TBNT S07E02 | The Fox Wife with Yangsze Choo

Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, or life force, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Hello booknerds! 

We're so excited to share our interview with the fabulous Yangsze Choo on her new book The Fox Wife! It has a bit of everything; spirits, mystery, vengence, longing, all the good stuff! 

We really enjoyed this book and we got to talk to Yangsze (thank you Definitely Books) about it. Listen on about a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection.

Cheers!

Episode Transcript

(00:13):
Okay, hello friends and book lovers. You are listening to two book nets
talking with me Haney Ahma and DianaYong. And today we have a trick
for you because Yng Zichu is beamingin from America to talk to us about
her latest book, The Fox Wife. Diana, why do you think of
this book and tell our listeners whatit is about before we get into the

(00:35):
interview. Okay, So, asyou probably guess from the title, this
book deals with the fox mythology,which is really I did not realize how
endemic it is all over the entiretyof like you know, East Asia,
right, And that's one of thereasons why this book is quite far ranging.

(00:56):
Actually, it goes all the wayfrom China. It has people from
Manchuria, it has people it doesn'tgo into Korea, but it goes all
the way to Japan. So yeah, let me just give you a little
bit of rundown. So the storyopens in Manchuria in nineteen oh eight,
in the last years of the dyingQing Empire. A courtisan is found frozen

(01:18):
in a doorway. So her deathis clouded by rumors of foxes, who
are believed to lower people by transformingthemselves into beautiful women and handsome men.
Bao, a detective with an uncannyability to snip out the truth, is
hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Boo has been intrigued
by the fox gods, yet thatremained tatalizingly out of reach until perhaps now.

(01:45):
And Meanwhile, a family who ownsa famous Chinese medicine shop can cure
ailments, but can't escape the cursethat afflicts them. Their elder sons die
before their twenty fourth birthdays. Whena disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their
household, the family's luck seems tochange, or does it. Snow is

(02:07):
herself a creature of many secrets,but most of all, she's a mother
seeking vengeance for her lost child.Hunting a murderer, she will follow the
trail from northern China to Japan,while Boo follows doggedly behind. Navigating the
myths and misconceptions of fox spirits.Both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends

(02:28):
and new foes, even as moredeaths occur. So are you folks intrigued?
Yet? It's about fox people,and it's got a mystery, and
yes, and the setting is veryromantic and sweeping and oh my god,
yng Zi too has done some seriousresearch, hasn't she, Diana? I
mean, like the conversation is prettycool. Yeah, you want to listen

(02:53):
into this one. All right,let's get to it. Hello, Yangxy
too. Now we are today ontees talking where I joined all they were

(03:13):
from America. Sorry, I'm justnot talking very well at ninety am in
the morning. Hi yang Zy,how are you. How it's been a
while, it has and thank youso much for having me. It is
such a pleasure to see you guysagain. Indeed, how is your Chinese
New Year? It was busy becausemy book launch actually came out this week,

(03:36):
so the book launched worldwide and Ihad a book event last night and
pub week is always busy. Butin between I did have time to cook
a meal, randomly put up decorations, so that did what I could in
between. How about you guys?Oh well, I think it's a weird

(03:59):
tradition that I I sort of likeaccidentally started, So now I have to
make a a I made a dragonpinata and like, yeah, it's just
one of those silly things that youdo during Chinese New Year? Is it
that I think that sounds like fun? Actually that's fun. Yeah, your
book just launched. Congratulations, Thankyou so much for writing this book.
It was a pleasure to read.And I don't know, I mean like

(04:23):
the fox mythology. Okay, Sofor those of you who's listening in who
don't know what we're talking about,yang Ze choose new book is called The
Fox Wife. As you can probablyguess from the title, it's based on
the fox mythology. Maybe give usa little bit of a rundown of what
the book is about. Yan Ze, once again, thank you for having
me. It's so lovely and Iespecially ever warm place in my heart from

(04:46):
Malaysian readers and listeners. So itmakes me very happy that you enjoyed the
book. You know, this novelis about foxes. And when I first
started writing it, my editor said, is this a book about talking animals?
And that like autorship down and Iwas like, no, no,
no, it's about foxes who looklike people. So but the mythology the

(05:12):
fox, which is actually comes froma very ancient religion or fox cult,
probably with animistic roots, that beganin northern China and spread to Korea and
Japan as well, and you probablyknow about this too, But it is
the idea that foxes are shape shiftersand that they can turn themselves into very

(05:33):
attractive people. So Chinese literature isfull of stories of these tricky foxes who
usually come along and disturb people andyou know, steal things from them.
Sometimes they kill them and get upto all sorts of mischief. And when
I was a child, I reada lot of stories by Porson Li and

(05:56):
he, you know, he collectedabout five hundredes in this anthology called The
Outrategy, and then mostly stories aboutghosts and foxes and flower spirits. And
when I was a kid, Iread them and I was enthralled. I
also thought, what are these creatures? Why do they always come around and

(06:17):
bother humans? And what is itlike from their perspective? So when I
started writing The Fox Wife, itreally began as an exercise in wondering what
was on the other side of thedoor at night. This story usually ends

(06:40):
with a ship shifting fox walked todeath or skewed by an angry mob.
It shouldn't happen, however, ifyou're careful, most foxes are how else
could we survive for hundreds of years. The fox in that they was reedy
and stupid, reading the rest ofus a bad repetition. Foxes, people

(07:02):
say, are wicked women. Evenin a best of times, it isn't
easy for someone like me to makea living. To catch a train from
then to Dhalian, for example,I had to make my way out of
the grasslands of catering. The firstday was the hardest, as I required
clothing. I ended up dragging apeasants blouse and cotton trousers of a washing

(07:25):
line. A virtuous fox should notsteal, but I needed the clothes desperately.
Appearing by the roadside as a nakedyoung woman is just asking for trouble.
I exist as either a small cannatewith thick fur, pointed ears and
neat black feet, or a youngwoman. Neither assaye forms in a world

(07:48):
run by men. Frankie, I'dprefer to look like someone's grandmother. That
would at least give me some dignityappropriate to my years, which leads me
to note in my diary that thoughmost tales focus on the beautiful female foxes
who live by devouring chi or lifeforce, little is said about the males.

