LeRoy Evening Bookclub
“The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane” by Lisa Lee is a novel set in 1988 China, in a remote moutain village. Li-Yan and her family live around the seasons of farming of tea and are abruptly brought into the modern age,
Lin-Yan and village follow anceint rituals,girl babies are taboo,twins are rejects,very little education,males dominate but the “doctor” is female and important. No electricity or running water but then a man in a jeep ,their first car,arrives looking for a special tea for his sick son. This starts the moderation of the village and the globalization of tea.
While you were reading. you could not beleive this was set in 1988, and life like this still exsisted”Culture Shock”. How quickly things change when there is a commodity everyone wants.
Lisa See has written several other novels about life in China,it is a different world.
Visit the LeRoy Library Soon.