china – Perfect Leaves

One Word: Yikes

beijing smog cover — Matador Publishing, 2017. 326 pages

I’ve got to be very careful with what I say in this review.

Though Beijing Smog is fiction, it is political in nature, I’ll stick to reviewing the novel without going on tangents. To be honest, the book was awful.

What it’s about and who’s involved:

Beijing Smog follows the stories of three seemingly unrelated groups of characters who all have a hand in dangerous cyber-business. After the scheme comes crashing down, several of the characters meet and no one is really sure of the truth. The only reality is that everything relates to the Party.

US Team

The most relevant member of the US Team is is Chuck Drayton, the screw up “Cyber Guy” who is unqualified for his job as a US Ambassador in Shanghai. We meet other members of Team USA, but these diplomats and hackers don’t do much to advance the plot.

Hong Kong Team

Calling Anthony “Tony” Morgan part of the Hong Kong team is not quite right, considering he actually lives in Shanghai (like Chuck). His wife (Cindy Wu) has a house in Beijing as well, but most of Tony’s story takes place in Hong Kong and Macau. He meets some people there, but these people are mostly irrelevant.

Beijing Team

The Beijing Team is actually just a group of flunkee college students who spend too much time online. Wang, Liu and Zhang are a group of friends who live and study together, though they focus more on getting rich quick than their courses. I can’t remember their full names because Ian Williams mostly refers to them by their surnames. None of the boys are particularly bright.

The Review

There are so many issues with Beijing Smog I don’t even know where to start. Within five minutes of opening the book, I already hated Chuck Drayton. He’s what I’d call the typical entitled American expat. If things don’t go his way he flies off the handle, and he seems to have almost no understanding of China and Chinese culture. He complains that a mix up at the hotel and bad traffic forced him to take the metro, and that he’s going to be late to his function. The thing is, he’s only four stops away from the venue. If four metro stops (8-10 minutes on the Beijing metro) is going to make you late, then not even a cab will save you.

Besides, Chuck doesn’t take his job seriously and he’s always making mistakes. He hardly knows the first thing about software, let alone anything about cyber security. His knowledge amounts to what you can learn from spending a few hours on Google. Throughout the novel, Chuck’s ineptitude and his contempt for others make him my least favorite character. He also puts other people in danger.

When I met Tony I thought he was a nice enough guy, but the way Williams describes his wealth is unrealistic. I can’t remember how much his apartment costs, but unless he actually bought the place there is no rent in Shanghai that is as high as Tony’s supposedly is. I’m extremely familiar with Shanghai and its rent prices. The number may seem like nothing compared to New York prices but it’s astronomical compared to the average Shanghai price, even for an apartment in Shanghai’s financial district.

Tony doesn’t have too many character flaws. He frequently visits of massage parlors, but that’s pretty much to be expected of his sort (that doesn’t make it right). He and his wife have a mechanical relationship (also common). He’s just a man doing what he can to make money. His greed is off-putting but he’s still not as bad as Chuck.

Finally, we come to the Beijing Team. The boys are so maddeningly daft I had to take breaks after reading their sections. For the first part of the novel, Williams spends time talking about Zhang and his issues. Zhang, however, turns out to be an unnecessary character, as is his friend Liu. Wang is the only character that matters in the end, but we only really start to get to know him in the last third of the novel.

On that note, Beijing Smog is incredibly slow-paced. It’s not obvious to the readers how the characters are connected until about halfway through the novel, and even the characters’ stories don’t really start overlapping until about the 75% mark. When the characters do meet each other, it’s only Chuck that meets Wang, and their interaction only lasted a handful of pages. Tony never meets Wang, but Wang meets one of Tony’s new enemies. Chuck and Tony meet early on, but there’s so much filler that their interactions become boring.

