Jin calls his mother to tell her we won’t be home before Chinese New Year after all. When I phone Ci-teh and explain the change in plans, she says, “I was hoping to see you soon so we could catch up. I miss you.” Before I can respond, she hurries on. “That’s okay. I’ll make us rich instead.” I try to suggest that she keep her aspirations modest. “It’s only tea,” I caution. When she comes back with “It’s so much more than that to me,” I know I’ve left my shop with the exact right person.
We cancel our flight back to China and move into our house. The myrtlewood-paneled library on the ground floor doubles as Jin’s office, and I also have a room—what the agent called a solarium—where I have a desk, phone, computer, fax line, and Internet connection. I talk to Ci-teh nearly every day.
“These weeks leading up to the holiday have been very busy with shoppers buying hostess gifts,” she gushes. “I’ve sold all the tea from Laobanzhang and have ordered more.”
It’s impressive, but I have to ask: “Don’t you miss Law-ba and the girls?”
“Not one bit!”
I hope she’s telling me the truth, because having her at Midnight Blossom allows me to focus on my husband and my home.
One week later, on February 18, Chinese New Year arrives. We Akha have our own cycles and our own new year, so I always ignored the Han majority’s celebrations when I was in Kunming and Guangzhou. “Now that I’m married to a Han majority man,” I confide to Ci-teh one night on the phone, “I want to give him a proper holiday. To figure out how to do that, I’ve been watching the pre–Year of the Pig holiday shows on TV and looking at the other houses on our street to see how they’re decorated.”
“You should also spy on what women buy in the shops,” Ci-teh advises.
I do exactly that and purchase couplets to hang on either side of our front door and a ceramic pig painted gold and tied with a red ribbon to set on our dining table. Jin and I put together a small altar to commemorate his ancestors. We’re only two people and don’t have family and friends to celebrate with, but a neighbor, Rosie Ng, invites us to join her family for dinner at one of the big Hong Kong–style restaurants on Valley Boulevard in Monterey Park.
* * *
Jin and I settle into a routine. A-ma has sent tea from Nannuo and I’ve had Ci-teh mail a few special teas from my shop, so we now start the day sitting at a small table by the window that overlooks the back garden, sipping golden liquid from small cups, and drawing inspiration from the old aphorism An hour spent drinking tea is the hour when the prince and the peasant share thoughts and ready themselves for the commonalities and woes of their separate lives. This allows the rest of the day to unfold in a relaxed manner, with no worries or anxieties. Around noon, Rosie picks me up, and we go grocery shopping. Jin and I take walks together in the afternoons. After dinner, we make our calls to China. It’s gratifying to know that my shop has done so well in my absence. Well? I mean great! Ci-teh has done an impressive job and taken advantage of every opportunity.
“Prices for Pu’er have skyrocketed,” she tells me. “In March, during the ten days of tea picking, thousands upon thousands of traders, connoisseurs, and journalists from all around the world climbed the tea mountains of Yunnan. Some people even brought old cakes of tea with them. They said they were on a ‘pilgrimage to the place of origin.’?”
She sounds like a completely different person, but everything she’s said is true. I saw it on TV. Big crowds stepping from buses, elbowing each other to have a chance to try out killing the green and shouting ever-soaring prices in the faces of bewildered growers. Teacher Zhang sent word that tea from wild forest trees was the most popular. Third Brother sold a single kilo of raw tea from one of his old trees to a dealer for 570 yuan, the equivalent of seventy-five dollars!
I’ll always have tea from Nannuo in my shop, because I still believe what Tea Master Sun told me—that one day people will prize it as much as, if not more than, the king and queen of teas—but I agree to let Ci-teh send her husband to Laobanzhang to buy more product. Later in the week, Ci-teh calls to give her report.
“Don’t be mad, but he spent a lot.”
“How much?”
“Eight hundred yuan a kilo—”
“No!”
“Listen. I told him to do it, and it turned out to be a good deal, because the next day the price jumped to twelve hundred a kilo.”
“Waaa!”
“Don’t worry. I can sell those teas for even more money.”
There’s only one thing left to say. “You’re clearly a much better businesswoman than I am, because if I’d been there I’d probably be thinking too much about flavor, aroma, and provenance instead of higher profits. Thank you.”
“No. Thank you.”
I may have misjudged Ci-teh when she landed in Guangzhou, but now I’m grateful for her cleverness and fortitude.
* * *
When Rosie’s golden retriever somehow manages to get up on the roof of her home, Jin and I meet several other neighbors—all Han majority Chinese. We stand on the sidewalk to laugh and point as Rosie’s husband runs a ladder to the roof to rescue the animal. Tea is poured. Snacks are shared. We gather on the street another time when the limb of a jacaranda snaps and closes the road until Street Maintenance comes and clears it away. At American Easter, Rosie hosts an egg hunt for children in the neighborhood. We’re invited even though we don’t have a baby. When Rosie drops her son’s basket and several of the hard-boiled eggs break open, her relaxed attitude about the mess relieves my shyness about being an outsider. I help her clean up the eggs and sweets called jelly beans and Peeps. She’s grateful—and friendly. By the end of the day, she’s given me a Western-style name: Tina. Jin likes it, and the neighbors pick it up in days. I practice saying my name over and over again in the same way I once memorized English phrases at my trade school: Tina Chang, Tina Chang, Tina Chang.
Every moment of every day seems perfect, except I don’t come to a head. Getting pregnant isn’t so easy when you’re trying. The more weeks that pass, the more I seek answers in Akha beliefs. Although I never once dreamed of water when I was pregnant with Yan-yeh, I go to sleep every night, hoping I’ll dream of rushing water, which will announce that a baby has been released from the baby-making lake. Jin knows me very well already, so whenever he sees me leave the bathroom looking worried, he reminds me that we’ve only been married four months. His words are meant to be reassuring, but they make me even more anxious because they let me know he’s been counting too.