Book Discussion: "The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane" by Lisa See

In their remote Chinese 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 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 bad match -- 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 neighboring 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, and 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.

A powerful story about a family, separated by circumstances, culture, and distance, Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond that connects mothers and daughters.

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