THE TEA GIRL OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE by Lisa See

The title character is actually the daughter of the protagonist and is alive only because her mother dropped her off at a Social Services center in China.  The unwed mother, Li-Yan, finds herself pregnant at 17, and the baby’s father has disappeared.  In Li-Yan’s culture, illegitimate infants, as well as twins, are put to death.  Li-Yan is a persona-non-grata in in her community and struggles to find a way to survive on her own.  With help from family and friends, she eventually becomes a successful tea guru.  Meanwhile, an American couple adopts the daughter that Li-Yan abandoned and names her Haley.  We follow her story as well, and even though it is not as full of adventure as Li-Yan’s, it is in some ways more compelling.  Haley, along with other Chinese adoptees, suffers from a number of societal issues in that she does not resemble her parents.  Consequently, the fact of her adoption is obvious.  Plus, she is darker and smaller than other Chinese girls in the States, so that she is not entirely accepted by them, either.  In any case, this novel is quite predictable and full of unlikely coincidences, but it’s a pleasant enough read, though certainly not a riveting one.  Again, to me, the discomfort of Asian adoptees in this country was an emotional issue that I had never considered.  That aspect of the book makes it marginally worth reading, but all of the pages dedicated to tea growing, drying, fermenting, etc., were not my cup of…well, you know.