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2000s: A girl has to move to Japan with her parents and relearn her own culture and language
Tea with Milk
What you need to know before your trail
At home in San Francisco, May speaks Japanese and the family eats rice and miso soup and drinks green tea. When she visits her friends’ homes, she eats fried chicken and spaghetti. May plans someday to go to college and live in an apartment of her own. But when her family moves back to Japan, she soon feels lost and homesick for America. In Japan everyone calls her by her Japanese name, Masako. She has to wear kimonos and sit on the floor. Poor May is sure that she will never feel at home in this country. Eventually May is expected to marry and a matchmaker is hired. Outraged at the thought, May sets out to find her own way in the big city of Osaka. Allen Say has created a moving tribute to his parents and their path to discovering where home really is.
Travel Guide
Osaka
Tea with milk is a vivid portrait of the formality of Japan, capturing the struggle between two cultures as May strives to live out her own life.
She moves back to Japan after high school as her parents are homesick but she feels wrong and isolated. things are too different and they now call her Masako instead of May. She feels that she’ll never get used to this
She has to learn her own language as even call her gajin which means foreigner She is a foreigner in her own country. How must that feel?
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Tea with Milk
Destination: Osaka Author/Guide: Allen Say Departure Time:2000s
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