This week I read Black Water Sister by Zen Cho. Cho is a lawyer and science-fiction writer who grew up in Malaysia and currently resides in England. Malaysia is located in Southeast Asia and comprises two regions: Peninsular Malaysia, which is connected to mainland Asia and borders Thailand, and East Malaysia, which contains the states of Sabah and Sarawak, which border Brunei and Indonesia. The country’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.
Cho chooses to write science fiction because it allows her to convey what many Malaysians believe to be truth, but is often categorized as something supernatural by outsiders. Black Water Sister follows the life of Jessamyn, or Jess, a 19 year old recent Harvard graduate. Jess’s parents have decided that they are moving to Malaysia, where her parents grew up and where most of their family live. Her parents call it “moving back”, though Jess has only ever lived in the United States. As she is packing, Jess hears the voice of a ghost for the first time.
The ghost’s attempt to shock Jess fails and instead provides only confusion as it speaks to her in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect spoken in Southeast China and abroad among Chinese people of Hoklo descent. After this incident, Jess begins having vivid dreams about Malaysia every night until they arrive at her aunt’s house in Penang.
I found Jess to be an insightful and likable narrator. Her observations on her parents’ behavior showcase what it’s like to be an immigrant in America, but also what it is like to return home.
When they were living in the U.S. Jess’ father was diagnosed with cancer and lost his job.
Though he is in remission, when they announced they were moving back to Malaysia, Jess had the thought that America had finally broken her father, that “after years of insults, misunderstanding his accent, underrating his abilities, dangling opportunities in front of him only to snatch them away,” her father had lost and America had won.
When Jess observes her parents back amongst their friends she sees that the people she has known for the past nineteen years were not their true, natural selves, that in their home and in their own language, her parents were not introverted and only concerned with working and surviving, but were “confident, gregarious, and witty”. Instead, it was Jess who felt out of place.
It is back among family members that Jess hears the voice again. The ghost claims to be her Ah Ma, or her grandmother. Jess’s mom doesn’t talk about her family, though her mother passed away less than a year ago. Ah Ma says she has unfinished business and cannot pass over unless Jess helps her.
The voice of Ah Ma is arrogant, witty, and provides a bit of a culture-clash for Jess. Ah Ma says that Jess is very “guai”, a term meaning obedient and filial. She has always shown great respect for her parents, but Ah Ma is the first family member she shows anger with and who she talks back to. Ah Ma also reveals that she can inhabit Jess’ body when she sleeps and even have conversations with others that Jess won’t remember.
Jess embarks on Ah Ma’s quest mostly to get rid of her, but also because no one else has been open about her mother’s family and Jess has questions of her own she wants laid to rest.
The main conflict that Ah Ma is invested in is the debated demolition of her local temple. Her son, Jess’ uncle, Ah Ku, is the medium at the temple. Ah Ku and the other temple-goers are fighting businessman and rumored gang boss Ng Chee Hin, who wants to demolish the temple to build luxury apartments.
As Jess gets wrapped up in this war, Ah Ma opens her eyes and her body to the spirit world and Jess uncovers the secrets of her mother’s family. During a chance encounter she meets Ng Wei Sherng, the son of Ng Chee Hin. While they want to become allies, they have different fundamental beliefs. Ng Wei Sherng is his father’s only heir. He is advocating for the temple to be turned into a space that showcases its beauty and keeps it more accessible. He tells Jess that he believes that the “temple is sitting on land worth millions. If you don't find a way to make it profitable, sooner or later it's going to be destroyed…If you want to keep that kind of place around, it needs to work for people now”, even if that means destroying the way it functions currently, as a sacred and spiritual space.
Jess is an interesting protagonist because she is at odds with almost every other character. The ghost of Ah Ma and Ah Ku have their own, secret motivations, she can’t be open with her parents about what’s going on, and the only one close to understanding her, Ng Wei Sherng, is too stuck under his father’s influence.
Though she never appears in the book in person Jess is also fighting with her girlfriend, Sharanya, who is tired of being hidden from Jess’ family and angry that Jess has been pulling away and ignoring her messages since coming to Malaysia.
Jess feels that while her parents are alive she can never tell them the truth about her sexuality.
She tells Sharanya, “they made me, so now I'm in debt and I can never pay it off, no matter what I do. I get to carry this debt for the rest of my life, because I love them, and if I make them unhappy, I’ll know I really am completely useless”. Jess’ conflict with her identity and her parents makes her susceptible to Ah Ma’s tricks and she becomes in over her head.
After being tricked by Ah Ma into luring Sherng into a trap, Jess destroys the shrine the Black Water Sister at the temple. Now Jess is not only fighting against the expectations of her family, girlfriend, and Ah Ma, but she is now in debt to the Goddess.
The introduction of the Black Water Sister sets off a darker tone to the novel and there are trigger warnings for death, violence, and attempted sexual assault. The Goddess sends Jess terrifying dreams and wants her to be her medium to repay her debt. The Goddess chose Jess because of her anger. In order to save herself and to finally put the Black Water Sister to rest, Jess will have to sacrifice her autonomy and give herself over to the forces that be. She learns that “women like the Black Water Sister became gods because their lives were so shitty, their deaths so hideous, that people prayed to them to avert their vengeance. Because they had died with all that fury left to spend”. While men on the other hand became Gods due to their knowledge or power.
In the end, Jess helps the Goddess find peace. She does this for herself as well, and we are left with a feeling of hope. While this novel was pretty middle-of-the-road for me, I really enjoyed the writing style and the way that Cho kept the Malaysian dialect in the translation. It mixed traditional sci-fi elements with a lot of informative knowledge about Malaysian identity, religions, and culture in a way that I think can reach a wide audience.
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