(08:11):
Women who run around willfully doing whateverthey please are bound to be censured.
A handsome cunning man, it's adifferent metha. Most male foxes are
only forced to retire or fake thethere's when their uncanny age just looks start
to disturb people. Don't get mestarted on the unfairness of this. I

(08:33):
generally avoid males of my own race. I think this is my favorite of
your books. Really. Oh well, you know, every time I read
I think I read all your books, So every time I read a new
one, I'm like, oh,I really like this one. So I

(08:54):
really enjoyed it because I love thefox mythology. I love ship shifting mythology.
Would you be able to recall thefirst story that you ever read that
had fox people starring in it?You know what I mean? Like,
what was the seed? What wasthe seed that later on became the fox
wife? Well, first of all, I have to say thank you so
much. I am so glad thatyou liked it. And I you know,

(09:16):
as I write each book, everynew book is my favorite book,
and so as we go along,and it made me really happy that you
enjoyed it. Of course, writinga book is a long and lonely process.
So it's sort of like you spentthree or four years by yourself,
and then at the end of ityou produce something with great trepidation. You
show it to your agent and youreditor and you think like, maybe what

(09:37):
is this. Maybe I've written somethingterrible, Maybe nobody wants to read about
this. So it really warms myheart that you enjoyed it. And in
terms of the first story, youknow, I don't think I can remember
the first story, but all Foxstories are very similar, and as you've
probably noticed in the novel, Ibegan the book the very first. After

(10:00):
the book begins, like many ofthese stories, late one night, a
scholar is studying for the Imperial examswhen there's a knock on the door and
a beautifum comes in, and lateron he discovers, of course, that
she's not human, which raises allkinds of questions like what is a story
about? It is also a verymale centric story. In fact, all

(10:22):
the stories are. They're all aboutpoor Suling himself was a failed scholar.
He never did well in the Imperialexams. And I sometimes, as the
Fox says in the novel, shesays, I laugh at these stories because
they're clearly the fantasies of some guy. So I thought I was very amusing

(10:46):
they do follow this pattern. Andto go back to your earlier question,
it did make me wonder, whatis what is it like for the other
person and on the other side ofthis equation, you know, when you
look at it from a male dominatedsociety, really the idea of the beautiful,
seductive fox woman or ghost, theidea is that she can be conquered

(11:13):
by marriage. So they all marrythese women or turn them into concubines.
They their sons, who then goon to do well in the exams.
I was like, what is withthis exam exam mindset? But this is
it was. I just thought itwas very interesting. So there's a lot
of the fox law that you putin to your story. I think I

(11:37):
had never read a book that actuallyleans so much into a lot of the
mythology, a lot of the law. You actually bring the whole history of
it, the whole the way thatthe fox mythology is actually infused into Chinese
culture, which is something that Ithink is not really very much explored in
a lot of books. So howmuch of it is actually something that comes

(12:01):
from the actual law, the actualtradition, and how much of it is
your own. Addition, one ofthe wonderful things about writing fiction is that
you can spend all your time doingquote unquote research, which is just your
hobbies. So if you actually lovereading about foxes, and I spent a
long time not only reading what thereare actually historical documents of purported encounters,

(12:28):
first person encounters with foxes which werewritten down, and that makes you go
ooh, you know, what dopeople say, et cetera. And also
besides that, looking into what madeup the religion, what is the cult
of the fox? And really thereis so much that I'm just bursting to
tell you. You might have tostop me. It might be like stop

(12:50):
talking about foxes, but it issuper interesting. You know, the cult
of the fox might originally have beenlike a harvest religion. You know,
the foxes were also thought to becompanions of the Queen Mother of Heaven,
but that was before she became sortof part of the Buddhist pantheon. It

(13:11):
is also possible that she was afertility goddess before and the foxes were sort
of her attendants or messengers. Andyou see in old writings. There is
this push and Paul, there isthis dichotomy in which the foxes are both
revered and feared. You know,there is also in northern China the worship

(13:35):
of foxes was actually suppressed during theCommunist time because it was considered folk religion
or superstition. But I did readthat there were many times or places where
there were temples where you might havestatues to the Buddha and then behind them
a very small old statue to afox. So these old beliefs do linger

(13:58):
in these places. There's a wholeother thing about mediums like fox omedias.
I'll just stop here before we goon. But I thought that was super
interesting as well, because then youhave people, mostly women, mostly young
women, who claim to speak forthe gods. And once again it does
raise the question of who is gainingpower and influence through this, because if

(14:24):
you're a young woman, historically youhad very little say, you know,
but if you said that you werepossessed by the god, then perhaps your
mother in law might have to listento you. So I thought that was
also really interesting. We foxes havean appearance that elicits strong emotions from humans.

(14:54):
It's the same quality that leads usto be trapped in boxes or put
to death. When the old lady'seyes widened when she saw me, I
immediately felt alarmed. Northeast China isfull of villagers who still worship at Fox
Shrine's consult mediums who claim to channelFox's spirits and invoke exhauss to drive them

(15:16):
out. It's a love hate relationship. Foxes used to be conceited, sacred,
but where once we were revered,were now reviled as seductive tricksters.
For all intents, my prospective employerresembled your average granny, small, upright,
and rather sweet, despite her daughterin law's characterization of her as speaking.

(15:41):
But I knew better. That lookin her eyes, the surprise and
half recognition made my ears tingle.It was the look of a believer,
some one who had encountered one ofus before, though she might not realize
it herself. Madam said the elderlymaid servant, this is the young woman.
The old lady tilted her head comecloser into the light. She had

(16:04):
a quiet, reasonable voice, allthe more reason to be careful since she
didn't sound crazy crazy. By theway, it's helpful for us people who
act like madmen are seldom believed.The term crazy like a fox is something
we're quite proud of. I kindof feel that you can probably write an

(16:30):
entire anthology of fox people and thefox cult and women who are possessed by
foxes. Okay, since we weretalking about that, the cult of the
fox, the fact that people stilldo, to a certain extent, ask
for boons from them, sort ofworship them, leave them food like little
bits of tofu for them. Solet's talk about your character, like,
for instance, Bao, you're oneof your main characters who gets sort of

