Culture 5: Tea with Milk

Bibliography: Say, Allen. 1999. Tea With Milk. Ill. by Allen Say. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 9780395904954

Plot Summary: May's parents decide to return to their homeland, Japan, after she graduates from high school. May does not want to leave the only home she can remember; she wants to attend college in San Francisco. But her parents make her go to Japan with them. She hates her new home. She doesn't like wearing a kimono, she hates sitting on the floor, and Masako, her Japanese name, feels like it belongs to someone else. She has to attend high school all over again so she can learn the language. She decides to go out on her own after a disastrous blind date. She finds a job and rents a room in a rooming house. Eventually she meets a man, Joseph, who also speaks English. They became good friends and went out often. After learning that Joseph had been transferred to another city they decided they would both move there and make a new home for themselves... together.

Critical Analysis (Including Cultural Markers):
Allen Say wrote Tea With Milk to share the experiences his mother had moving from one culture to another. May grew up in the United States, and she dreamed of living in San Francisco and attending college when she graduated from high school. At home, her parents spoke to her in Japanese, called her Ma-chan, and she had rice and miso soup and plain green tea for breakfast. When she was at a friend’s house she would eat pancakes and muffins and drink tea with milk and sugar, and everyone called her May.

Her parents decided to move back to Japan after May graduated from high school. The only home she had ever known was the United States. She did not want to leave. The worst part about it was she would have to attend high school all over again so she could “learn her own language”. She could not make friends with anyone at school. They all called her “gaijin” which means foreigner. She did not like wearing kimonos or “sitting on the floor until her legs went numb”. She never thought she would get used to living in Japan.

Some of the traditional Japanese things her parents subjected her to included flower arranging, calligraphy, and tea ceremony lessons. Her mother told her she needed to be “a proper Japanese lady” who married a man from “a good family”. May did not want to get married. She dreamed of going to college and having an apartment of her own. She went on a date set up by a matchmaker, but she did not like him at all. She left the next morning. Her parents had wanted to come back to Japan because they no longer wanted to be foreigners, but May felt like “a foreigner in her parents’ country”.

May is excited when she finds a department store, and she is thankful her mother made her take calligraphy lessons when she is filling out an application for a job. Her mother thought it was “shameful for ladies to work”. May did not tell her she got a job as an elevator girl. One day she hears a family speaking English, and she becomes very excited. She had to translate what they were looking for, and this opened the opportunity of a new job. She became the store’s guide for businessmen. It is through this new job that she meets the man, Joseph, who would eventually become her husband. After dating for some time, Joseph finds out he is being transferred to another city. He tells May that “home isn’t a place or a building that’s ready-made and waiting for you, in America or anywhere else”. They decide to make a home for themselves together in Yokohama. Allen Say was their first child.

Say is also the illustrator of the story. His watercolors vividly convey May’s emotions as well as the physical features of the Japanese people. Traditional dress is seen on the men and women. Most of the men are wearing business suits and the women are wearing kimonos. Their faces are serious and seldom do you see a smile. There is one illustration of Joseph and May on a date and there is another couple at a different table. It appears as if the woman might be smiling or laughing, but she has her hand covering her mouth possibly to hide her smile. The portrait at the end of the story shows both Joseph and May smiling. This lets the reader know that May is finally happy, and she and Joseph have made a happy home together in Yokohama.


Review Excerpt(s):
From Publishers 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. Raised near San Francisco, Masako (her American friends called her May) is uprooted after high school when her parents return to their Japanese homeland. In addition to repeating high school to learn Japanese, she must learn the arts of a "proper Japanese lady"A flower arranging, calligraphy and the tea ceremony, and is expected to marry well. Declaring "I'd rather have a turtle than a husband," the independent-minded Masako heads for the city of Osaka and gets a job in a department store. With his characteristic subtlety, Say sets off his cultural metaphor from the very start, contrasting the green tea Masako has for breakfast in her home, with the "tea with milk and sugar" she drinks at her friends' houses in America. Later, when she meets a young Japanese businessman who also prefers tea with milk and sugar to green tea, readers will know that she's met her match. Say reveals on the final page that the couple are his parents. Whether the subject is food ("no more pancakes or omelets, fried chicken or spaghetti" in Japan) or the deeper issues of ostracism (her fellow students call Masako "gaijin"A foreigner) and gender expectations, Say provides gentle insights into human nature as well as East-West cultural differences. His exquisite, spare portraits convey emotions that lie close to the surface and flow easily from page to reader: with views of Masako's slumping posture and mask-like face as she dons her first kimono, or alone in the schoolyard, it's easy to sense her dejection. 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. Ages 4-8.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 6-Continuing the story he started in Grandfather's Journey (Houghton, 1993), Say explores familiar themes of cultural connection and disconnection. He focuses on his mother Masako, or May, as she prefers to be called, who, after graduating from high school in California, unwillingly moves with her parents to their native Japan. She is homesick for her native country and misses American food. She rebels against her parents, who force her to repeat high school so that she can learn "her own language"; the other students tease her for being "gaijin" or a foreigner. Masako leaves home and obtains a job in a department store in Osaka, a city that reminds her of her beloved San Francisco. Her knowledge of English quickly makes her a valued employee and brings her into contact with her future husband, Joseph, a Japanese man who was educated at an English boarding school in Shanghai. They decide that together they can make a life anywhere, and choose to remain in Japan. Say's many fans will be thrilled to have another episode in his family saga, which he relates with customary grace and elegance. 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.
Ellen Fader, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR

Connections:
Discussion Questions and Activities:
*Before reading the story- show the students the pictures on pgs. 5 and 7. Have them write a brief description about each picture.
*Masako had to attend high school all over again to learn "her own language". How would you feel if you had to spend another 4 years in school to learn a new language? What challenges would you experience?
*Why do you think Masako "put on the brightest dress she had brought from California" when she left her house for good?
*Look at the picture on pg. 27. Create a short story about the other couple in the picture with a partner. Share it with the class.
*Interview your parent(s) to find out their story. Create a short story about your parents. (Extension- create a digital storybook using FRAMES software.)
Other Books by Allen Say:
*Grandfather's Journey. 1994 Caldecott Medal Winner. ISBN 9780547076805
*Emma's Rug. ISBN 9780618335237
*Kamishibai Man. ISBN 9780618479542
*The Boy in the Garden. ISBN 0547214103
*Tree of Cranes. ISBN 9780547248301