The Tea Girl Of Hummingbird Lane | Holly Furtick Book Club

In 2018, I have this great idea to start a book club mostly because I love books, I particularly love audiobooks and I love forcing them on other people and then talking about them. And so I started this book club and I just put it out there on Instagram. I said, hey, read this book and then let's come together and chat about it. And I wanted to share those chats with you here on my YouTube channel. So I hope you enjoy this video. Okay, here we are.

Yay.

It's book club night. All right guys, we look, look, can you see? I have a little tea party going on over here and we're gonna have a little.

We.

I am gonna have a little tea tasting here in, in just a minute. Okay, so let me set us up. We are having, we are discussing this.

Book.

The T Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa C. Lisa is going to be joining us in just a minute to discuss this book. I'm so excited. I love the publisher's summary of this book. It says this. Usually I write my own summary, but I really liked this one.

It says this.

In this stirring coming of age novel, a young Chinese woman finds purpose, passion and the key to a new life in the tea growing traditions of her ancestors. I just love that. I love a good coming of age story, that's probably one of my top.

Three.

I don't know what you call it, like genres is a good coming of age story. And so I love, I really love that about the story. I love how we, we start with this one girl in the 1980s, but she lives in like rural, rural China. Like no plumbing, no running water, no electricity, no tv, no nothing. And they're living in these primitive conditions and they're tea pickers. And then we follow this girl as she journeys outside. She, she basically gets pushed out of, of her life and of her culture and she journeys outside of that and we kind of watch her bloom and blossom and come into her own, but then go back to her family and be able to still be a part of her family and help her family out. It's a beautiful story. Sorry I just spoiled it for you if you've never read it before. But anyway, we'll have fun tonight. So after we're done, obviously not now unless you're sitting at a computer and you are watching me on your phone. After we're done, you've got to go to Lisa's website because on her website, lisac.com she you can click on the Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane and you can look at Pictures from her travels there. And we're going to ask her about some of that here in just a minute. Hey, Lisa, if you are on, will you just comment, say, hi, Holly, I'm on, and I will grab your, I'll grab your, your little icon and we'll get you on with us. But so there's pictures on her website where you can go and you can see the mountains, you can see the tea, you can see the, you can see the ladies, the people picking the tea and then sorting the tea and then, then laying it out. There's all these really cool pictures of the houses. Oh, good, she's here. So you've got to go and see that. And let's get Lisa on, and I've got some questions to ask her, and I know you do, too, so here we go. Hi, Lisa.

Well, this has been so fun watching you and watching all the comments and.

All right, so we have some great questions for you. I'm so excited to talk to you. I'm so honored that you had come on here. I know that you, I know that you make book clubs a priority. That's really cool because there's nothing. To me, there's almost nothing better than finishing a book and then getting to ask the author questions about it.

It's just.

It's the best. So, all right, can you tell us about your process of writing this book? Sort of from beginning to end? Like, what was your initial idea that. That just sparked you? And you're like, that's what I want to write a book about and then carry us all the way through to turning it into the editor.

Okay, well, do you have all night? So this is. Actually, I had been thinking about writing about the One Child Policy and adoption from China for about 20 years, and there are a lot of reasons for that. Because I grew up in a very large Chinese American family here in Los Angeles. I have about 400 relatives. There are about a dozen that look like me, the majority still full Chinese in this little spectrum in between. And so when I was a kid, you know, when I looked around me, what I experienced were Chinese. I saw Chinese faces. What I experienced was Chinese culture, Chinese tradition, Chinese language, Chinese food. And of course, that's why I write the kinds of books that I do. But I didn't look like anyone else in my family. And so I always sort of thought about that myself. Like, well, what am I? Am I American? Am I Chinese? Am I Chinese American, or am I something else? And so when people started adopting girls from China, you know, many of them were being adopted into families where they were the only Chinese face in their family, in their school, in their church, in their synagogue, at the county fair. And so I, for a long, long time, wondered, did they have kind of a mirror experience to my own? Wonder what they. Are they Chinese because of how they look? Are they American because of how they've been raised? Are they Chinese American, or are they something else? So anyway, that had been in my mind for about 20 years. And then there was one night, my husband and I, we were going to the movies, and we were just crossing the street, and I saw up ahead of us an older white couple walking with their adopted teenage Chinese daughter between them. She had her hair up in a ponytail, and it was swishing back and forth like this. And I had this vision of her as being kind of like a fox spirit in that family. In Chinese tradition, fox spirits can be very naughty. They can be very mischievous. They're always, you know, like sneaking into a scholar's study late at night. You know, there he's studying hard for the imperial exams, and then she has sex with him. So, you know, naughty and mischievous, but in their best moments, they have this ability to bring great love and to create families. And so when I saw that foxtail swishing back and forth, I thought, well, yes, she really is like a fox spirit in that family in the sense that through her presence, she had brought great love and had helped to create a family. So truly, from the time I was on one side of the street till I got to the other sidewalk, I knew what the next book was going to be. And, you know, I do write historical novels. That doesn't sound too historical because the one child policy has only been around for about 30 years. But I didn't worry about it too much. So can I just. I don't want to talk too much if you want me to sort of switch subjects.

