Dear Mom,
We’re still going to FCC events. Right now Haley’s taking a Chinese brush-painting class. The girls have been practicing painting bamboo leaves and flowers. (Don’t be surprised if you see some of her artwork at Christmas.) Master Lee also does calligraphy, so I thought, Let’s show him the tea cake. Haley so loved the idea that I couldn’t help beating myself up a bit for not thinking of it sooner.
We showed the tea cake to Master Lee. He studied all the designs, while Haley stared at him hopefully. Finally, he pronounced in his heavy accent, “They’re meaningless.” Another disappointment. The only useful thing he said is that tea aficionados—did you know there was such a thing?—like to take tea cakes on pilgrimages to their places of origin. Now not five minutes pass without Haley asking when we’re going to China to find the cake’s place of origin. Dan and I have always wanted to take Haley on a roots trip. There’s even a tour company that specializes in vacations for families like ours, but even if we go, how is she going to get any closer to finding where the tea cake came from? The only silver lining out of all this: Haley has taken it out of the drawer and put it on her dresser. It’s a huge step for all of us, although Dan and I have to play it cool.
As long as I’m here . . . You asked if you should bring Haley’s birthday presents to Colorado over Thanksgiving. (Nine years old! Can you believe it?) Wouldn’t it be easier if you mail the big things here to the house and she opens the small things at the ranch? She’s going to love the little chemistry set, microscope, and telescope you bought. She’ll say you’re the best grandparents ever, and you are.
Really looking forward to all of us being together.
Constance
P.S. You and Dad are really going to like this year’s Christmas card. It’s the best of Haley yet.
A DRINKABLE ANTIQUE
The light changes, and I zip through the intersection on my moped. I’ve just finished my shift at King World Hotel, where I work at the front desk, and I don’t want to embarrass the people who’ve arranged this interview by being late. At a stoplight, I glance at my reflection in the window of the car next to me. A flowered silk scarf protects my hair from the dust and exhaust. My pink blouse is clean and perfectly ironed. My skirt will have wrinkles from sitting, but I can’t do much about them. I don’t care for makeup, but hotel management likes us to wear it for our guests’ enjoyment, and I learned in my course on how to achieve a successful job interview that potential employers like it too. Luckily, my roommates have taught me about mascara, eyeliner, and eye shadow—just enough, not too gaudy. For lipstick, they prefer me in a shade of light coral. They say the color makes me look Han-majority pretty. That’s as high a compliment as I’m ever going to get as a member of an ethnic minority my roommates have never heard of.
I made so many resolutions on my journey here eight years ago, but I didn’t know a thing about anything. I promised A-ma I’d always follow Akha traditions, but these things I could only do in my heart, for I had no ruma, nima, or family to perform rituals or encourage me. (And Kunming didn’t have a spirit gate, village swing, or any building or place I could go to feel connected to or even sense my culture.) I needed to forget the tragedies of my past, but the only way to do that successfully was to build a brick wall around my heart. I arrived at the trade school thin from my deprivations in Thailand, but I lost even more weight because I didn’t have enough money to buy food in the cafeteria. When A-ma promised a monthly allowance of two hundred yuan, it seemed like a fortune. It was a fortune—as much as my family had lived on each month when I was little—but the girls in my dormitory each received eight hundred yuan every four weeks. When I ran out of money, I drew slowly from the bank account that was made up of the silver pieces I’d saved from my wedding headdress. After I sold the last of those, I practically lived on tea alone.
Most of my classmates saw me as a country bumpkin and the most tu person they’d ever met. They teased me when I performed a cleansing ritual to prevent myself from being paralyzed after the shadow of a crane in flight touched me. They made fun of me when I asked what was done to protect the dormitory from spirits. A few girls felt sorry for me and gave me advice. “Don’t worry so much,” one of them said. “We don’t have bad spirits here. And even if one enters Kunming, don’t let on to others you believe in them.” Slowly, I began to forget about spirits. It was my only choice.
If I was thankful to A-ma for my monthly stipend, I was even more indebted to her for the loose tea she gave to Teacher Zhang to mail to me in pretty homemade packets each spring. I gave these gifts to my teachers in the same way I once gave our humble homegrown tea to Teacher Zhang: as a sign of respect and gratitude. Those instructors are my friends to this day, and we still get together to drink tea—sometimes in one of their apartments, but mostly in tea shops. It is to them that I must give my thanks for this new opportunity. Yunnan Agricultural University here in Kunming is opening a Pu’er Tea College, and they’ve suggested me as a candidate.
“It is to be the first such program in the world,” Teacher Guo told me last week. “They’re going to offer two tracks: one to learn the art of tea—brewing and etiquette—to become a tea master; the other to become a tea evaluator—so you’ll be able to oversee tea production, as well as advise collectors and connoisseurs on what to buy. We’ve heard that over two thousand people have applied, but they’re accepting only sixty students for each program. When we were asked to recommend a pupil—present or past—we knew exactly who that would be: you, because you’re the only one we’ve taught who comes from the tea mountains.”
I pull through a gate, park in the open courtyard, and enter a nondescript building. I follow signs that read: INTERVIEWS THIS WAY. I’m one of fifty people in the waiting room. A woman with a clipboard calls applicants in one by one. Some of the interviews are as brief as ten minutes. I try not to be nervous. When my name is called, I follow the woman down a hallway painted pea green and into a large room, where a single chair faces a table with five examiners: two women and three men. The man seated in the middle position motions for me to take my place. Once I’m settled—my ankles linked and tucked modestly to the side, my hands resting delicately in my lap—he goes over the basics, confirming my name, ethnic status, and where I was born.
“And your age?” he asks.
“I’m twenty-six.”
“Married then? With a child?”
“Unmarried,” I answer.
“So old!” a woman wearing a red sweater observes.
How am I supposed to respond to that?