The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

When A-ma first introduces Li-yan to the ancestral tea grove, Li-yan is unimpressed and disappointed: She sees no value in old trees that are so hard to reach. She even feels embarrassed that this tea grove will be her only dowry when she gets married. However, as Li-yan grows older, she begins to see her tea grove as a safe haven where she can reconnect with her ancestors and replenish her physical and emotional resources. With time, where Li-yan once saw uselessness and humiliation, she starts to see strength and dignity. Moreover, the tea grove acquires special significance for her when she gives birth to her daughter under the mother tree. Since then, the tree grove becomes her connection with the past as well as future generations.

A part of traditional Akha clothing, a headdress signifies Akha pride. When Li-yan is widowed, according to Akha Law, she must burn her wedding clothes and her headdress. This makes her feel disconnected from her culture, and her sense of belonging renews only when Jin, while proposing to her, gives her a gift from her mother: a newly decorated headdress. Apart from this, it is through a headdress that Li-yan recognizes Deh-ja on the steps of the Social Welfare Institute. The fact that Deh-ja, despite her extreme poverty and hardships, has not sold her headdress, testifies how much she values it. For Deh-ja, who is a devoted Akha, selling her headdress would equal losing her dignity, and she holds on to it even in the hardest of circumstances.