The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is my favorite read so far this year. Lisa See takes us into a remote Chinese Mountain Village and shows us life of the Akha people living in a region amidst tea trees in southern China. But for Li-yan that life changes when a stranger appears, a tea buyer, who introduces them to a different way of life. Li-yan is herself already slowly rejecting the Akha customs by going to school and becoming educated. I won't spoil the story by adding any more details and I recommend that you don't read the cover blurb and let the story unravel as you read the novel.

Along with the story, Lisa See introduces the reader to Chinese customs, changes in government policy which affect Li-yan's family and spiritual rituals undertaken. Many of the laws were slow to reach rural mountain villages and it was 15 years before the Akha families found out about the Chinese one-child policy. But the Akha had their own barbaric rules and twins or children born less than perfect were considered rejects and were killed.
The Akha people are very spiritual and very superstitious. Their "week" is twelve days, each one named after an animal. The men must be able to recite their genealogy going back to the first man Sm Mi O (60 generations)

Note: If you're a hosting a book club, I found a delicious recipe for Hummingbird cakes.