TEA WITH MILK

Say, Allen. Tea with Milk. Library Binding ed. Austin: Houghton Mifflin/Walter Lorraine Books, 1999. ISBN 978-0395-90495-4

PLOT SUMMARY:
The autobiographical story tells the story of Allan Say's parents. His mother, May, a Japanese American moved back to Japan with her parents. She was considered an outsider there and felt she didn't fit in anymore in either America or Japan. May enjoys tea with milk, which was different from native Japanese people. When her parents try to find a match in marriage for her, she leaves to go to bigger city of Osaka. After getting a job in a store as a guide for foreign businessman, May meets a young man named Joseph. He had been to an English school in Shanghai, so they both spoke Japanese and English. He also enjoyed milk in his tea. After they married, Allan Say was their first child.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
Allen Say tells a story from his heart-- the story of his parents and how they met. His mother, May, grew up in America, but moved back to Japan with her parents after high school. Considered a foreigner in Japan, she longs to move back to America. When she travels to the big city of Osaka, she realizes she can be happier here and moves away from her family. She gets a job at a department store as the store's guide for foreign businessmen. When a young man takes her tour three days in a row, May learns that he also speaks English as he went to an English boarding school. They become friends and share their love of tea with milk. When he is transferred, they marry and have their first child, the author and illustrator, Allen Say.

This story is a beautiful way to showcase many things-- feeling like a foreigner in your own country, a beautiful love story, and a strong woman. But the illustrations are what ties the story of competing cultures together. Broad, vivid, watercolored paintings with detailed and vivid details look entirely realistic. Some of the paintings show the characters in California, some in their small hometown in Japan, and others in the larger city of Osaka. The details are incredible. The faces look almost as realistic as photographs, and the architecture of the buildings both inside and out are detailed and authentic. The Japanese culture and people are shown in an authentic way which fits the time period. Within the department store, the differences in cultures are shown with the Japanese people wearing traditional clothes and being somewhat smaller in stature from the foreign Caucasian visitors who are elegantly dressed.

The culture clash that May feels between her two cultures is felt very strongly. The fear and longing in her face is evident, and the facial expressions completely show the depth of feeling in the story. May and her new husband, Joseph, realize that home is in whichever country they make it. They manage to combine their backgrounds, their cultures and heritages, as they say that they spoke English to each other, but Japanese to Allen. May wore a kimono sometimes and she and Joseph always drank their tea with milk and sugar.



REVIEW EXCERPTS:

Library Journal:
This perfect marriage of artwork and text offers readers a window into a different place and time.

Horn Book Guide:
The illustrations capture Masako's unhappiness and also her eventual contentment as she learns to combine two cultures.

School Library Journal:
The pages are filled with detailed drawings featuring Japanese architecture and clothing, and because of the artist's mastery at drawing figures, the people come to life as authentic and sympathetic characters. This is a thoughtful and poignant book that will appeal to a wide range of readers, particularly our nation's many immigrants who grapple with some of the same challenges as May and Joseph, including feeling at home in a place that is not their own.

Publisher's Weekly:
Say's masterfully executed watercolors tell as much of this story about a young woman's challenging transition from America to Japan as his eloquent, economical prose. Through choice words and scrupulously choreographed paintings, Say's story communicates both the heart's yearning for individuality and freedom and how love and friendship can bridge cultural chasms.

CONNECTIONS:

* Ask students about their backgrounds. Are any of the students first generation Americans? Second generation? Did any of their ancestors come through Ellis Island or Angel Island? Have them ask their families for their backgrounds if they don't know. Have students make a family tree. How far back can they trace their family history? Share the family trees with the class.

* Have tea with milk and sugar with the class. Try the tea without milk and sugar. See which ways students like or don't like their tea. Draw a graph or make a Venn Diagram to show how students prefer their tea.

* Ask students if they speak another language at home. If so, do they also speak English at home, or just their native language? Do they have relatives that don't speak English? If so, do the relatives wish to learn English? Students can teach their relatives some English words.

* See if you can find a Japanese class to be pen-pals with your students. If so, compare traditions such as food, clothes, and schooling.

* May's parents hired a matchmaker to find her a husband. Ask students how they would feel if their parents chose their spouse for them. See if students can think of any advantages to this. Ask students to research which cultures still arrange marriages. Research to see the divorce rates of arranged marriages, versus marriages that aren't arranged.