Tea with Milk by Allen Say

Tea with Milk

by Allen Say

Image Credit: Tea with Milk at kirkusreviews.com

1. Bibliography

Say, Allen.  Tea with Milk. New York: Walter Lorraine Books, 1999. ISBN 0395904951

2. Plot Summary

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. 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.  (Summary Credit: Tea with Milk at publishersweekly.com)

3. Critical Analysis

Tea with Milk is a story about accepting one’s own uniqueness. The story has one main character, Mashako (May to her American friends), who struggles with her American identity in her parents’ homeland of Japan. Unlike many identity picture books, the main character is not struggling to fit into American society, but fighting to find her American sense of self in the country of her parents. With no desire to conform to Japanese culture (where she is not received), Masako chooses to claim her individuality by finding a job. However, she is met with an equally trying and belittling position as an elevator girl. When the chance arrives and she is promoted to the store’s guide for foreign businessmen, she is required to wear a kimono for the job. Masako realizes that kimono did not seem so unpleasant now. Her ultimate comfort with the kimono shows that she was not protesting against the cultural symbols of Japan, but the way in which she was forced to accept them.

The setting of most of the story is Japan and you mostly get a sense of the setting through the illustrations. Masako wishes to one day return to America where she wouldn’t have to be such a proper lady and she could get a job or drive a car and nobody would think anything of it, in the end, Masako remains in Japan with her new husband, Joseph. Joseph, who went to an English school, teaches Masako that home isn’t a place or a building, in America or anywhere else, and the two of them accept Japan as their home together. The story shows that home truly is where the heart is and that a sense of home can be made and can’t be taken for granted.

This story has many cultural markers both English (pancakes and red dresses) and Japanese. The main character, Masako, plans to go to college, but her parents become homesick and move the family back to Pre-WWII Japan. She misses her friends and American food. Even though her parents raised her on rice and miso soup, she doesn’t like rice paper windows and sitting on the floor.  Masako is forced to retake high school in Japan so she will learn her own language, how to behave like a proper Japanese lady, write Japanese characters (calligraphy), perform a tea ceremony and arrange flowers. She doesn’t fit in and is ridiculed and called "gaijin" (foreigner). She is forced to wear kimonos and drink green tea straight, even though she prefers milk in her tea. Finally, when a matchmaker is hired to arrange a marriage for Masako, she becomes fed up and rebels against her undesired Japanese inculcation, putting on her flashiest American dress and heading for the city of Osaka to find a job. Because she is a woman, she works bowing and greeting customers, but is soon rewarded for her knowledge of English and promoted to a position of translating and helping foreign customers. There, Masako meets a man named Joseph from Shanghai, who was adopted by English parents - and whose identity is equally torn as hers - and they marry and have a child.

The illustrations of Tea with Milk are calmly bold. The drawing reflects the setting; wood sided house with an American flag in the US and rice paper windows with no furniture in Japan.  The people of Japan reflect the cultures homogeneousness, all with short black hair and almond-shaped eyes, without being stereotyped.  May wears English wear in the US and a kimono in Japan. Most of the time Masako is drawn entirely alone or noticeable uncomfortable with others. Only in the end when she meets her future husband is she drawn to not stand out, and blends in with the rest of the characters. The effect of the drawings makes clear Masako’s remoteness and aloneness.

4. Review Experts

~ALA Notable Children’s Book

~Kirkus Review: “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.”

~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. 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. 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""--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.”

5. Connections

~Gather and read Asian/Pacific American Awards Literature Award (APALA) winning picture books like:

            Phi, Bao. Illustrated by Thi Bui. A Different Pond. ISBN

            Yum, Hyewon. Puddle. ISBN

            Bahk, Jane. Juna’s Jar. ISBN

            Uegaki, Chieri and Qin Leg. Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin. ISBN

            Jiang, Ji-li. Red Kite, Blue Kite. ISBN

~Gather and read other picture books by Allen Say including:

            Grandfather’s Journey. ISBN     9780547076805

            And Dianne Snyder. The Boy of the Three-Year Nap. ISBN 039566957X

Kamishibai Man. ISBN 9780618479542

            Silent Days, Silent Dreams. ISBN 9780545927611

            Tree of Cranes. ISBN 9780545927611

Use with a discussion about immigration

Use with a geography lesson about Japan