(16:56):
like a gift perhaps from you know, the fox. You know, like
the fact that he can discern liesfrom people's lips. Can you tell us
a little bit about your character?About Bao and Snow and who are we
meeting in this book? Because they'reboth really compelling. I quite like both
ofda Oh, that makes you veryhappy. And I have to tell you
a secret. I did not planon having Bao. He disappeared when I

(17:21):
was writing chapter two. And Ithink last time we talked, I told
you that I was very bad atplanning so so or outlining things. And
I was writing chapter two when thewords the detective appeared. I hadn't planned
on a detective, and I thought, ooh, okay, let's run with

(17:41):
this. And so when I waswriting about him, it occurred to me
I could see him in my mind'seye. And the book is set in
nineteen oh eight. I myself ama big fan of detective novels. I
was raised on the steady type ofAgatha Christie and I see you guys are
nodding, so probably you guys tooso and it did make me think that

(18:04):
that time around the turn of thecentury was really the golden age of detective
novels, not just in the Westamongst Victorian detective novels, but also in
China and Japan, where there wasan absolute craze for them, and actually
historically there have been a lot ofChinese detective novels. The detective story is

(18:26):
also present historically as a story isAbougong who is this judge? And in
the novel The Fox Wife, Imade a pun so Boo's name is a
reference to Judge Baugon, who solvescrimes. I remember watching like Chinese TV
series when I was young about Justiceat Bako, so it seemed like a

(18:49):
fun way to put him into thebook, and then the whole idea about
I love what you said about agift from the foxes because it is,
you know, you wonder what doyou receive from the gods? Is it
a gift or is it a curse? You know? And for about being
a little bit different from other peoplehasn't always been easy. I also hadn't

(19:17):
planned on him having this gift,but it was actually so much fun to
run with it because I had along time ago I heard this. I
had a report about people's ability tohear things. And nowadays I think that
we live in an increasing the visualworld, especially with screens, and so

(19:37):
vision tends to dominate our senses.But in the past, I think our
senses of smell and hearing were probablya great deal more important. And the
scientific report that I actually heard wasthat people are really able to hear a

(19:57):
great deal from someone's voice, likeyou can judge. They did an experiment
in which when you listen to someonetalking, people were able to guess with
great accuracy like how old they were, what they look like. You know,
a lot of physical characteristic simply fromhearing their voices. And in terms

(20:18):
about I decided to push that furtherand have him be able to hear lies.
And I'm sure that actually all ofyou, both of you you're not
in your heads, have also experiencedthis moment in which someone's talking to you
and you think, I think you'relying, but that's okay, I said,
really, okay, fine, AndI think you know, when my

(20:41):
children are going growing up, Icould definitely kids are actually really bad at
this. I'll be like, Ididn't break this mummy. It found out
by itself, so I didn't eatthat cookie dog ate it. You know.
I just feel like we just werevery social creatures and we can tell.

(21:03):
But sometimes I also feel like itwould be an interesting superpower. I
don't know whether. I don't knowwhether it's a very comfortable one. When
Bob was a child, his oldnanny took him to a fox shrine in
the back of their neighbor's house.It was a god, she told him,
folding his small hand in her roughenedred one. The fox god lived

(21:27):
in a little dark shrine, hardlymore than a box with an open front,
behind the neighbor's house. It wasbuilt some fifty years previously after a
severe illness had almost carried off thegrandfather of that family. He was very
sickly, and him the only son, said his nanny. His mother prayed

(21:48):
to the Husian, the fox spirit, and one night she had a dream
they entered through a small back gate. Apparently his old nanny was in the
habit of visiting the shrine with thetacit permission of the other household's servants.
It led the whole enterprise and airof suppressed mystery. Boo's on household was

(22:11):
strictly confusion. His father would nevercontenance the worship of bees, complaining it
was nothing more than a peasant cull. In northern China, the fox,
hedgehog, whistle, rat, andsnake are considered the woodomen of five great
households, minor gods of wealth andprosperity ridiculous, according to his father,

(22:34):
Why would the wealth spirit slither aroundon its belly or live in dank holes.
Bao had to agree with his logic, though, tagging along with his
nanny that day, he felt afree zone of wonder. Yeah, it
must be really tough. I thinkif you can tell when somebody is lying

(22:57):
to you, you know, andyou can probably abuse that kind of power.
I think, you know which.I think Boo doesn't try it's not
to but he has used it tohis advantage, right. But I think
the fact that you write in bothfirst person and also a third person,
which I thought was interesting as well, because I like the fact that it

(23:18):
starts out with Snow's point of view. She tells you a story. It
begins like a story, and thensuddenly you go to the next chapter,
it completely changes because one's investigative andone's very personal. Is that again,
is this something that you decided todo or it just came about naturally?
Oh you're you know? I Ilove that, And actually I did that

(23:40):
for Night Tiger, and I wasn'tplanning on doing it again, but somehow
I felt like it worked really well. It works because the first person part
of the narrative is first person pasttense, and third person is present,
so I think he brings you,as the reader, to about the same

(24:02):
distance from each point of view,and it also makes it easy to tell
whose chapter you're in. So Iwas always I'm always worried that it will
confuse readers, but I'm glad tohear that so far it hasn't convinced you
that's great. I do. Ireally like it. No, no,

(24:23):
I really like it. I thoughtI thought that it was necessary in a
way because you know, like thedetective's point of view, it has to
be it has to be a littlebit more impersonal, I feel, because
he's meant to be investigating this thissituation and it's not his own life,

(24:45):
you know. But but for Snowit's personal. So we need to know
what it's like for her, becauseyou know, she's the more emotional side
of the story as well, notto say that his story doesn't become emotional
as well. I thought that wasa very interesting way of bringing in of
course, you know, as assomebody who is a little bit more familiar
with the Chinese history of Chinese stories, Baugung story came up, you know

(25:11):
immediately, you know, that wasthe first thing. Oh like, oh
okay, you put that, youput him into it, and how interesting
I really really gravitated to its Snowand you know, could understand exactly how
she was, the way that shewas driven in her in her life,
it's driven in in her quest,you know. And the interesting thing you
did here was you didn't just includeone fox. You included three foxes in

(25:33):
the story. So yeah, andI think I think that's one thing that
is that really like was done sowell. The fact that you know,
in the West, in the Westerntradition, people think of vixen's. Vixen's
is a very well known concept inthe law, right people know, I
mean, it goes back a longtime. But you never think of men

(25:57):
as foxes, and they would bedoing with that kind of seductive power and
that kind of you know, likemischief, chaotic kind of energy. So
is that something that comes from fromthe law or is it something that you
decided to make well, you knowit was both because if you read the
stories, there are stories of malefoxes, there are not so many.