In fact, there are entire chapters of filler and the dialogue is terrible. I found myself actively thinking “who talks like this?” I also found it hard to believe that after being confronted by the Party about his online activity TWICE, Wang still doesn’t understand the ramifications of his online posts. His excuse is always, “it was just a joke!” or “I post so many things everyday, how can I remember that one post?” I also make a million posts a day, but I still generally remember what I posted. Are there posts I regret? Yes, but I haven’t forgotten them. Wang starts seeing one of the main symbols from his posts popping up at the protests around the country and can not wrap his pea-brained head around why it is problematic from the government’s point of view. By extension, he can’t figure out why the authorities keep hounding him. HIS FRIEND EVEN WARNS HIM ABOUT THE CRACKDOWN ON THE USAGE OF CERTAIN WORDS AND SYMBOLS. HE IGNORES THE WARNING AND CONTINUES TO POST, DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHY THE AUTHORITIES WON’T LEAVE HIM ALONE. How can someone be so thick-skulled?

Clearly, I am angry.

Perhaps it’s unfair to judge a novel based on the characters, but since the characters are the substance of the novel, what choice do I have? Even if the characters were perfect, it’s not like Beijing Smog is a literary masterpiece.

In summary, this book is the story of a bunch of idiots that and could have been reduced to the size of a novella. There are loose ends in the novel too, which is just great. I’m giving Beijing Smog two stars because I actually finished it, but I hated every single second.

The book is still too new for Thriftbooks and other secondhand sites, but here’s Beijng Smog on Amazon and Goodreads.

Beijing Smog is somewhat similar to Ray Hecht’s South China Morning Blues, so I’ve linked that review as well (but SCMB was actually a much better book). I wrote it a couple years ago and haven’t updated since, so it still follows the older format.

If you prefer the older format, let me know! I’ll go back to it. 😛 For the record, I received Beijing Smog as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Phoenix Failed to Take Flight

Tea is such a weird thing. Even just one type of tea has several subcategories and varieties. Besides pu’er, I think oolong is the most varied type of tea. Oolong tea has three subcategories: phoenix, cliff/rock, and tieguanyin/Iron Goddess. Of the three I prefer cliff teas, and I have equal preference for phoenix oolongs and Iron Goddess teas, though I really only like traditional-style Iron Goddess (the new-age stuff just doesn’t taste as good to me).

One of the teas Teasenz sent me was a phoenix oolong (凤凰单枞/fenghuang dancong). These days, most sellers in the west refer to all phoenix oolongs as simply “phoenix” or “dancong” which is frustrating because while “dancong” literally means something to the effect of “single tree/fir,” these days dancongs have just as much variety as other types of tea. There’s 蜜兰香/Milan Xiang (Honey Orchid) and 鸭屎香/Yashi Xiang (Duck Sh*t, it doesn’t taste like that I promise). There are probably others I haven’t heard of, but I’m not a huge dancong drinker so I have a lot of exploration left to do.

The tea I got from Teasenz was also labeled “Dan Cong.” I looked on the website to try to figure out which dancong it was, but I didn’t find any information. Teasenz does offer a dancong sampler with five different dancongs though, so I might try that out some day.

In Greek mythology, phoenixes are flying bird-like creatures that die in a plume of flames and are born again from the ashes of their predecessor. The volatile compounds of phoenix oolongs react with oxygen to create vivid and rapidly changing flavors and aromas. Taking in air by slurping the tea gives rise to a new flavor profile.

To brew Teasenz’s Dan Cong, I used 4 grams of tea and 100 degree water. I’m hoping to get a variable temperature electric kettle in the future, so I can control one more aspect of tea tasting. Dan Cong’s leaves were black, thin and slightly twisted. There were splashes of green mixed into the sea of black. The dry leaves smelled strongly of ripe nectarines with the slight pungency of mild cheddar cheese. I wouldn’t say the pungent odor was cheesy per se, but cheese is the closes approximation I can come up with. When I wet the leaf, they turned bright green and I smelled wilting roses.

Image of Dan Cong Dry leaves — Dan Cong Dry Leaves

Image of Dan Cong Liquor — Dan Cong Tea Liquor

The first brew of Dan Cong was a very clear yellow-white. It looked a bit like white wine and had a medium-thin mouth feel. For some reason, this Dan Cong tasted a bit like traditional Tieguanyin mixed with wet grass. Dan Cong’s aftertaste was surprisingly woody, though now that I think about it perhaps saw dust is a more accurate descriptor. The tea tasted like I was chewing on a mouthful of sunflower seeds with the shells on.

