Saving Fish from Drowning

The popular American author Amy Tan published her novel Saving Fish from Drowning in 2005. Purportedly (but fictionally) based on a true story, this novel is structured as a satiric look at American tourists and the culture clash they experience on a trip through China and Burma. Unceasingly self-involved and sure of their own interpretations of their surroundings, the dozen travelers fail to understand or correctly read most of what they encounter. The book is narrated by a ghost who is watching over the group in exasperation, offering continuous color commentary on the pieces of culture, language, and beliefs that the sightseers are misinterpreting.

The title of the novel comes from an old joke: a fisherman tells a friend that it’s wrong to kill, but it's good to save lives. Every morning, he pledges to save 100 fish from drowning by netting them out of the river. The fisherman tries to soothe the fish flopping around on the shore, but they all end up dying, at which point he is free to take them to the marketplace.

The novel begins by explaining that everything we are about to read was dictated to a medium by a ghost through a psychic connection. The ghost used to be Bibi Chen, a 63-year-old San Francisco art collector. Just before she was found dead with her throat cut, she was supposed to lead a group of 12 friends on a tour through Asia. The group decides to continue the planned trip, partially because they can’t get a refund. Group leadership falls to Bennie, a gay man whose partner doesn’t want to come on the tour. As they travel, Bibi’s ghost describes their adventures from her omniscientpoint of view as a snarky and somewhat obnoxious, looks-obsessed woman. Part of what is driving her crazy is her inability to remember how she died, though she suspects murder.

The group’s first stop is China, but because Bibi isn’t there to steer them, the tourists immediately deviate from her carefully structured schedule. None of them has prepared for the trip in advance, and they are basically entirely ignorant of local culture and customs. Their solution to any problem they encounter is to either throw money at the situation or to start blaming each other. They engage in a series of gradually escalating misunderstandings, and finally, Harry, a British dog TV show host, gets the group banned from all Chinese tourist sites by mistaking a shrine for a urinal.

Since there is no more sightseeing to do in China, the group decides to head to Burma earlier than originally scheduled. They find a Burmese tour guide, Walter, who shows them around the typical tourist sites and souvenir markets. At one point, Walter leads them to several boatmen from the isolated Karen tribe. The Karens have been hiding from Burma’s repressive military regime in the hills and have survived by telling stories about a savior who will empower and free them from the brutality of the government. The boatmen are intrigued by the magic tricks they see Rupert, the adventurous teen in the group, doing for fun. Rupert’s magic seems to indicate that he is this savior—a reincarnation of the god Younger White Brother.

Walter introduces the Karen boatmen, Black Spot, Salt, and Fishbones, as the next step of the tourist journey—an exotic voyage to the mountains for a Christmas present surprise. Harry stays behind because he is too hung over to venture out of the hotel, but everyone else goes along with what turns out to be a kidnapping. Led by Black Spot, the Karen take the dozen tourists high into the mountains and then proceed to untie the one rope bridge that leads to the place where they are camped.

For the next week, the tourists enjoy themselves tremendously. Part of the humor comes from the fact that they are entirely unaware that they have been kidnapped and instead perceive the faux-kindness with which they are being treated as what they, as rich tourists, completely deserve. They marvel at the beautiful scenery, get used to eating bugs, and fall ill with malaria.

When they don't return a week later, Harry grows worries and uses his clout and TV celebrity status to alert the media about the disappearance. The highlight of this media attention comes when the tourists watch the news on the village’s TV set and see that they are kidnapping victims.

A few weeks later, the group is found and return home. The experience changes several of them in profound ways. The high-conflict couple Roxanne and Dwight have a longed-for baby and then finally get a divorce, realizing that they are much better as co-parents than as partners. Wendy, a cluelessly die-hard human rights activist, and Wyatt, her shiftless lay-about boyfriend, also separate. Moff, Rupert’s father, gets married to Heidi, an over-packing worrier and general stress case. Harry gets together with Marlena, Bibi’s fellow art patron. And Vera, who runs several foundations, writes a book about bravery and leadership. The Karen tribe also gets something out of the experience: a new Survivor-style show is set in the village. Even Bibi’s ghost gets closure, as she finally realizes that she wasn’t murdered at all. Her throat had been slit when she slipped and fell onto her mother’s comb.

Writing for the AV Club, Tasha Robinson says that "Tan's detailed prose style is strong and her structure is irresistible… Saving Fish from Drowning is intermittently a wickedly wry satire, brimming with insight about how cultures and individuals fail to connect… But hundreds of pages of comparisons between the Americans' arrogant presumptions and the real truth become monotonous.“ Meanwhile, Pascal Khoo Thwe’s review in The Guardian points out that the novel is a frustrating missed opportunity: “The two groups of people meet in the middle of nowhere, but they do not seem to have realistic effects, good or bad, on each other. Their very different ideas exist, but they are never extensively explored.”