(26:21):
And it also reminded me of youknow, the stories of foxes are always
told from a scholar's point of view. They are very patriarchal. And the
role of the fox in Chinese societyis an interesting one. It is a
creature of the shadows. You know, it is a life, it is
not a ghost, and yet ittakes your cheat, so not neither good

(26:42):
nor bad. Sometimes worship, sometimesfeared, and you know, there is
this really interesting idea that the foxis also like it's a kind of a
like a response to foreigners. Sofox and Chinese literature is is someone who

(27:03):
looks like you but may not behuman, is weirdly attractive, has a
strange smell, you know, anddoes things that don't conform to society.
And I think that really speaks toa kind of basic human reaction to strangers.
You know, people are like this, We're always looking to be what

(27:27):
are the differences. So let's saywe live in a village and then the
people who live on the village onthe other side of the duck pond,
We're like, oh, don't know, we're different. You know, we're
completely different from them. So andpart I think the idea of the fox
is the idea of suspiciously viewing strangersand yet finding them attractive. So I

(27:52):
think I put in the footnotes set, you know, the Chinese character who
for fox is also a homophone foranother old term and name Hall, which
is written differently, which used todenote barbarian. So there is definitely some
connection between foxes and foreigners, andthe attitude towards foxes in the stories is

(28:14):
similar in the sense of the malefoxes are considered dangerous. They come,
they seduce women. When they arecaught, they must be killed in very
gruesome ways, whereas the female foxesare conquered by the scholars in the sense
of they are married, they aremarried, and they are forced to bear
sons. So on a wider range, it really does seem to echo this

(28:37):
kind of eternal conflict. So whenI started writing about it, it is
true that, you know, thebeautiful women, the vixens are the ones
that the male scholars like to writeabout. And I also thought from the
fox's point of view, well,snow thinks, on the one hand,
it's not fair that the male foxesactually can get around a lot better.

(29:00):
Says that a woman with no moneyand no husband will always be questioned,
whereas these guys with no money andjust good looks just keep on doing what
they're doing. So she complains aboutthat as well. And at the same
time, the males are also consideredmore dangerous in by humans. So I

(29:21):
put some of that tension into thenovel, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I don't know why is it aboutAsian supernatural mythology that wants to conquer
women? If you think about itright, like like the Potiana is the
same, right, he put anail in her head and she becomes a
devoted wife, even like in whenyou talk about like Japanese folklore as well

(29:42):
about the snow made that comes andbecomes a devoted wife until you start questioning
all that. But that is arelationship to my question because I did not
grow out with Chinese literature. Butwhat I sort of like saw similarities in
reading Fox Wife is the vampire mythology, the fact that they live very long

(30:03):
lives, that they go wary ofbeing alone. So there's a lot of
I think what I enjoyed in yourbook is this thread of sort of like
melancholy that goes I like kind oflike slightly sad books. You know about
regret, a bit of grief,but also the fact that you can be
this glamorous creature that everybody falls inlove, but lasting relationships are very hard

(30:26):
to form because people die, youknow, It's just like how brief people's
lives are. I guess my questionis that were you sort of like using
that mythology in order to investigate thisidea of loneliness and connection trying to find
that connection right through something Asian becausethese are themes that I always find in

(30:51):
vampire literature, which I read alot of. But I thought that you've
dealt with those issues that I'm alsovery interested in, you, you know,
like, how do you how doyou still feel attracted to somebody?
How do you, you know,keep those kind of like sadness at be
you know, because I'm living solong, you know, I love this

(31:12):
question. You know, I didn'treally think so much about vampires because in
my mind, you know, thefox mythology is fairly strong. But I
do see. I totally see whatyou're getting at, and I love that
for the foxes, though they canbe killed quite easily, you know,
they're always like I could be killed, I could fall off the city wall

(31:33):
and die, you know. Soa lot of the book is spent talking
about the stupid ways in which foxesdie or get killed. But I also
love what you said about melancholy andlove because when I was writing this novel,
you know, I was talking tomy husband and I said, this
is really an old people love story. Most books are. And by the

(31:56):
way, I would self identify nowas being of auntie age. You know,
It's like I am the middle agedAuntie age and I have thought before,
you know, because I've been writinghistorical fiction. And the hard thing
about writing historical fiction if you're writingabout women, there is usually a small
window of time in which a womancan travel, and that is as a

(32:20):
bride, you know, when you'resent away to get married or whatever.
It's much much harder. And thewonderful thing about The Fox Wife is that
the protagonist, Snow is very old, and yet you know, she can
travel, she can move around.She has to deal with the inconveniences of
being viewed as a woman, asbeing vulnerable, but she does have a

(32:43):
lot of like Auntie wisdom or opinionsthat I enjoyed that. And you know,
one of my I think my favoriteJane Austen novel is actually Persuasion,
and that is the one about oldlove's first loves, missed love. And
I feel like when I was writingThe Fox Wife, there are two and

(33:07):
there are two old people love storiesin it, and I hope, I
hope that readers enjoy them. Thereis a special place for the feeling you
get about the first person that youloved, especially if you were separated,
and there's so much nostalgia and yearningand longing in that so I really enjoyed

(33:29):
writing about that. For the spook, the sun was setting, flooding the
street with a bright set light,the color of yellow. For for Scythia
blossoms in the purse, I'd watchedit yield the grasslands. Instead of an

(33:52):
angry goose, I'd held a childin my lap, warm, sleepy,
full of milk and sweet dreams.As when ulis expected that sorrow returns like
a thief still's joy. The achein my chest would never go away,

(34:12):
a hollow, bloody darkness that hadswallowed me for the last two years.
Grass had grown. Unlike child's gravein the far North. I had lain
on top of it every night formonths, in vain hopes of keeping her
warm. It was so cold,and she is so small, lost to
me forever burying my face in thedry class of earth, I thought I'd