In the end though, I was disappointed by how one-note the tea was. Usually dancongs are vibrant and interesting. They usually smell and taste like fruits and flowers, and change just as you start to think you’re getting to know the tea. Even when I slurped this Dan Cong, the flavor remained the same. I did enjoy the lightness of the tea though. It was quite sweet, which is to be expected of dancong oolongs, but this one was extra sweet. Besides the sweetness, however, Teasenz’s Dan Cong was rather bland.

If you’re willing to try this Dan Cong, you can find it on their website.

The Tea Cupboard: Mystery Dian Hong

I’ve been drinking tea since before I went to kindergarten, so I can’t remember the first tea I ever tried, but I do remember the tea that converted me to a full-time loose leaf tea drinker: unsmoked Lapsang Souchong (正山小种, zhengshan xiaozhong). Looking back, the tea itself wasn’t that spectacular but I was cold and curious, and it was the perfect thing for the moment. That was almost 4 years ago.

Image of dry mystery dian hong leaves — Dry Mystery Dian Hong leaves. Note the thick leaves and the fuzz on the sides of the gaiwan.

Fast forward to last year when I tasted the Dian Hong (滇红) that changed my life. I’d been experimenting with herbal teas and other tea blends up until that point, but I hadn’t really looked into pure Chinese teas. Though I frequently discussed tea with my mentors at the Tianshan Tea Market and the Laoximen Tea Market, I stuck to my tried-and-true unsmoked Lapsang, Jasmine blends, and flower teas.

I have never forgotten the Dian Hong I tasted that day. Because it was served to me by someone else, I don’t know where it came from, when it was produced, or who sold it.

It seems that I have once again found a mind-blowing Dian Hong, and once again I have almost no idea where it came from.

Just before a school holiday in the autumn of 2016, one of my classmates told me he was taking a trip to Yunnan Province (云南省). He knew I loved tea, and also knew Yunnan is a major tea producing area. He left he asked me if I’d like anything. I told him to pick up some Dian Hong if he saw any, but to otherwise not worry about it. I didn’t want him to go around searching for tea during his vacation.

When he came back he presented me with 50 grams of beautiful Dian Hong. I offered to pay him back and he waved me away saying it didn’t cost that much (some people may consider this rude, but that’s just the level of honesty we have with each other. Besides, he was probably being modest). This Dian Hong instantly reminded me of the rainbow of flavors I tasted just months before. It seems I had found my new favorite red tea.

I like the tea so much I stored it with my other prized teas, never to be seen again until this summer, when I decided to compare it to the Teasenz varieties of Dian Hong.

image of jin jun mei dry leaves — Dry leaves of Jin Jun Mei (Beautiful Golden Eyebrow). Note that the mix of black and gold leaves are very thinly twisted. Image Source: Teapedia

Based on the color and shape on the leaf, the Dian Hong my friend gave me appears to be a Dian Hong Gongfu Cha (滇红功夫茶) which is a sort of middle grade Dian Hong. At some point I mislabeled the tea as a general Zhengshan because Dian Hong is similar to Beautiful Golden Eyebrow (金俊眉， Jin Jun Mei). Jin Jun Mei’s leaves are thinner though, and the taste of a Dian Hong is absolutely unmistakable. Dian Hong’s leaves also tend to leave behind a little bit of fur on my utensils. The fur looks something like Chinese meat floss.

Dian Hong Gongfu is actually only about a step below Yunnan Pure Gold, and commonly goes by the English name Yunnan Gold (confusing, I know). To me, it feels like a mix between a lower-grade pure black leaf Dian Hong and the superior grade pure golden leaf Dian Hong. The combination results in a balanced brew with both the vibrancy of Yunnan Pure Gold and the comfort heat of cheap Dian Hong. While I appreciate the delicacy of high-grade Dian Hong, low-grade Dian Hong sits better on my tongue, and is definitely my drink of choice.

