The Drink and Dream Teahouse
A Novel
by Justin Hill
List Price: $13.95
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0316825840
Publisher: Back Bay Books
This acclaimed first novel takes us inside China today; into a land filled with contradictions, humor, drama, and beauty; into the small Chinese town of Shaoyang at a moment when the closing of the state-run Number Two Space Rocket Factory throws the contrasts between old world and new world into stark relief. With its soap-operatic array of compelling and wonderfully eccentric characters, The Drink and Dream Teahouse introduces a fresh and important new voice.
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1. China has the longest continuous written history of any civilization in the world. How do the novel's various characters try to come to terms with their past, present, and future? Which character do you think is the most content with his or her life, and why?
2. What messages do you think the quoted lines of poetry convey?
3. What do you believe is Da Shan's motivation for returning to Shaoyang?
4. Da Shan asks for the family genealogy, which Old Zhu re-fuses to tell him. China in pre-liberation times practiced ancestor worship, and many families are able to trace their ancestors back hundreds or even thousands of years. How do you think being the first people not to know their ancestry would affect Da Shan's generation?
5. How much choice does Liu Bei have in letting Little Dragon go? What do you think of Liu Bei's decision to leave Little Dragon behind?
6. Will Madam Fan's plan to marry Da Shan and Liu Bei succeed? Explain why you think it will or won't.
7. The Drink and Dream Teahouse covers one year in the life of people living in Shaoyang. What do you imagine happens after the book ends? How will the characters' lives change?
8. How does the world of The Drink and Dream Teahouse fit or differ from your mental images of China?
9. Da Shan and Liu Bei were both involved in the democracy movement of 1989 , which culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre. How have their futures diverged, and which has stayed truer to their original patriotic intentions?
10. From the perspective of the book, what did it seem China was like before the Communist Liberation? What hopes do you think people had for a Communist China? How much do you think those hopes were realized? How much improvement do you think capitalism brought the lives of the people, and how much has it returned China to its pre-liberation state?
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"Justin Hill knows China inside out. Every sentence is filled with knowledge, affection, and a poignant sense of loss."
—Washington Post
"Compelling and very moving."
—Time Out
"A minor masterpiece....This is a beautiful book. Reading it is like discovering an early novel by D. H. Lawrence...Hill has all the hallmarks of a major writer."
—Taipei Times
"Hill understands, like Tolstoy, that human nature cannot change along with the times....This is a book of exoticisms, intoxicated by the human landscape of the Far East, a place of firecrackers and lotus roots....A first novel filled with sensual delight."
—Independent on Sunday