(34:37):
die of grief and fury. Butunlike the dead, living creatures recover,
I clung to my vengeance greamly,that thin vein of blood that pulsed and
kept me alive. The man who'dcommission her death was a Manchurian photographer named
back Tu Nikan Yeah I think that'sprobably my favorite element of the story as

(35:06):
well, that that that longing,you know, that yearning that at the
beginning, you you see war asa rage but you but as it goes
along, you realize that as Snowis processing her grief for a child,
for her lost child, which iswhat drives her to to, you know,
to go on this quest, it'smore than that, it's it's also

(35:28):
her because she's such she's such along lived creature, and also she's trying
to figure out, you know,exactly how to get along with in the
society which she knows is very dangerousto her. And that's kind of that
was actually quite an interesting thing tothink about, Like you consider her to
be a dangerous creature, but forher, the world around her, the

(35:49):
human society, is what's dangerous toher. And I actually wanted to talk
about a little bit about how Iwas reminded, like, how do you
talking about vampires? I was remindedof Dracula while I was reading this book,
because it reminded me of this senseof an investigator going to a foreign
place, a foreign situation, andtrying to make sense of this beast and

(36:14):
slowly coming to terms with what thenature of the beast really is, and
I thought that was that was areally interesting way. I ended up thinking
of this book as kind of Draculawritten as a sensia. I don't know
if that sounds weird to you,but that's kind of what I really felt,
because it had all these the elementsthat I really enjoyed as a child

(36:39):
growing up watching these shows, immortalhero shows, you know, Chinese traditional
immortal heroes shows, and but yeah, but having having that kind of investigative
look at it, peeling back thereality of what this creature really is from
what is you know, it's moreof a more a report about what people

(37:02):
believe this to be, but youknow, like not really understanding the creature
and its totality until you actually goon a quest to really understand it.
So, I don't know, doyou think my way of describing it as
Dracula meat Cencia is completely off theback? No? I love it.
I love I love both of yourdescriptions. It is so they're so great,

(37:25):
And I think that's a really funpart about books too. I actually
love talking to readers like you guys, because everyone has a slightly different movie
playing in their head, you know, when they're reading a book. It's
like somebody will have like the Disneymovie and some of the people will have
the Guiermo del Toro movie. Soyou know, it's like and I just

(37:45):
I think it's I think it's reallygreat. It does bring up so many
questions about you know, I youknow, how you were saying, what
is this creature? Right? AndI think when I was writing novel,
when I was writing about the Foxes, one of the things that I did
try to keep in mind was aslightly inhuman quality about them. So there's

(38:08):
a kind of playful animal dizziness aboutthem which makes them different from humans and
in the case of at least oneof the other foxes, completely callous.
So I try to kind of keepthat so that you, as a reader
would feel it that this is notquite a human creature. I mean,

(38:31):
like that character is also I feeltowards the end it's also rather sad,
right, It's like, yes,I mean thematically, I feel all your
books have this element of supernatural andmagic, and you know, and how
it sort of like comes into normallife, how it juxtaposes normal life,

(38:52):
you know, like belief systems andculture. Why do you think this is
something you always go back to,and what can you teach us about being
human? Why do you feel thatthis is this is I mean, this
is sort of like your brand ifyou have a brandy. It's like you
always say something that we sort ofknow about but really kind of go places

(39:15):
with it. And a lot ofit is like Chinese stuff, because when
I was reading Ghost Bride, therewas so many things I did not know
about, the Hungry Ghost Festival andall this kind of stuff. You know,
so and we're tigers as well inNight Tigers, So why do you
think that this is kind of likeyou're over this is your sweet spot?
I think I've always been interested instrange tales, So it's like Handu hantu?

(39:37):
How do Mojadian? You know?Ghost Bright? It's and I think
I thinks might mentioned before. Mymother has always been like, why why
are you writing things? Like whydon't you write something cheerful? But I
think there is something that calls toall of us, like the wonder and
they and the strangeness and the curiosityof what is called in the dark.

(40:00):
And at the same time, Ithink if you don't look at the shadows,
you cannot see the light, andthe eternal question. Perhaps what underlines
many of I think all of mybooks is a question of what is human,
what distinguishes us from beasts? Arewe perhaps the same or sometimes are

(40:21):
we worse? You know? SoI think Night Tiger really talked a lot
about that, and I enjoyed thata great deal. You know. What's
also been I think an inspiration tome all my life is I love animals.
So when I was a little girl, my we didn't have a lot
to read, but my parents hada stack of all national geographic magazines that

(40:45):
they loved around and on rainy days, I would just read and reread them
all the time, and in myhead, I'd still think that I play
that in my head, you know, I think about a lot of things
in sort of animal terms. Sowriting this book wasn't that hard. In

(41:07):
fact, my kids are like,oh boy, mummy, this is one
about animals. Yeah, so,but I do. The other thing is
that I think nowadays we live verymuch in a man made environment. You
know, we seldom go outside,and when you go into the jungle or
the forest and you're alone, there'sno electricity, no buildings, you suddenly

(41:28):
realize that, oh, my goodness, I have a great deal of respect
and maybe fear of the natural world. And we realize that other animals,
even a cat, would probably survivebetter if thrown out into the jungle for
a week then we would. Youknow, we rely on so many things
to make us the all powerful conquerorsof earth. That's actually a really profound

(41:53):
realization, I think. I thinkthat's one of the things that really you
you really have a sense of whenyou when you try and incorporate a lot
of these elements into the world,and it makes you feel a lot of
what we call fantasy. It's justa different way of thinking about the world,
right, It's just a different wayof seeing it and allowing the natural

(42:15):
world to come into and influence theway we behave and yeah, and and
and that's kind of the thing thatI think is so interesting about this book
as well. It's not just ahistorical novel. It's also got all these
elements that kind of makes you feelis this a fantasy or is this magical

(42:36):
realism? You know, it's alittle bit of both. You also have
a murder mystery here again, allthese elements together. Yeah, how do
you bring all these things together andmake it work like this. It wasn't
really hard to gel them together,you know. I, like I said,