When brewing this tea, I use 5 grams of tea and ~95 degree water. The dry leaves smelled like maple syrup and cream soda. I brew the first infusion about 30 seconds, then increase the time by about 5 or 10 seconds for subsequent brews. This tea’s wet leaves smelled like Earl Grey with hints of coffee with cream. I read somewhere that there’s this weird 40-60-40-50-60 second brewing scheme for red tea. To be honest, that variation seems totally unnecessary but who knows, perhaps it truly does make better tea. I might try it some day, but for now I have a system that works.

The first brew of Dian Hong Gongfu was extremely frothy and was a bright red-orange. It felt and tasted like molasses but still retained that characteristic flavor note that black tea has; I can’t describe it. There’s an underlying zest that fully oxidized tea carries. The aftertaste was crazy intense and continued to morph as I chewed on the flavor. As usual, this Dian Hong is slightly salty but isn’t bitter.

The way the tea settles on the tongue is astonishingly satisfying.

image of dian hong tea liquor — Dian Hong tea liquor

Each infusion of Dian Hong Gongfu becomes progressively redder than the previous brew. It seems that the redder the tea gets, the saltier it gets. I still have not figured out whether the saltiness comes from my water (it’s possible the saltiness comes from the minerals in the water reacting with the tea) or from the tea itself. I’m willing to overlook the saltiness with Dian Hong though, because it is my tea equivalent of chicken noodle soup.

I wish I could tell you where to buy this tea. The best I can do is recommend you get your Dian Hong from sellers who source their tea in Yunnan. I’d be pretty wary of Dian Hong produced in other regions.

If you’re looking for more Dian Hong reviews, you can read my review of Teasenz’s Yunnan Gold.

As you can tell, I’m quite fond of Dian Hong. Please forgive me if I keep writing rambling posts about it. ;P

Gongfu Brewing, Explained

I’ve been talking about using the gongfu brewing method for the past couple of weeks, but it occurred to me that I haven’t really gone into the details yet. I tried to give some necessary information in the first post, but I decided it would be better to simply give my gongfu explanation to its own post.

I personally believe that gongfu brewing is the ultimate mindfulness exercise. For those who don’t know, mindfulness is the action or process of being present in the moment and becoming aware of something. Mindfulness can extend to the realm of emotions by helping people acknowledge and accept the way they feel, but it can also include acknowledging external phenomena.

In Mandarin, “gongfu” (功夫) simply means “skill” or “art.” In the U.S. (and in other western countries?) we usually say “kung fu.” There’s a reason Kung Fu is called a martial art.

When it comes to tea, I interpret gongfu to refer to the art of brewing. I use the full gongfu process to take notes and write posts about tea, but when I’m just drinking tea for myself, I use a simplified brewing process. The following are the steps of the gongfu brewing process, with the steps I use in the simplified process in italics. I explain each step below the main list. If you’re more of a visual learner, scroll down and watch the brewing video below.

Weigh out the tea leaves and observe their appearance
Heat the utensils
Observe the aroma of the dry leaves
Rinse the tea ware with the tea
Observe the aroma of the tea liquor
Observe the aroma of the wet leaf
Serve the tea
Observe the color of the tea liquor
Observe the flavor of the tea

Step One: Weighing out the tea leaves and observing their appearance

I bought a pocket-sized kitchen scale specifically for weighing tea, though just about anything that’ll weigh leaves will work. You need something that can weigh in increments of grams (or ounces if you prefer, but I find grams easier to deal with since Chinese tea literature tends to use the metric system).

The amount of tea you need depends on the size of your gaiwan, the type of tea, and your personal preference. I use 5-6 grams for red tea, 5-8 grams for oolong, 1-2 grams for ripe pu’er, 5 grams for ripe pu’er, and 5 grams for white tea. Green tea typically is not brewed using the gongfu method. I’ll explain more in a future post, but basically you allow green tea to steep in a manner similar to western brewing.

Once I have weighed out the leaves, I place them on a small saucer (usually the one that comes with my gaiwan) and inspect them. I note the shape and color of the leaves, and check for broken pieces. Too many broken leaves means the tea is at best poorly processed and at worst poor quality. Broken leaves typically lead to bitter brews. There are many shapes and colors to look for, depending on the type of tea. I’ll give more information on that when I write posts about each individual type of tea.