Now, tell me. So you have the one storyline of this adopted Chinese girl, but how did you get to. From that to the T?

Yeah. So you know how the book begins with the AKA aphorism, no coincidence, no story? And then played out for me over.

One of the greatest ways to start a book. No coincidence. Opening line. I was like, okay, this is gonna be good, because it's like foreshadowing from the very first four words.

Exactly. And I was so happy when I found it because it worked so well for the book. Anyway, I had started doing the research on what I could, but again, it wasn't terribly historic. You know, it didn't wasn't giving me the sort of historic backdrop that I wanted to. And then I was about two months into doing research when I was asked to speak at a very large event at a library down by San Diego. This was huge event, so big, in fact, that they had brought somebody in to be like the opening act. And he was going to do this tea demonstration. So how it was set up, we were up on the stage, seated at this big tea table. He poured tea, I sipped it, and 600 people watched. I mean, it was kind of weird, you know, kind of a weird thing. Anyway, he talked about the history of tea and the tea worse Road. He talked about the difference between tea shrubs and tea trees. And then he started talking about Pu erh and how, how it's so different and how it. It's so valuable and it's that the only tea that grows in value with age, it's again, a lot like wine. And just that year, there was a single cake of Pu Erh. I actually have one here. It's a little bigger, so I, you know, I don't think this is a pound, so probably a little bigger than this that had just sold at international auction for the equivalent of US$150,000. And when I heard that, I knew what my historic backdrop was going to be. And then just one more coincident. Well, there were many, many along the way, but one more, which is then I came home, started doing all the research about tea and pu. Very specifically, my husband is on a board and he went to this board meeting and one of the men there said, oh, you know, what's Lisa working on these days? And you know, my husband loves me, he does, but he doesn't like maybe some other husbands. He doesn't always pay total attention to what I do. So I said, you know, so what's Lisa working on? And my husband was like, I don't know, something about tea in this car. Was she writing about Pu Erh? And my husband's like, I don't know, something about tea. Anyway, this man wrote me the next day and it turned out that just the week before he had been at this big Chinese banquet here in Los Angeles, where he was seated next to the largest importer of pu' erh into the United States. And did I want to meet her? Yes, I did. So off I went. And then that woman, she at that time didn't speak any English. So we met at a whole other woman's house, Linda, and that's who. Where you got the tea packet, the tea samples from the Bana Tea Company. And so what? So here you had Elaine on one side, the largest importer of puah into the United States. And then Linda, who has her own very small company, pretty much focused almost entirely on Pu'. Er. And what I could say about both of them is serious connoisseurs really love tea. Serious collectors. So again, it's like a wine tasting. And we're tasting all these different teas all day long until the last cup, about an ounce of liquid, where the liquid alone was worth a thousand dollars.

Wow.

And so, you know, at the end of the day, I'm getting ready to drive home. And unlike a tea tasting wine tasting, you can drive home. And so I was getting ready to drive home and I said to Linda, you know, I'm going to China for tea picking season. Is there anyone you think I should meet? Anywhere you think I should go? And she said, well, I'm going for tea picking season. Why don't you just come with me? And so, although we had never met, about six weeks later we were on a plane together to Yunnan Province and went up into the tea mountains together. And it was fantastic because she knew farmers, she knew growers, she knew pickers, she knew people who were processing tea. She. We spent three days with probably the most well known tea master. You know, it was just. And the tea master that's in the book is very much modeled on him, you know, really a celebrity with an entourage. And he was just amazing. And so all of that had just happened, really, by this, you know, one coincidence and another coincidence and another one just leading me into this particular story.

That's amazing. I just, I love, you know, I love a good book that has a great story, but we're also, I'm like, also learning about something. And I love when an author is able to open up your eyes to another culture, to a whole world that you don't even know exists. And you do such an incredible job just weaving the Chinese culture in and the tea culture and just all of it. But at the same time, you're going, you're cheering for this girl and you're just so happy for her and the way that she's persevering and the things that are happening in your life. You've got the American adopted story going on. At the same time. I had a friend that said that.

She.

She didn't like, she didn't love how everything, like, kind of wrapped up at the end. And normally I don't love a book. We're just where everything seems to come together. Except in this book, everything had to come together. Because in your opening line, you said, no coincidence, no story. So it all had to come full circle, or it wasn't even gonna. I don't know. I just thought it was, like. Was really well done. Was there anything that you had to fight through? Was there any point in the story that you really got hung up on?

You know, actually, it had to do with the end. There was a point with my editor. We were talking about, is this one book? Is it two books? Is it actually three? And I always saw it as one, so I always write the last line first. So to me, it was always one book. I always wanted that. Then we talked about, should there be an extra chapter? You know, should these two people have, you know, what's their conversation going to be? And when I'm writing, I always think about what would happen in real life. And I know this is a huge spoiler for people who have not read the book.

