A review by mercapto
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

This book didn’t know what it wanted to be. I was unsurprised to read the author say in the discussion at the back that she had a plan for her characters but not the plot. 

I thought that the handling of the Akha tribe was not great. If writing about an ethnic minority you have no connection to, don’t have the main character disparage every practice they do, and be shown as ‘the voice of reason’ and the only ‘educated’ person. I think the twin situation was only included for shock value, and considered from a western perspective. All of the others in the tribe are obviously devastated at having to do the practice, but it’s part of their culture. However, for Li-yan, it’s as if aged 12 she’s learning the customs and beliefs she’s been brought up with her whole life (and would likely be innate to her) from an outsider’s perspective. Like with a-ma saying ‘in our culture we do this’ as if she didn’t grow up in that culture? It’s clearly directed at us as the reader and not her daughter. It just seems sloppy writing. 

There could have been a very interesting story of this tribe slowing losing its traditional values in the face of commercialism, and instead we just skip forward 8 years and endless descriptions of the inflation rates of tea.

I understand that See was trying to represent the racism toward ethnic minority people in China, but when you’re a descendent of Han-majority writing that the highest complement is ‘Han-majority pretty’ it doesn’t really land. 

The story about Haley and giving up a baby under the One Child Policy should have been its own entity. I found Haley just not believable, seemingly making racial faux pas for the sake of it, just little things like ‘complicated Chinese characters’ and calling the ethnic minority tribes ‘primitive’, and once again See brings up the twin deaths out of all possible aspects of Akha culture. 

It reads like a YA novel, and is just so starkly different from the first half. It didn’t need to be connected to the Akha, it doesn’t benefit the narrative to have them together. She could have got rid of the horribly cheesy notes and document format and actually written the story, as awkward as Haley’s first person narrative is. And personally, I hated the group therapy chapter, what an ineffective way of showing how these girls feel. It needed emotions, feeling. 

That what this lacks. The feeling that the characters feel; it might be written that they do, but there’s no longevity, things just happen. Just writing ‘I’m terrified’ doesn’t do anything, doesn’t make you feel it too. It reads too much like she’s trying to tell use everything she learned in her research while shoving a story in on the side.