Step Two: Heat the utensils

Usually, I start boiling the water before I weigh the tea. Since I’m using the stove, the water is just reaching optimal temperature by the time I write my notes on the appearance of the tea leaves.

After the water reaches the correct temperature (more on that later, in the individual tea posts), I pour some into the gaiwan then pour the gaiwan water into the fairness pitcher and swirl it around. Once I’ve heated the fairness pitcher, I pour the water into however many cups I need, then empty the pitcher and all of the cups. Warming the utensils prevents the temperature of the tea from dropping too quickly once it has been brewed. Temperature changes affect the taste of the tea. Sometimes I use a clay teapot instead of a gaiwan, but only if I’m in a tea house or if I’m brewing for company.

Basic gongfu tea cups. They are also called “three sip cups” because they are small. Image Source: Wanling Tea House

a yellow gaiwan — A typical gaiwan. They come in all colors and sizes.

One type of fairness pitcher, or gongdao bei (公道杯). Image Source: Yunnan Sourcing

Step Three: Observe the aroma of the tea leaves

Besides keeping the temperature of the tea steady, heating the utensils also serves another purpose: it makes it easier to detect the aroma of the leaves.

To smell the tea, pour your leaves into the heated gaiwan (after you’ve poured the water out!), cover it, and give it a little shake. Carefully lift the lid and sniff the aroma that comes off of the lid. You can also sniff the bowl of the gaiwan directly, but exercise caution when doing this because the gaiwan is hot.

While it is certainly possible to simply stick your nose in the tea and sniff, the heat of a gaiwan “awakens” the volatile compounds in the tea that give off its flavor and aroma. Use your imagination when describing the smell of the tea, whether you’re making notes for yourself or talking to others. If you’ve read the tea reviews I’ve posted so far, you know I use descriptors such as, “it smells like setting berries on fire.” I’ve tasted teas that smell like warehouses, fireplaces, and milk coffee. Anything that has a scent can be used to describe tea. It’s a purely subjective observation.

Step Four: Rinse the tea ware with the tea

This step is the true beginning of the actual brewing process. To brew tea using a gaiwan, fill the gaiwan with water (the tea leaves should already be in it), cover it, wait a few seconds, then pour the brew into the fairness pitcher, using the lid as a preliminary strainer. Once you are finished pouring, you can either remove the gaiwan lid and put it off to the side or simply slide it so there is a gap between the bowl and the lid. You do not want to leave the gaiwan closed; leaving it closed essentially cooks the tea. It’s not uncommon for some leaves to slip out of the gaiwan, which is why some people put strainers over their fairness pitchers for cleaner pours.

Rinsing the tea ware is essentially repeating the process in step two (heating the utensils), this time pouring water over the tea leaves in the gaiwan and using that first brew instead of pure water. This process reheats the tea ware and makes it easier to detect the aroma of the tea liquor.

Step Five: Observe the aroma of the tea liquor

Some gongfu tea setups include aroma cups, which are smaller but taller than tea cups. After rinsing the tea ware with the tea, flip the aroma cup upside down into the tea cup. When you lift the aroma cup slightly and bring your nose to it, you should be able to smell the tea. I don’t own aroma cups. Instead, I just sniff the fairness pitcher. You can also try smelling the tea cup, but because they are so shallow, the scent escapes quickly. As with smelling the leaves, let your imagination run wild.

Step Six: Observe the aroma of the wet leaf

CAUTION: STEAM CAN BURN YOU. To smell the wet leaf, bring your nose to either the lid of the gaiwan or the bowl and take a whiff. Because steam will still be rising off of these objects, be very careful.

Step Seven: Serve the tea

This is the fun part, brew the tea as you did in step four, this time waiting a few seconds longer before pouring it into the fairness pitcher. Pour the tea from the fairness pitcher into the tea cups. Tradition suggests you should pour the tea from left to right, but this matters less in informal settings.

Step Eight: Observe the color of the tea liquor

This step is somewhat self-explanatory: use your eyes to determine the color of the brew!

