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Say, Allen. 1999. TEA WITH MILK. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 9780395904954.
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I had only read one book by Allen Say, GRANDFATHER'S JOURNEY, so I headed off to the largest library in my area to read as many more as I could by this author and illustrator. I found six others, and I spent the morning enjoying myself. He is a fantastic storyteller, in both word and illustration, and I have really fallen in love with his work. I found a wonderful message within each book. I am currently a high school librarian, but I am going to get in touch with the elementary librarian in my district and make her aware, if she is not already, of this fantastic author, and his picture books.
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I picked TEA WITH MILK because I think that it is a book that will appeal to a variety of ages. It is the story of a young Japanese American girl raised in America, but taken back to Japan when she is a young adult. She immediately feels cultural conflicts in everything from the name she prefers, to the food she eats, to the type of schooling that she is subjected to, and worst of all, having a matchmaker pick a husband for her.
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This book is full of contrasts and comparison. She has a Japanese name, but she prefers an Americanized version of it. In America, her parents speak to her in Japanese, but everyone else speaks to her in English. She eats Japanese food at home, with green tea, but at her friend's houses, she eats very American food, and tea with milk and sugar. There are pictures of her wearing a kimono, and also westernized clothing. She speaks perfect English, but when back in Japan, no one at her school will speak to her in English. She is ridiculed and considered a foreigner there. Her parents have her learn traditional Japanese activities for a lady, such as flower arranging, calligraphy, and the tea ceremony. All she really wants to do, though, is go to college, have a job and an apartment, and to be an independent woman. These are activities that she could have pursued in American, but ones that are very difficult to achieve in Japan.
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As told on the last page of this book, this is really the story of Allen Say's mother. It is a beautifully told story of knowing that "home is really where the heart is."
"May, home isn't a place or a building that's ready-made and waiting for you, in America or anywhere else."
"You are right," she said. "I'll have to make it for myself."
"What about us?" Joseph said. "We can do it together."
"Yes," May said, nodding.
"We can start here. We can adopt this country," he said.
"One country is as good as another?" May smiled. "Yes, Joseph, let's make a home."
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Allen Say's illustrations are gorgeous, and they tell the story as much as the words do. The first picture is of a little girl standing straight and tall under an American flag, and the next picture is the same girl grown up, but wearing a kimono, slouching and depressed. The picture of May standing all alone in the school yard is devastating to ponder. This young girl is so lost and forlorn, and she has no one to reach out to. The idea of marrying someone with the help of a matchmaker is truly horrible to her, and the picture of her sitting next to a potential husband is another excellent example of how miserable she is.
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The watercolor paintings are full of details that reflect the cultural conflict that May feels. There is an illustration of her in western clothing walking through a department store, and the other women are dressed in kimonos. May's facial expressions tell the story, and are so well depicted. She finally meets a kindred spirit, a young Chinese banker. They have both had a variety of experiences in their lives, and both of them know what it is to feel cross-cultural conflicts. They are able to help one another to find happiness, and the illustrations of these two characters together are happy and more peaceful, with the illustrations showing contents from both worlds, such as western clothing, but Japanese lanterns or the Kobe harbor lighting the backgrounds.
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The cultural markers are very obvious in the text and the illustrations, but this story can be applied to any character trying to live in two different cultures. The characters are drawn with Japanese features, like dark hair, brownish skin tones, traditional Japanese clothing, depictions of the traditional tea ceremony, and a Japanese flag flying on a building in the city.
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The text contains cultural markers as well, such as:
"Once they arrived in Japan, she felt even worse. Her new home was drafty, with windows made of paper. She had to wear kimonos and sit on floors until her legs went numb. No one called her May, and Masako sounded like someone else's name. There were no more pancakes or omelets, fried chicken or spaghetti. I'll never get used to this place, she thought with a heavy heart." These details do not sound sterotypical to me of the Japanese people. There are actual details here that I was not familiar with, like the windows being covered with paper, or the women sitting on the floor for long periods of time.
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Allen Say is an "insider" writer of the Japanese, and Japanese American culture. He was born in Yokohama, Japan. He came to the United States as a teenager, and he studied art. He lives in San Francisco with his family, and I found mention of San Francisco in some of his books, so again, he writes about what he knows.
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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"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.
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