UB Libraries Book Group discussion

Hey All --
A reminder that we will begin the online discussion on May 18th.
Thanks!

Hey All –
A few of us were able to zoom yesterday to chat about this month’s selection, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. I’ll share some of the things we discussed and then maybe throw out a couple of questions from the reading guide if anyone is interested to further the discussion. All of us enjoyed the book.

First off, none of us had a clear idea of what a tea cake looked like; Becky linked us to this image here, and here is an article that has some interesting info as well.

All of us were surprised at the timeframe; we all thought the Akha people still seemed so primitive and untouched by modern things even in 1988. And also we discussed how quickly their habits and lifestyles changed after they joined the greater tea producing economy with Mr.Huang.

We discussed the use of the parallel stories as Haley grew older and how interesting it was to hear about the common feelings some adoptees in her therapy group had, feeling “grateful but angry” and their struggles with identity. The author mentions in an interview after the book that she spoke with several Chinese-born girls adopted by Americans and this was a familiar feeling for them.

We did look up the geography of this region as well. Per Wikipedia, the Akha live not just in Yunnan province but also in Burma, Laos and Thailand with a great number having migrated to Thailand (like 80k) after civil wars in Burma and Laos. The Akha people claim the Tibetan borderlands as their original homestead. I think I’ll do a little more research on them; I found them fascinating.

I was apprehensive about this book at first knowing that Stacy had found it upsetting enough to put down, but aside from that absolutely horrific act of killing the twins as cursed rejects, I thought the author did a good job of telling a sympathetic story of these people and their culture.

Was it ever mentioned why Teacher Zhang had been exiled to this outer province? I do not have a good grasp of Chinese history so I want to look further into that Cultural Revolution as well.

One thing we didn’t discuss but was a question in the reading group guide around the Akha aphorism “No coincidence, no story”. Sometimes stories with too much coincidence strain believability for me but I thought this author had a good balance of crossed paths without wrapping everything up in too much of a bow. Did you find the coincidences believable?

Lastly, check out Lisa See's website where she share photos from her trip and further research.