Step Nine: Observe the flavor of the tea

Even though the cups are called three sip cups, you can take as many or as few sips as you like. I like using three sips when I first try a tea because I can assess different things on each sip. The first sip is for gauging the texture of the tea. Is it thick and syrupy or thin like water? I use the second sip to thing about the flavor. Does the flavor make me feel warm inside, or do I get chills? Does it taste more like grass or like roses? The third sip is for the after taste. If I hadn’t been slurping the tea on the first two sips, I definitely slurp on the third. Slurping aerates the tea which changes the flavor slightly, especially if you’re drinking a phoenix oolong. After the last sip, I close my mouth and “chew” on the flavor. At this stage, the after taste starts dancing in my mouth. Is the after taste bitter or salty? Is the tea drying? Do I detect something surprising?

I’ve had trouble converting some of my friends to loose leaf tea. They insist that tea is bitter, but they’ve only tasted cheap tea bag teas. There’s a huge flavor difference between bagged teas and loose leaf teas. If you must buy bagged tea, try to get one with a fuller leaf. Tea is varied and complex. I often taste more flavors than I have words to describe. That’s partly why I decided to start posting tea reviews online, to try to put words to what I taste. I welcome additional opinions on all of the tea things I post.

One of my friends once described a tea as tasting like “tires covered in honey.” I can’t remember what tea it was, but I vaguely remember agreeing with her once I worked out in my mind what tires might taste like.

At the end of the day, tasting tea is fun. The above method may seem like a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it the steps go quickly, and you will find yourself opening your senses to the colors, smells, and tastes of the world. If you’re a coffee drinker, perhaps you can use a similar observation method for your brews, or even compare a light coffee to a strong tea. The possibilities are endless. Hopefully you’ll stay with me on this tea journey.

I do most of my shopping on amazon, so I’ve selected a few items that may help you get started. I haven’t picked any tea from amazon; I have yet to find one that’s actually worth recommending.

Gaiwan link — Moyishi Traditional Gaiwan

A note on the video: I do not own the rights to the video, nor am I affiliated with chinalife or Mei Leaf. I simply enjoy the content they produce.

Screaming in a Chinese Hotel Room

Content warning: adoption, unhealthy relationships, drugs

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

By: Lisa See

Before I go into my review, let me give a little bit of background about myself, which might help you all understand my reaction to the The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. Never a fan of coffee, I grew up drinking tea. Because tea leaves are somewhat expensive in the United States (and they weren’t readily available where I lived until recently), I learned to settle for teabags. Later, around my second year in university, I happened upon the Tianshan Tea City in Shanghai, China. I returned every week during the winter break, and every month during the following semester, learning how to brew tea from a gaiwan (a bowl-like tool for brewing tea) and tasting the differences between types of tea. I left China for about a year after that, and my tea education stagnated. When I returned, I picked up where I left off, this time to learn as much as I can before I had to leave again. Slowly, I’ve been differentiating not just between types of tea, but between different blends of a single type. Just before coming across The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, I started to experiment with pu’er tea.

I picked up my first Lisa See novel, Shanghai Girls, in high school, and read it over the course of a weekend. Ever since, See has been one of my favorite authors, and she may or may not have influenced my eventual decision to study in China (even I’m not sure at this point). When I learned The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane was up for grabs on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read it. Fortunately, I was selected as a pre-reader, and I honestly can’t recommend the book enough.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is primarily about Li-yan, an Akha (a particular Chinese minority; China has 55 ethnic minorities) girl from a tribe on Nannuo Mountain. The mountain is now well-known for its pu’er tea, but during the beginning of the story, the people on the mountain had no idea what pu’er is, and the type of tea was itself relatively unknown. As a result, Akha people live in poverty. Their families and their spiritual traditions are all they have (that and a plot of land allotted by the Chinese government). In the beginning of the novel, Li-yan expressed doubt about her tribe’s traditions. When I first started reading, I really thought the novel was going to be about a girl who stops living by her cultural rules and moves to the west to sell her culture as a commodity. I’m so glad The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane didn’t go in that direction.

