Tea with Milk

Borrowed this book from the library to read to my 2-year-old. It was in the children's section. The book has pages full of words on one side, and illustration on pages across (like most books for toddlers). I don't think my toddler understood all of the content, but he seemed to like it all right. An older kid closer to the teen years may understand the content better.

The book is written by Allen Say, and illustrated by him too. It is a story about his parents. His mother was a Japanese girl born in San Francisco. She grew up in America, and did mostly American things. However, she ate Japanese food at home, and American food at her friends' places. When she graduated from high school, her parents were home-sick, and wanted to go back to Japan.

May, or Masako, did not like life in Japan at all. She felt like a foreigner. Her parents arranged a marriage for her, which she resented. She fled to Osaka, another city. Osaka reminded her of San Francisco. She found a job in a department store there, and decided to tell her parents she was going to live on her own. At first, she did not like her job as an elevator girl. Later, her ability to speak English got her a job as the store's guide for foreign businessmen. She felt more useful then. Her new job also gave her a chance to meet her future husband. Her husband's foster parents were English, so he shared a little common ground with May.

Her husband, Joseph, told her this, "May, home isn't a place or a building that's ready-made and waiting for you, in America or anywhere else." They decided to make a home together in Japan. The couple passed on their "tradition" of drinking tea with milk to their son.

The story highlights the dilemma felt by someone who grows up in one culture, being transported to another culture, and expected to embrace that culture. However, the story also shows embracing a culture foreign to oneself, does not mean giving up the culture we grow up with. We just have to learn to embrace the new, while practising the old - like May.