BIBLIOGRAPHY
Say, Allen. 1999. Tea with Milk. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN: 0-395-90495-1
PLOT SUMMARY
Tea with Milk is the story of how Allen Say’s mother meets his father. Masako grew up in San Francisco and has just graduated from high school. Her parents are lonely for their home country and decide to move back to Japan. Masako, or May, as she is called by friends in America, is saddened to leave her home and move so far away. Even though May is of Japanese heritage she is faced with obstacles. Her English language helps her get a job and then she meets Joseph, a Japanese man who was educated in an English school in Singapore. They become friends, fall in love, marry and make Japan their home.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS)
Tea with Milk is a wonderful, easy to read, story of a girl who is forced to make major changes in her life and lifestyle. After graduation, her Japanese parents decided to move to their homeland. Masako has only known San Francisco, California as her home. She has just graduated high school and wants to go to college. This move will not only be upsetting, but a cultural change for Masako. Since she doesn’t speak Japanese her parents enroll her in high school again.
Worst of all, Masako had to attend high school all over again. To learn her own language, her mother had said. She could not make friends with any of the other students; they called her gaijin and laughed at her. Gaijin means “foreigner.” (Say, pg.8)
Her parents enroll her in flower arranging, calligraphy, tea ceremony and high school again. She is being prepared to be a proper Japanese wife. She must wear a kimono and her parents have arranged a matchmaker for her. Masako doesn’t want to learn how to arrange flowers or have someone chose a husband for her. She leaves her parents’ home and makes a trip to Osaka, which is a large city. She applies for a job in a large department store and becomes an elevator girl. By chance she hears her supervisor trying to communicate with an English family. Masako is able to help the English family find what they need since she speaks English. Her supervisor changes her job to tour guide of the department store to help people who do not speak Japanese. Masako (May) meets Joseph who was also educated speaking English and they become friends, and fall in love. Joseph tells her that he has been transferred to Yokohama. He knows that May would like to return to San Francisco.
Joseph tells her,
“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.”
(Say, pg. 30)
This is a story about a young girl who is presented with many challenges. May shows how strong she is by getting a job, blending her Japanese American upbringing with her family’s traditional Japanese heritage and finding the happiness she thought she was losing by moving to Japan. May found Joseph, who also speaks English and drinks his tea with milk and sugar.
Allen Say has presented both cultural markers of American and Japanese by blending them together. The beginning of the book has May eating breakfast of rice, miso soup and plain green tea while her friends have pancakes, muffins, and tea with milk and sugar. May stood on her front porch with the traditional bob haircut and straight bangs of a young Japanese girl with the American flag posted by their front door. The next page shows May, who is now being called Masako, looking very sad in a traditional kimono in her new home in Japan, which is drafty, because of the paper windows. Allen Say now shows how a proper Japanese woman is treated. She must learn flower arranging, calligraphy and the tea ceremony. Her parents hire a matchmaker to find her the perfect husband. With her upbringing in America it is hard for May, Masako, to embrace her parents traditional homeland. Very unhappy, May, dresses in her brightest American dress and goes to the bus station. The Japanese call her a “gaijin” which means foreigner, which she does feel like. The clothing, hair styles and color, facial features, eye color and shapes, and skin color all define the culture of the people from Japan. May’s new home in Japan has paper windows, wooden benches, modest colors and uncluttered decorations. The business men wear suits which is the same for both American and Japanese cultures. When May is not at work she stills dresses in the American way.
Allen Say, the author is also the illustrator. His pictures of watercolor show the story of his mother and father through a loving son’s eyes. This is a wonderful story and an honoring of his parents story.
REVIEW EXCERPTS
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"Aflower arranging, calligraphy and the tea ceremonyAand 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"Aforeigner) 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.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 6-When her Japanese-born parents leave America for their homeland, an independent girl reluctantly follows and melds her experience and her heritage to find a new meaning for the word "home." This perfect marriage of artwork and text offers readers a window into a different place and time. (May)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
In describing how his parents met, Say continues to explore the ways that differing cultures can harmonize; raised near San Francisco and known as May everywhere except at home, where she is Masako, the child who will grow up to be Say's mother becomes a misfit when her family moves back to Japan. Rebelling against attempts to force her into the mold of a traditional Japanese woman, she leaves for Osaka, finds work as a department store translator, and meets Joseph, a Chinese businessman who not only speaks English, but prefers tea with milk and sugar, and persuades her that ``home isn't a place or a building that's ready-made or waiting for you, in America or anywhere else.'' Painted with characteristic control and restraint, Say's illustrations, largely portraits, begin with a sepia view of a sullen child in a kimono, gradually take on distinct, subdued color, and end with a formal shot of the smiling young couple in Western dress. A stately cousin to Ina R. Friedman's How My Parents Learned To Eat (1984), also illustrated by Say. (Picture book. 7-9) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
AWARDS/HONORS
Riverbank Review Book of Distinction
Bulletin Blue Ribbon
SLJ Best Book
ALA Notable Book
Other Book Awards
Caldecott Medal, 1994, Grandfather's Journey
Caldecott Honor Book, 1989, The Boy of the Three Year Nap
ALA Notable Children's Book, 1988, The Boy of the Three Year Nap
Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, 1988, The Boy of the Three Year Nap
New York Times Ten Best Illustrated Children's Books, 1988, A River Dream
Christopher Award, 1985, How My Parents Learned to Eat
Horn Book honor list, 1984, How My Parents Learned to Eat
New York Times Best Illustrated award, 1980, The Lucky Yak
ALA Notable Book and Best Book for Young Adults, both 1979, The Inn-Keeper's Apprentice
CONNECTIONS
This a good book for discussing what it feels like to be homesick and a foreigner. The compare/contrasts could be applied not only to America and Japan but with any student who is new to America. This will also lead to discussions on cultural differences and how both cultures can be blended when living in another country.
Other books by Allen Say:
TREE OF CRANES. ISBN: 039552024
GRANDFATHER’S JOURNEY. ISBN: 0547076800
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