In Akha tradition, each action can result and either bad or good fortune. As Li-yan goes through life, she tries to understand what is happening to her based on the way she has behaved in the past. The book focuses not only her life, but also on the growth and production of pu’er tea. A less-skilled author might have handled these sections dryly, but See writes them in such a way that they seamlessly flow into the pace of the novel. As a tea nerd, I especially enjoyed this information, but even those who don’t drink tea will learn a lot about it from reading this book.

At one point–and I can’t say when or why without including a spoiler– the novel branches off into a substory, with its own characters. One of the characters in the sub-story has something to do with a couple characters in the main story, but otherwise the storylines remain completely separate. Despite the difficulty of juggling two completely different plots, Lisa See manages to pull it off. She avoids inconsistencies while giving characters depth. She made me truly care about each of the two main characters, and I also formed opinions about some of the supporting characters. See’s superb writing style, quick pace, and excellent word choice kept my eyes glued to the book. I went to read a chapter before bed and before I knew it I had read three.

The only criticism I have about The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is the way it ended. Throughout the entire novel, I found myself surprised by what happened next (at one point, I was whisper-screaming, “NO, NO, OH MY GOD, NO!” in my hotel room. I’m so glad I was alone), but the last few pages or so were too predictable. I suspect this happened because See wanted to quickly wrap up the loose ends, but because of the way the novel ended, it would have been nice to have experienced a little bit more of the emotional atmosphere for the two main characters. I actually would have preferred to hear about the events from Li-yan’s perspective as well as the other character. As it is, I didn’t feel like the novel had a tight ending. I actually even flipped the page after the last sentence expecting to find another chapter.

That being said, the rest of the novel is fantastic. Of the 384 pages, only the 2 of them disappointed me. Fans of Lisa See will surely enjoy her latest book. For those who haven’t yet read anything by the author, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, is an excellent starting point.

Find the book on Amazon | Goodreads

A Try-Hard Attempt to Write a Heart-Wrenching Memoir

Good Children of the Flower
By: Hong Ying

I’d never heard of Hong Ying before Good Children of the Flower appeared on my NetGalley dashboard, but the prospect of reading an author who was not a white male from Europe or the US excited me. After a quick Google search, I realized Hong Ying is quite popular. I was hoping to be able to add another book to my “books about China written by Chinese people” list. Unfortunately, this book was a complete dud. The pace was slow and the language, while easy to understand, did more to harm the novel than help it. At times Hong Ying uses precise descriptors and apt metaphors, but the overall language was so plain that I found myself bored.

I’m a little leery of speaking about the use of language in Good Children of the Flower because I recognize that I read it in translation. Only the most masterful translators can reproduce a work in a different language while maintaining the strength and artistry of the original novel. I’ve never read anything else these translators have worked on (not that I’m aware of anyway) so I can’t tell whether the translation is bad or whether the original is bad. I find it extremely hard to believe that such a critically-acclaimed author would turn out such underwhelming prose and overwrought narrative structure. Just when I began to fall into the flow of the narrative (which is mostly told in layers of flashback), Hong Ying will shatter the illusion with phrases like “All right, now, let me start over and tidy up my thoughts” (201). The “thoughts” she is referring to were not all that messy, and certainly not so disorganized that they needed to be laid out again.

Because Good Children of the Flower is a memoir, I won’t comment on the actual plot of the novel other than to say the pacing was painfully slow. I fought my instinct to put the book in hopes that my efforts would be rewarded. I was sorely disappointed. Frankly, the story could have been told start-to-finish in about 100 pages. I gather from the novel that Hong Ying wanted to pay tribute to her late mother by highlighting both the suffering her mother endured during the political tumult of the 1900s and the sacrifices she made in an attempt to keep her family alive and together. I tried not to judge Hong Ying and her siblings for their actions, but Hong Ying herself admits that she and her siblings vastly underappreciated their mother. She even hints that she and her siblings expedited her mother’s passing (that’s not a spoiler, you’ll think it yourself by the time you reach that point in the novel). I had a very hard time understanding her family members’ motivations throughout the story. Perhaps Hong Ying herself does not fully understand them either, which is fair. I came away with the impression that self-interest was more important than family togetherness for the majority of their lives.