(42:57):
I actually wish, I wish Icould outline. The reason I write
so slowly is because I have nooutline. And to me, writing is
kind of like listening to a pieceof music, so you do, things
will go along, and I havea feeling like bump bump bump. Oh,
no, something bad should happen now, dun't dunt, dunt, you
know, And I'm not sure whatthat bad thing is. But unfortunately for

(43:20):
fictional characters, interesting things for thereader are usually like bad things for them,
like falling off a cliff or beingimprisoned for murder. So you know,
so that's I think that's part ofit. This book was also originally
twice the length, and I thinklast time we talked, I confess to

(43:42):
you that I write slowly, andthen the book is usually too long and
I had to cut them, andthis one was the longest yet. Actually
when I finished it, you know, they usually like have a word count,
and so one hundred thousand words iswhat they like for a novel,
and I told my agent, like, this one is two hundred and forty

(44:02):
thousand, and she said, ohmy goodness, She's like, you you
need to cut this far. Ilike, yeah, yeah, I got
to cut it. So it wasactually half the time. It's also spent
cutting. I had to cut entirelike an entire story arc. It was
very painful. I was like,no. And actually, originally you might
have noticed this, but when youlook at the way the book is type

(44:24):
set, it has very wide marginsbecause initially I wanted to put in lots
and lots of stories about foxes,which is fun because of foxes. And
by the way, this is whathappened to my favorite uncle. My favorite
uncle was exploded by a firework,you know, I you know, And
then I realized, wait, wait, footnotes also are in the word coup,

(44:45):
so to get rid of lot this. So somewhere in between that process
of cutting it in half, Ithink it is actually better for the story.
It is tighter, you know,but it is hard to cut.
You know, you meant the detectivenovel. I love detective novels. So
the great thing about writing fiction isthat you can put all your hobbies together,

(45:07):
like ooh, animals, detective novel, some ghosts, yeah, and
historical fiction. So I really enjoyedthat a woman's body found in the snow.

(45:29):
Waves of famine have driven peasants tothe city, where they die in
alleys and freeze in mixshift shelters.Yet this body belonged to a young woman
was neither starving nor ill. Dressas good. The restaurant owner suggested she
was likely a contes sign from thepleasure district. Booked for parties. They

(45:51):
sing, play the chin and bentthe coquettishly as they bore wine. Important
guests choose girls to take home,as do their thesets or afterthoughts. Bow
size recovery runaway women is a businessthat he usually avoids, but this nameless
girl deserves a memorial. Her lightclothes and lack of an overcoat are surprising.

(46:15):
He was freezing that night, gotBow so cold that the snow slid
off the kurftar roofs in powdery drifts. Why did she fall asleep in the
snow in the delirium of happiness.This is why I was saying that you

(46:36):
probably need to do a tiny companionbook to this, where you put all
the footnotes. I would love to, actually, I always and the hard
thing is moving on because I've beentold that you need to write standalone novels
because I don't know. The genreI'm in is like just fiction, so
they prefer standalone. But for everybook, it's been a wrench. It's

(46:58):
very hard for me. I feellike I would really like to write book
two, you know. I youknow, when when Night Tiger ended,
I actually went on and did somemore research and I was planning to write
this whole thing about Singapore. WhenThe Ghost Pride ended, I had actually
another section planned out, called theCourts of Hell, which was a trial
in Hell and there and then myagents that we cannot this is too long,

(47:22):
no no, no, so andfor this novel, The Fox Wife,
well, I don't want to giveanything away, but the end of
the novel, there is a possibilityof going to another country and I totally
wanted to write about that. Istill do so I haven't quite been able
to give that up yet and startworking on my next book. I mean,

(47:43):
it's just the setting as well,right, because you were saying that
this is when detective fiction was reallypopular, but it's also when travel was
very possible. Great change was goingacross East Asia, you know, political
change and there's all these little thingsthat you touch on, right, like
the fact that there's all the studentresistance going on. There's like yeah,

(48:04):
like ideologies are changing people's thoughts areSo I kind of also felt that underneath
the surface, there's all these littlethings that you kind of wanted to touch
on, but you just couldn't becauseyou had to focus it on snow and
you had to focus it on aboutI would, you know, in my
ideal world, I would actually liketo write a serial, you know,
like a monthly installment like the OldDays. So I would really like to

(48:28):
do that because I did a lotof research on things that don't show up
in the book. And I thinkthe issue with historical fiction is that you
have to make it fun for thereader. You can't have these giant info
dumps, like, by the way, Bob, do you remember doing the
War of eighteen seventy three when blahblah, you know, to control yourself.

(48:50):
So but I did do also alot of either In the novel,
which I don't think is a giveaway, one of the characters wants to take
some money and set up a sugarrefinery in Taiwan. So I did a
lot of research on Formosa and thesugar plantation and even the train systems in
the sugar in the sugarcane fields.I was like, I want to write
about that, but then I hadto kind of like stop. But I

(49:13):
think that would be really fun,Like Sheiro's Sugarcane Factory would be extremely entertaining.
That is a good title you needto do. You need to do
little short stories and I'll read it. I can definitely imagine this as a
as a sixty part you know,like Cereal, you know, one of
those Chinese cereals like just Go.People will be completely captivated by this,

(49:37):
you know, because I think itseemed to be like nowadays because of people
are more open to its very big, historical, sweeping sagas and Sugan's coming
out again. I did not knowthey did. They did an entire series
on Shogan, which I remembered asa small kid watching it usually on TV

(49:58):
right with I think it was RichardChamberlain probably, so so there are I
mean, it's like pretty much allcast by Japanese people, right and and
produced. I think there's like ajoint venture and it just looked so epic
and so sweeping, and I'm thinkingthat, Wow, young cie, you've

(50:20):
done so much research. You needto sell a show and get me as
a scriptwriter. So I would loveto do that. It's sure Sugarcane Factory
might be lots like people would endup dead mysteriously in and it can be
slightly detectively, the slightly procedural detectivelybecause I like those kind of stuff as
well. You know, Yeah,all these characters because they're so you know,

(50:46):
they described so beautifully in your inyour novel. I just I just
can't help but think that you probablyhave an idea of the person that you're
basing them on. So it's like, you know, goes bright with seen
that come to the screen. Let'ssay Fox Wife comes to the screen as
well. Who would you cast isyour main characters? You know, I

