The Emptiness of the Body

Waited so long for a digital copy of Amanda Lee Koe's 'Sister Snake' (2024) and was so pleased to finally read it.

We all know the story of Chinese Legend of the White Snake — Bai Suzhen and her sister Xiao Qing. In this book set in this era, we have the two sisters Su living in Singapore, and Emerald living in New York City. Su is a white krait and Emerald is a green viper. Both are venomous, of course. 

After eight hundred years of cultivation, they stepped out of West Lake as humans in 1615. Shortly after, they split ways over a human male. Yawn. And out of anger, Su left Emerald for decades before they met again elsewhere. Then they began separate lives and only keeping in minimum contact. Then came today and they reunited in New York and then Singapore.

One is predictably married to a conservative politician with the incumbent government and majority ruling party in Singapore. She's living a sheltered life and wants to keep her head low. The other is living it up as an artist and creative in NYC and not really being too quiet about what her nature is. Su, Suzhen, Emerald, Xiao Qing. The names used in this book are all referring to the same two people.

Su is a planner and has understood the concept of money and has stashed away sufficient funds to last the centuries. Emerald is happy-go-lucky and didn't think she needs it. But she always ends up calling her sister to bail her out from sticky situations. The snakes didn't exactly need human food. They needed the humans' qi, and if they're careful and don't take too much and too fast from one human, said human wouldn't die. Su prefers not to take qi from humans, opting to take from animals. But in New York, she did. It's not as if Su is all innocent. Her nature reared its head. When she went to see Emerald in New York, she killed her sister's sugar daddy Gabe, and also her sister's best friend Bartek. She took all their qi. 

I laughed when the writer included a pregnancy for Su and attributed to parthenogenesis. Her medical scans showed an 'abnormal fetus' that was "completely limbless, without even stunted or irregularly formed stubs. It had only one lung, and where a human had thirty-three vertebrae, this fetus had at least a hundred." When her husband Paul had his doctor friend Wilson do an abortion for her, she lost it. She was enraged that her opinion wasn't consulted, and her views weren't respected. That was the end of it all. She couldn't stem her nature anymore. She murdered Wilson. Then she moved to search out Paul, who was at work. There was a massacre in the Singapore Parliament, while a session was in progress. I was like, is this satire? Hurhurhur. 

Between a third-term checkup and a fertility consultation, Wilson saw the three women who descended upon Su's recovery suite—fashionista taitai snob types—even he had misgivings about whether they were the sort of support network that Su should wake up to. But that was above his pay grade; he'd done his part. 

I honestly didn’t know what to make of this story. To begin with, I’m not a fan of xianxia-contemporary crossover films, dramas or even stories. The ending was expected, but kinda anti-climatic. I can't say I enjoyed this story. The writing is fine, along with character development, but the story and the plot itself aren't arresting. I'm not even going to think about the idea of assimilation, true selves, found family and biological family and sisterly relations. 

I don't see this as a queer novel or about queer characters. To me, it's so normal. It's about society, and everyone lives in it. It's about power-play, respect, individualism and creative outlets of expression. Sure, there's a criticism and such, but every society is different. You can't expect each city to be exactly like the one you want to live in. There is a mantra in this book that repeats and seems to be an anchor for both snakes, although it would have been forgotten periodically, and then dug up again. 

“This body itself is emptiness. Emptiness itself is this body.”

This line is extracted from the Heart Sutra in the scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism. 为《般若波罗蜜多心经里》的 ‘色不異空。空不異色。色即是空，空即是色。’ 

I suppose, on many occasions, we could all do with a bit of meditation on the five Buddhist aspects of human existence, which aren't very different from what all philosophical outlooks speak of — form, feeling, volitions, perceptions, and mind.