The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

For the next two weeks after the incident, the village adheres to ceremonial abstinence. Li-yan regularly does her chores, yet her mother neither praises nor scolds her, and the girl realizes that she has “never felt so alone or lonely” (35). When it’s time to give sacrifices, Ci-teh’s family members must offer “nine sacks of grain, nine pigs, nine chickens, and nine dogs” (35), which results in them losing all their wealth.

When the cycle of ceremonial abstinence ends, Li-yan returns to school. She is the first person in her family to go to primary school: Her parents are illiterate, and her brothers can hardly read or write. Since Li-yan’s mother won’t talk to her, the girl finds refuge in the school. She sits next to Ci-teh, but the two friends don’t talk about what happened to Ci-teh’s brother and sister-in-law, Ci-do and Deh-ja. There are 19 children in the classroom, ages 6 to 12. Their instructor, Teacher Zhang, was “pulled from his university post in the capital and sent down to learn from peasants” (36). Since he can’t get a permit to go back home to his family, he has become a bitter man.

When Teacher Zhang asks children what ethnic minority they belong to, they all chant that “Chairman Mao categorized [them] as Hani, one of fifty-five ethnic minorities of China” (36). Yet Li-yan knows that it isn’t true: When Chairman Mao made the announcement that “China was home to fifty-five ethnic minorities” (36), he was unaware of the Akha, who live high in the mountains. To not contradict Chairman Mao, the newly discovered Akha people were labeled as a part of the Hani ethnic minority.

Teacher Zhang promises to teach the children Mandarin soon, explaining that the language will help Akha with their “political indoctrination, which will promote loyalty to the state” (37). He knows what happened to Ci-teh and her family, so out of spite, he picks her to come to the map and answer his questions. Ci-teh surprises him by knowing all answers to his questions, and the teacher comments that she is “very smart for an Akha” (38). He thinks of Akha as “brainless and crude” (38) and accuses them of growing and smuggling drugs.

After the class, Li-yan tries to talk to Ci-teh about what happened to her family, but the girl refuses to say anything, and Li-yan wonders “what it would be like to be so proud and then have your belongings, reputation, and status taken from you” (40). Li-yan then returns to the classroom intending to talk to Teacher Zhang about her going to second-level school. Although the teacher maintains a prejudice towards Akha, he believes Li-yan is very smart and that she should work hard to continue studying.

After 12 days, which is a week according to Akha calendar, A-ma asks Li-yan to take her cape and to follow her. They climb for a long time before Li-yan realizes that A-ma is taking her to the ancestral tea grove. Seeing it, Li-yan is deeply disappointed: The tea trees are old, and “no one wants leaves from old trees” (43). However, A-ma is very proud of her land, which she can only pass on to Li-yan. A-ma points to the mother tree and admires its beauty, and although Li-yan doesn’t say anything, she considers it worthless. When Li-yan comments that the tree is “most unlucky” (44), her mother tells her a story about her father-in-law, who begged her to show him where the tree grove was, even though only women in her bloodline were allowed there. When she finally gave in, he went there, climbed up into the branches, and fell. He died on the spot, and because of this, there were rumors that the tree is unlucky.

A-ma goes on to explain to Li-yan that it will be her duty to care for these trees, and to use their leaves and bark as medicine when she is a midwife. Yet Li-yan can’t stop thinking about all those people from their village whom A-ma’s medicine didn’t help and who died. Before they leave, A-ma promises Li-yan to teach her how to take care of these trees and how to make medicine. Instead of being grateful, Li-yan realizes that “everything [she’s] learned feels like a cut into [her] flesh with a dull knife” (47). Li-yan, despite her mother’s disappointment, can’t force herself to react to her inheritance with joy. She remembers that although the village people respect her mother, “every single man and boy is above her” (47). For this reason, her father’s words about the land’s curse stick deep in her heart. On their way home, Li-yan keeps thinking about what she can do to escape her fate of marrying and becoming a midwife. She decides that “maybe education can help with [her] flight” (47).

The next day at school, Teacher Zhang tells the children about the Thirty Years No Change policy, according to which all land was equally divided, and each person received an allotment. But Li-yan knows that “when a woman marries out, she often loses her land to her father or a brother” (49) and doesn’t receive a new allotment. She also knows that her father has kept the best land to himself and assigned A-ma’s hidden land to her, which the authorities didn’t discover while dividing the land per the policy. Li-yan couldn’t do anything about it because she was just 4 years old at that time and “only a daughter” (50).

After the class, Li-yan approaches Teacher Zhang and asks him to help her with getting additional schooling. He agrees, but when she announces her intention to her father and brothers, they strongly object. Although Li-yan promises that school will not keep her from doing all her chores, her father doesn’t agree to this idea. After a few days, Teacher Zhang, without telling Li-yan’s father, invites the headman, ruma, and nima to their house. Even though Li-yan promises that she will learn her duties as a midwife, deep inside she knows that she “can never be a midwife” (52). As her father insists on her not receiving additional schooling, Teacher Zhang decides to use their weak spot and describes the Akha people as having “one mind […] that […] is shy, closed, and suspicious” (52). The headman then decides that if Li-yan gets an education, she will honor the village, and the ruma adds that she can even become “a village cadre” (52) if the government needs to appoint someone to watch over them. Although Li-yan is furious about such prospects, she doesn’t say anything. Overpowered, her father finally agrees to let her go to school. For the next two years, Li-yan works very hard and moves to the second-level school. Once she’s there, she feels scared and lonely, but as she takes her assigned seat in the classroom, she recognizes another Akha, the boy who stole the pancake.