(51:07):
am such an auntie that I amnot up to date on who the young
actors are, So I I reallydid not have anyone in mind, but
I would love to hear who youguys would like to cast. I don't
know, I had did not thinkabout it. I'll get back to you,
I'll email you, I'll email youa potential dream list. Yeah,

(51:30):
I think that would be that kuroI was imagining as David Henny. So
Daniel Henny. I think his nameis the guy who's in Wheel of Time.
We love Time. He's got thatmysterious you know, like kind of

(51:52):
kind of but yes, no,I mean like there's any number. I
mean, I mean Shiro. Maybea younger hero would have been so cool.
Oh yes, I'm a big fanof him. He's my era.
Well I'm also anti Era, myfriend. So you look somebody, but
somebody, somebody like that, Iwould say, you know, because he's

(52:15):
a charisma. But I don't know. Maybe he's probably a bad boy,
look right, yeah, bad boy. He can probably play that. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I mean Ilove that most of the characters,
basically all the characters that were thatwere working with here are actually middle aged
or much older. This is whyI think you're right. I really love

(52:36):
the fact that this is actually anolder love story in many ways, you
know, because I've always i mean, I've told Diana many times that I
get very tired writing young love storiesbecause that's what they want in scripts.
I just want a good middle ageromance, second chance romance, like full
of regret. I've got lots ofbaggage romance, you know, as opposed

(52:59):
to like, oh, Infatuation ofyouth, because you know I've passed that,
but I have to write those kindof stuff. Let's have some recommendations
from you, if possible, becauseI'm gonna share that one of my favorite

(53:22):
fox stories short stories is by KenLew good Hunting. I don't know whether
you've read that because it goes alittle bit steampunk. Do you have any
recommendations for further reading on fox peopleor ship shifter literature? Do you have
any favorites? Let me think Iactually I've actually just I had an idea

(53:44):
and I can't remember the title ofthis book. It's by Susannah Clark,
who wrote Jonathan Strange and Mister Norriland so collection of her short stories.
It's called Oh the Ladies Are Graceat You, The Ladies are Grace a
You, and in which you know, there is one that I really like.
It's not about shape shifting, butit's I mean, all the stories
about fairies. And it's called Missus. I can't remember. I have to

(54:08):
look it up, but it's misterSimonelli or the Fairy Widower. That is
a great story which is told froman unreliable narrators point of view and his
incursion into the supernatural world. Sothat is that would be something I recommend.

(54:28):
And there are other stories about foxes. They are not quite the same,
but I don't know if you've readGeorge Saunder's novella Fox eight. So
I read that a long time agoin the Guardian, and my heart really
went out for the foxes because they, I mean, really bad things happened
to them and they seem very powerless, and that Fox eight is very naive.

(54:52):
So sad animal stories that that's alwayskind of that's kind of sad.
So how about lately any good booksyou've read lately? We're going into book
net questions now. I mean anythingthat you've read recently that you think,
wow, Like, what's on yourbedside table? What's your reading life?

(55:13):
Okay, right now on my bedsidetable is a book about sandwiches. It's
quite good. It's called I thinkit's called Open Sandwiches Seventy Recipes for Danish
open face sandwiches. And that's whatI've been reading at night. I want

(55:34):
somebody that you read recipe books likenormal books. Like me, I read
recipe books as well. I do. Actually, I love recipe books.
And also, you know, whenI'm writing, and perhaps you feel this
way too. When you're in acreative field, it's very hard to read
other things when you're trying to createsomething. So I do read a lot
of cookbooks. My local public libraryhas I was so excited to find shelves

(55:55):
and shelves of cooking around the world, and so I'll borrow these books of
very complicated dishes which I probably willnever make, like make your own town
dour and oh okay. So butit's just very relaxing to read about.
So that's what's on my nightstand.But I have a book that I read

(56:16):
recently in the last couple of months, which I thought was very good.
Is a Korean novel called Kimji Youngborn nineteen eighty two by Joe Namju.
And you're nodding. Yeah. Itwas a very spare book, as in
short and spare, but it wasvery evocative, I think about women's positions

(56:37):
in contemporary Korean society. It didfeel very very hard. We actually did
an entire gender gender sort of likesyllabus, and that was one of the
books we did. Oh I see, yeah, yeah, so yeah,
and I think she has a newbook out which I haven't read yet.

(56:57):
Oh okay, oh I newly translatedanyway, because some of these books have
been out for a while. It'sjust that they've not been translated to English
yet, right, Yeah, there'salways a lag and any other questions,
Diana, before we let yang Zget on her merry way, a last
blog for your book. Why shouldthey read Fox Wife? Why should you
be in your life? I mean, that's probably more of something that we

(57:21):
could answer really well for people aswell, because I mean I think I
think youang Z might feel like youknow, I put my heart and soul
into it. How can you notsee it? Now? I would say
that Actually, I am always sohonored and grateful that anyone has read my
books all because as a reader myself, there are thousands, probably hundreds of

(57:43):
thousands of really good books out there. So thank you very very much for
reading it. It makes me reallyhappy that you not only read it,
but you enjoyed it, and that'sjust wonderful. Yes, So I'm gonna
I'm gonna plot yan Z's book becauseagain, this is my favorite of her
books, not that her other bookswere not great. I enjoyed all of

(58:04):
them. But it's because it alsohas you know, like as she was
saying, ship shifting, naughty sexyfoxes, it's got a detective story.
It's got a really nice setting toit. Yeah, and it's a little
bit sad, which is what Ilike. And it's a bit cold because
I like cold and slightly said books. It's the mono no aware again,

(58:25):
honey, no no aari. Yes, you know which is you know,
after I was sat in China andJapan, you know, And so it's
so much more than just about foxes. The foxes are the vehicle to examine
the human condition. I'm sure.Maybe just can you just end with a

(58:47):
little bit of your personal feelings aboutwhat you've put into this book, and
you know what it was like writingthis book for you? Well, you
know, it was fun. Thiswas a fun book to write. It
went fast, and as I toldyou, it was twice the length.