Almost everybody here has read the book.

You know, in real life, what would happen? One would say, hi, and the other one would say, hi, and one would say, I think I'm your mother. And the other one would say, I think I'm your daughter. And then again, what would happen in real life? They'd talk about everything that had happened in the previous 20 years to get them to that point. So I didn't feel like that needed to be rehashed. But there are some hints about what would happen. And so, you know, and there's. In that last chapter, originally, I had a proposal from Sean, and Haley accepts, and they plan out their Future for about 10 pages. But, you know, then I just thought, she's only 18. She doesn't have to be married yet, but they're going to live happily ever after. I want everyone to know that they're going to live happily ever after. And then the other big hint is in the last scene when the chapter where Haley. Sorry, when Leon and Amma are up in the hidden grove, and Leon is explaining to her mother, people are coming. They're coming. They know where this is and they're coming. And Amma says, but what are we going to do? Who's going to help us? And of course, that person who's going to help is just about ready to show up. So I feel. Actually, I feel that it's not all tied up at the end. I think that there's a lot that's left open, and I do get a lot of email about that, and people saying they wanted more they want a sequel. And I sort of explain what I've just explained and then I get back ideas of what people think could happen next, things I never would have thought of. And one woman even wrote me a 10 page single spaced letter of all the things she thought could happen next. I know because I printed it out. And I mean, she really did have enough for three books. I mean, she really had thought about it. It was amazing.

That's so funny. I'm not a sequel person, so I like when the author, like, I want it to end just enough. I thought the way you ended it was perfect. I got enough closure. But like you said, you left it open enough to know there's more. But I don't need to know. I can just imagine what happened.

Yeah, and actually that was what I really. The thing I was thinking about is, you know, we tend to think about reading as being kind of a passive activity in the sense that you're sitting there and you're taking in the words from the author. But here we are all in a book group and we know that everybody reads differently, you know, and it's like this kind of magical thing that the words come off the page and then we filter them through our whole life experience. Were our parents happy? Were they divorced? Did you have money as a child or no money? What kind of education did you have? What kind of work do you do? Have you ever had your heart broken? Do you have kids? All of those things, these words are filtering through all of that. And that's why we, you know, we interpret things so differently. And so in that way, I think reading is this unbelievably creative act. And so there was a part of me that also wanted people to get to the end and then think about what could happen next to sort of carry that creativity themselves.

I loved it. Hey, I read that you put your grandmother in all of your books.

I do.

Can you tell us about that and tell us who she is in this story?

Yeah. You know, this is my 11th book. I'm actually turning in my 12th tomorrow. Wow.

Congratulations.

I'm pretty excited, I must say. I'm very excited because that means I've been finishing it and doing all the editing during this crazy couple of months. So I guess that's the benefit of staying home is I've been totally focused on finishing the new book. You know, I think at the beginning I wasn't doing it consciously, but. But she does appear in every one. So in the three mysteries, she's the neighborhood committee director in Shanghai Girl, she's Madame he, the neighbor in I have to look at the books. In Peony in Love, she's the grandmother. In Dreams of Joy, she's this woman who lives in the village. I can just go through every single one, including the most current one, the island of Sea Women, where she's the mother in law. And it's. She doesn't look like my grandmother, but she has aspects of my grandmother's personality. And to me, this has been one of the most wonderful things because it's been away from. My grandmother's been gone for about 25 years, so it's been a way for me to be with her, you know, and this. You know, that in writing her, I get to be with her.

So who is she in the Tea girl?

Oh, in the tea girl, she's Amma. Amma, of course.

That's what I figured. Who, incidentally, turned out to be my favorite character in the book. And the reason why is because she grew on you. You know, at first, she's this hard woman, and you're like, man, lighten up.

You know.

You don't have to follow these rules, you know, whatever. But in the end, you see what she was protecting.

But.

And you see her. You see her heart when she doesn't make her daughter kill her baby, and she says, go take it and give it to the orphanage. And you just, like. She just really blossoms and opens up. And so I just. I was really hoping that was your grandmother because I really loved her in the book, and I just loved the strength, her strength that she was for her family, for her daughter, for her community. She was a really beautiful character.

Yeah. I mean, you know, as the midwife, she has a certain social standing and, of course, a certain amount of power Right. In the village and on her side of the mountain. But that moment when her daughter gives birth and she knows and everybody's been preparing of what is going to have to. And she. And, you know, Amma is sort of the arbiter of these kinds of rules in the village. And then when it comes right down to it, she can't do what has to be done. And to me, that's the big turning point for her. Like you said, it kind of opens her up. And even though when her daughter leaves to go off to school and all of the things that Haley. Sorry, Leon. Does, they're so different from anything that Amma knows, but she can accept it. It's like when she opened her heart, she sort of opened herself to the world as well.

Yeah. It's really well done, Lisa. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I hope we get to do it again. That would be fun. And this was great fun. Thank you. And thank you for your energy and just your enthusiasm. You're fantastic.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. So nice to meet you.

Okay, Good night.