Module 5 - TEA WITH MILK by Allen Say

Bibliography
Say, Allen. 1999. TEA WITH MILK. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 10- 0395904951

Plot Summary
Masako is a Japanese-American girl who recently graduated from high school and would like to attend college in her hometown of San Francisco, but her parents decide its time to move back to their hometown in Japan.  Masako, or May for short, felt at home in American and like an outsider in Japan, she was homesick for the food and way of life in America.  May struggles with life in conservative Japan and rebels against an arranged marriage.  May decides to leave home and live on her own.  She gets a job as an elevator girl at a department store, a disgrace to her mother, and shows her usefulness as she helps English speakers find their way around.  She meets a young Japanese man who was raised by English foster parents and the become friends.  As their friendship grows they decide what it takes to make a home and choose to create one together.  

Critical Analysis
Say shares the history of his mothers move to Japan and the meeting of his parents in this story that spotlights cultural differences between America and Japan.  May's life in California, the food she ate at friend's houses, the tea she drank with sugar and milk, compared to the foods she ate at home and the plain tea her family drank is just a glimpse of what she is faced with when her family moves to Japan.  Say shows traditional Japanese culture through the lessons May took to learn the customs of her parents homeland.  She learned flower arranging, calligraphy, and the tea ceremony, none of which she had any interest in nor could she see ever needing this knowledge in the future.  May is expected to wear a kimono and sit on the floor with her legs tucked under her for long stretches of time.  She was also expected to submit to a matchmaker finding her a husband.  The reader sees May struggle as she leaves her way of life in America behind and try to find a place for her new life in Japan.  Ultimately, the beliefs and values she learned from her childhood in America push her to live on her own and work to support herself.  The story shows the importance of feeling as if you belong as May's parents move to Japan so they will no longer be foreigners, and May deals with being a foreigner in her parent's country.   

Say's watercolor illustrations are beautifully done and add detail to the Japanese culture the text describes, however they are somewhat dark and a little boring.  The people in the pictures are shown in traditional dress, the women in kimonos or uniforms and the men in business suits with the exception of the man teaching May the tea ceremony who is wearing a robe of some sort.  The people seem to wear traditional hairstyles and are hardly ever smiling; the faces are mostly serious and stern.  Say's illustrations of Osaka paint a modern picture of a city with tall buildings and a department store that could exist anywhere.  The identifying factors within the store are the physical attributes of the customers inside and the clothing of the women.  The illustrations resemble photographs in their realism but do not include many details that young children would find interesting.

Review Excerpts
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."

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."

Connections
Say, Allen. 1993. GRANDFATHER'S JOURNEY. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 10- 0547076800
Say, Allen. 1991. TREE OF CRANES. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 10-054724830X