(59:08):
But the parts with the fox withsnow really were very entertaining and fun to
write. I felt like, Ithink at the end of the novel,
she says, if I wrote downhalf of what the things the average fox
does in one year, it wouldfill a book from cover to cover,
and I did feel like this wasone of those times in which the narrative

(59:29):
felt like the story would just runaway with her. So I really enjoyed
it. I was it has beena little bit hard for me to move
on from this book. I wouldactually I want to keep writing about it.
So I'm glad that you enjoyed it, and you know, thank you
so much for having me. Ienjoyed it. I was like, do

(59:50):
we really talk for an hour?It's always fun to talk to both of
you. Thank you for having meagain. I wish I was a faster
writer so I could see you guysmore often, but I'm very slow.
Unfortunately. I'll try my best.You can always just come back and it
out with us on books, becauseyou know, you know, it could

(01:00:12):
be three book that's talking. Youknow, it's fine any any at all
sneak peeks on what you're working onat the moment, or is this the
one of those questions that authors reallydo not enjoy if we ask, Well,
no, I am working on something. It's just not very clear to
me why it is. But Iam working on a book about plants.

(01:00:34):
So besides animals, I am anavid gardener. I like plants, and
once again, it's it is aboutlooking at things from a different point of
view. My husband is like,nobody's going to want to read this book,
but it's It's a book about ginSingh, which is like the Chinese
herbal tonic. And it has alwaysweirded me out because it looks like a

(01:00:58):
person. You know, it lookslike a little person. It can live
for you know, people always talkabout finding one hundred year old Ginsing roots
and there is a story which isboth Chinese and Korean. I think about
a changelingk about a child that aGinsing route that appears like a child,
So I'm playing with the equivalent.It's like a mandreate route. It always

(01:01:22):
kind of looks like a child.And then you already have a medicine shop
in fox Wife, so you know, me, that is just a when
we went down to a rabbit holeof medicine, traditional medicine. You know,
that's great because I've always thought,youen in in the West, the
mandrake causes death, like you pullit up and people die because it screams.

(01:01:43):
But in the East, the Ginsingis supposed to be very life giving.
You know, Oh that at thesame time you do pull up a
route, so I don't really knowwhere that's going. This is a very
early sneak peek. And maybe nexttime we talk, I'll be it'll be
a completely different book about I don'tknow, flowers or something. You'd be
like, what about the gin,saying, oh, that didn't work out?

(01:02:06):
We see, but that's I'm sureyou'll find a way to kind of
somehow merge it with whatever is,like, you know, whatever is your
interest at the moment. Okay,Din, know what you think of that
interview. I mean we have basicallygushed and plugged this book. So if

(01:02:30):
you are anyway interested in, youknow, books that have a bit of
like the supernatural, magical realism,shifting sexy Foxes, this would be a
book to pick up. I actuallyreally liked that it has a lot of
the elements that you know, she'svery good at putting you in a timing

(01:02:52):
place, right. She doesn't justtell you the story. It's not just
about, you know, the fantasticalelements of it. Like for example,
Night Tiger, didn't you really havethat really that sense of the place in
while reading that book? And Ithink I think this one does an excellent
job of doing that as well.You know, it just really catapulted me

(01:03:13):
back into those sense of watching theChinese period dramas. The fantasy of it,
yes, it exists, it's it'svery much permeating the whole story,
but it's actually very much set inthe zeitgeist of the of the era as
well, so you get that senseof, you know, the history of

(01:03:34):
what's happened actually happening during that time. You know what people were like,
why there were superstitious about these thekind of things that they believed, and
the kind of things that you know, you know, the whole culture comes
through so well in this book thatI think that, you know, she's
done so much more than write afantasy novel. When people think about fantasy
novels, it's usually about it's aboutthe magic, it's about the natural creatures.

(01:04:00):
Right. The story is about morethan that, and I like that
she's actually she talks a lot aboutthat done. She she talks a lot
about, you know, like thesense of the yearning in the in the
story, and I think to meit was more of a love story more
than anything else. It is amother's love for a child at the beginning
right, and then later on itmoors into something more. Yeah, and

(01:04:24):
also like those ideas when she wastalking about not being able to forget your
first love or the first time thatyou really you know felt those kind of
stories, or even people that youhave actually spent a big part of your
life with, you know, thosememories and those regrets. But what I
always sort of like marvel at howyoung Z writes her books is that she

(01:04:44):
can set it anywhere, like sheyou know, bring you to that place.
But she also keeps her prose quitecontemporary in a way. It's very
easy to read. She she reallydoes, and I felt that, I
mean having read pretty much Goest,Pride and Night, Tiger and Fox Wife.
You know, like with each bookshe just gets better, I think.
So I am really looking forward toher book on Plants on magical Gin

(01:05:11):
saying ship shifting, Jin saying maybe. Yeah, the way that she that
she's she's talking about it, thatsounds like it's such an interesting premise.
I've never thought of a Gin sayingcoming to like change being a person.
Y. Yeah, I mean,like this sounds so interesting. I thought,
Wow, I immediately want to readthat book. Yeah, But this
is the thing right, Like youwrite something that other cultures can kind of

(01:05:34):
relate, but yet you set itvery resolutely in your own culture, in
your own Asian kind of like beliefsystem, right, but yet you can
already see the jumping off points forlike say, the Western reading market.
So she is a very smart woman. Yes, I salute you all right

(01:05:56):
then, So that's our show forthis week or this fortnight. Thanks for
listening. You can always find uson ig at TBND books, Facebook,
to booknet talking, TBNT pod onI guess it's X Now it's no longer
Twitter. We are at booknettalking atgmail dot com if you want to drop
us a hello. Ended with aquote from the book Dina Okay, for

(01:06:19):
all stories have an ending as wellas a beginning, but the beginning is
where you choose to plant your foot, and the ending is only the edge
of one's own knowledge. Wow,so profound. I really like that,
And so this show too must end. Thank you definitely Books for setting up

(01:06:40):
the interview, and young Z toofor answering all our questions and learning us
as usual. You are what areour favorite guests, and we hope we
get to talk to you again,even if it's just about books. Yeah.
So this show is edited by myself, any Ahmad and Stephanie On.
I am your friendly neighborhood book nerdDinah say bye bye until next time everyone,

(01:07:05):
Bye bye bye m