thatch houses have been replaced with gray brick boxes. Plastic troughs in pink, orange, and green lie about—filled with soaking laundry, vegetables to be washed for the evening meal, or animal feed. Empty plastic water bottles stand at attention in a neat row on one veranda. And just like in Bamboo Forest Village, many of the people wear Western-style clothing, although every woman still covers her hair with a scarf of some sort. I don’t recognize a soul; no one seems to recognize me either. But what’s most shocking is the number of people sitting on the ground with piles of tea leaves spread before them, negotiating with outsiders. I pass one group of visitors bargaining hard. They’re Korean!