The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane in Bound Together

Apr 13, 2017 ☮Karen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley, kindle, read-in-2017, favorites

4.5 stars

Lisa See has made me very happy. She can always be trusted to provide historical pieces that both entertain and inform the reader. So even though the only tea I care to drink is Arizona Zero Calorie Green with Ginseng, I now know more about making tea in China than I could ever imagine, and I loved reading about the ancient customs and superstitions of the mountain people known as the Akha. Li-Yan's Akha family spent their lives selling tea, her mother also using it for medicinal purpos ...more

40 likes · Like · see review

Dec 20, 2017 Irene rated it liked it

This is the story of a young girl growing up in an isolated mountain village in China in the 1990s. This community has been largely passed over by the years of revolution, still living by the ancient customs and beliefs of their ancestors, one of China’s ethnic minorities. What the revolution did not do to modernize this people, capitalism did. The rising value and international interest in rare tea not only changes the culture of this village, but sets the narrator on an unimaginable trajectory ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Apr 09, 2017 Deb rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I enjoy reading about other cultures. I really enjoy tea. I love Lisa See. I could not go wrong with this book right?! It did not disappoint. The writing has it's own tone and cadence to it, I don't know how the author does that but I can somehow hear it differently when I'm reading. I remember this when I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan too. My favorite parts took place in the villages and on the mountains, I loved learning about the tea and customs, and having the story unfold over the yea ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Oct 15, 2017 Wendy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads

I am a huge fan of Lisa See, but this was not one of my favorites. She definitely had a lot of information about tea making in this particular region of China, but at times it felt a little forced - with knowledge just put out there in long, dense paragraphs - instead of happening more organically as part of the story. It did seem to be a bit of a departure for her in that it focused on the hill tribes - isolated areas of China. Overall, though, a good book but not my favorite by this author.

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 26, 2019 Laurel Bradshaw rated it really liked it

Shelves: color-rating-blue, daytimers-book-club, 21st-century, audiobook, 1980s, china, 1990s, tea, folk-traditions, adoption

Extensively researched and full of descriptions of tea making - perhaps a bit too much! "No coincidence, no story" we are told throughout the book, and coincidence certainly does figure prominently. But it's fiction, and we want a happy ending, right? I like books where I learn something about different cultures, and even though Yunnan is my favorite tea, I didn't know much about the people who farm it and process it for market. I found myself seeking out even more info on Google about the Akha. Extensively researched and full of descriptions of tea making - perhaps a bit too much! "No coincidence, no story" we are told throughout the book, and coincidence certainly does figure prominently. But it's fiction, and we want a happy ending, right? I like books where I learn something about different cultures, and even though Yunnan is my favorite tea, I didn't know much about the people who farm it and process it for market. I found myself seeking out even more info on Google about the Akha. Amazing to think how much has changed for them in just the last 30 years. Our book club spent a full two hours discussing this book. The audio book had several narrators which added a nice touch. I would have liked more development of Haley, the daughter given up for adoption. Although she is the tea girl of Hummingbird Lane, this book is really more about her mother and her journey growing up in one of the hill tribes of China, to become a wealthy tea merchant living in southern California. The power of her tribe's superstitions and traditions is sometimes chilling, but it other ways it gave her strength and character. Totally absorbing.

Description: In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen. The stranger’s arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock—conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice—she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city. As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries. ...more

Like · see review