TEA WITH MILK by Allen Say

Say, Allen. Tea With Milk. New York: Houghton Mifflin. 1999.  ISBN 0395904951.

Tea with Milk is a charming and beautifully illustrated story about author Allen Say’s mother, May. It notes her early upbringing in America and details her move back to Japan, her unhappiness there, and her independent move to the city of Osaka.  There she worked as an elevator girl in a large department store and later became a store guide for businessmen because of her superb English.  Her English attracted a businessman that joined the tour three days in a row.  When she questioned him in Japanese, he answered her in English.  His English was superb because of attending an English school in Shanghai.  He asked her to tea and they began a friendship based on how much they missed having English conversations.  They both drank their tea with milk and sugar.  This young businessman, as you would expect, became Allen Say’s father.

This book followed Say’s Caldecott winning Grandfather’s Journey and is no less exquisitely illustrated or endearing.  “The people come to life as authentic and sympathetic characters” (School Library Journal review).  His “detailed drawings featuring Japanese architecture and clothing” (School Library Journal review) establish the markers that assure its cultural authenticity.  Say’s artistic skill allows the reader to see and feel May’s misery at having to wear a kimono, sit on the floor, and endure a date orchestrated by her parents and a hired matchmaker.   The text also fine tunes her misery when she thinks, “I’m a foreigner in my parent’s country”  as villagers stare at her in her scandalous western clothing and call her “gaijin,” (Japanese for foreigner).  When working as an English translator, she muses at the irony that she has to look like a Japanese lady (wear a kimono) to speak English, and bow “as a proper Japanese lady should.”

This story is a great one to share with students to raise awareness that we cannot assume that all Asian Americans feel connected to the land of their heritage. Say establishes in the last line of the book that this all happened “a long time ago,” but I think it would have been helpful to reveal the specific time in history when this took place.  Regardless of the setting, however, Say tells this story with the universal theme that home is where the heart is, and the heart is at home where there is love.