Without the unnecessary detours into Hong Ying’s life, (every now and then it seems like she is bragging about her numerous awards and ruminating upon the place of marriage in her life, though neither subject holds any importance in the grand scheme of the novel) Good Children of the Flower would be a pretty decent illustration of some of the horrors common people faced during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. I found myself cringing and on the verge of tears when I read what her mother went through. While some would argue that my mild emotional involvement is a testament to good writing, in this case the tears came because I was disgusted that one human being could be so cruel to another human being, not because the writing was particularly good.

Considering Hong Ying’s worldwide fame, I’ll give her another chance. In general, if I don’t like something, and it’s not harmful, I’ll try it again to be certain I really don’t like it. The rule mostly applies to food, and is a habit I picked up from a classmate. My plan is to eventually read the internationally-renowned Daughter of the River and/or one of her books set in Shanghai. As for Good Children of the Flower, I most likely won’t be reading it again, and I certainly won’t recommend it to anyone else. Reading it was such a chore and the end result so poor that I’m glad I received the book for free from NetGalley in exchange for a review. I would be quite upset if I’d wasted my money.

South China Morning Blues

South China Morning Blues
By: Ray Hecht

I received and ARC copy of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I had a serious love/hate relationship with this book.

I’m issuing a tepid recommendation of South China Morning Blues.

To be honest, I was a bit confused by this book, and within 30 pages (the number of pages I commit to before deciding to give up on a book) I had taken offense and was ready to quit. As someone who has lived in Shanghai for a few years and who has grown quite fond of China and Chinese culture, the complaints about and blatant disrespect towards China and its people really turned me off. Upon opening the book the reader is assaulted with foul attitudes. To make matters worse, this book is drenched in licentious behavior, which is the last thing I wanted to read about just after Ramadan, and is something I try to avoid in general. When I agree to read and review a book, I generally try to read it cover to cover unless it’s a really terrible book. South China Morning Blues, while irksome in the beginning, had just enough intrigues to keep me reading.

South China Morning Blues is actually three separate books, with separate plots and characters that don’t mix until the third book (actually, there may have been some mixing partway through the second book). At times I had a hard time keeping track of the characters and figuring out their relationships with one another. In this respect, those who can’t read Chinese would benefit from keeping the Dramatis Personae on hand. Bookmark the page and keep returning to it if you have too. Even with the ability to remember who was whom based on the Chinese, I still got lost from time to time.

Despite the difficulty of creating and developing 12 different characters, Hecht manages the task fairly well. Hecht doesn’t attempt to create twelve fully-fledged characters. Rather, he allows secondary personalities to be involved on the story while heavily leaning on the main actors. He doesn’t arbitrarily focus on characters. Instead, he develops the lesser characters only as instruments to further the plot of the novel. The plot of the novel kept my interested. I was genuinely curious as to what would happen next. At times, I was disappointed because I knew exactly what was coming, but there were moments when the turn of events actually surprised me.

Throughout the novel there are a few instances of forced symbolism (I won’t include them here so as to avoid turning people’s subconsciouses towards them), and I was a little irritated by the stereotypical characters. I must admit, though, that part of my irritation stemmed from being well-acquainted with the stereotypes presented: alcoholic writers, unqualified stoner English teachers, and lewd business men. The gratuitous sex scenes definitely hindered the novel. For the most part, the plot could have been advanced without them. On the same token, South China Morning Blues would have been an entirely different novel had the characters been chaste. I came to accept the sex as part of the characters’ personalities. The female characters struck me as overly needy in their desire for sex, but at least they usually took matters into their own hands. They were the predators rather than the prey (but the women let the men believe the men were in charge, which I found to be a hilariously accurate depiction of life in general).

While I’m not in love with the book, it was a good, light read. The word choice is neither too simple nor unnecessarily complicated. My surprise at some of the events in the novel is the reason I gave it such a high rating; towards the end I felt sorry for some of the characters I initially hated. Eliciting such a reaction shows craftiness on Hecht’s part. South China Morning Blues is a novel I might read again some time in the distant future, but it’s not something I’d keep on my favorites shelf.

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