Green Snake, White Snake: discussion on the novel "Sister Snake" by Amanda Lee Kae

"I'm afraid of getting caught. But I'm even more afraid of forgetting who I am to survive."

This post contains spoilers for the book Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Kae

I was only 40% into reading Sister Snake when I paused the audiobook to write my first random thoughts note on my phone. I honestly didn’t expect it to take nearly an hour or for my two sentences to turn into a multi-paragraph break down of my thoughts on the themes. And the more I read of the book, the more I found myself writing until my notes app was filled with what is now going to be the contents of this Substack.

First, let my go ahead and give a summary of the book so that the rest of this essay makes a bit more sense. Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Kae is a contemporary fiction novel (a retelling of the Chinese folktale “The Legend of the White Snake”) that follows two sisters, Su and Emerald. Su leads a privileged and relatively easy as the wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald lives in New York working as a sugar baby and experiencing life on her own terms. But they share a secret: once upon a time they were snakes, living in Tang dynasty China.

Now that secret is their only connection as the two of them live very different lives, however after an a dangerous encounter Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore under false pretenses. As the two of them reconnect Su becomes more and more concerned that Emerald could ruin the life she has built in a city where status quo and following the script are expected.

Sister Snake is witty and clever while handling topics such as queerness, sexism, classism and family. It acts as an unique vehicle for self reflection and insight into some important questions.

How do we choose to navigate life? And how would we choose to navigate an immortal life? Would we choose privileges and prosperity in conformity and assimilation at the cost of our freedom? Would we choose individuality and sense of self at the cost of the guaranteed safety that status quo provides? Would we go against our very nature for the false promises that society gives us, the promise that if we just submit to what is “right” and “normal” we can have it all?

Too many of us believe that we would choose the latter (freedom) when time and time again we prove that we would conform to the wills of those we are desperate to please, for the promises of comfort and ignorance.

Right out of the gate we see that Su fears being anything but human. She wants to be the perfect woman, which to her means being modest, polite, and quiet. She has married well and her husband allows for her to do as she pleases. She wants for nothing and seems content with the world that she has built herself into. But very soon into the novel the sheer curtain of happiness is torn down and we are gifted a painful insight into what Su’s life truly is. The more time we spend in Su’s point of view the more we see that they golden castle she has constructed is nothing more than a gilded cage. Su represents the way that forced assimilation into the boxes of “perfect womanhood” harms everyone, not just the person who is upholding the ideals.

While Su is content to work herself to the bone in order to please her husband even at her own detriment (making herself “age gracefully” despite being an immortal being, keeping up physical appearances, and quieting herself and her values to not upset her husband), she will never be granted the same standards or afforded the same rights as those she is striving to appease. No matter how many time she politely agrees with her husband despite conflicting ideas, no matter how she belittles herself for the benefit of the other high society women, no matter how long she remains perfect she will never be an equal.

Su also views it as her duty to “fix others” even if it means destroying their happiness or identify. She elevates herself as morally superior to those who do not follow the script that she does and in the process actively works against those she deems lesser. Even the people she claims to care about, even the people that she has more in common with than she would care to admit.

Sure she is donning Chanel and Dior, she has a husband who loves this edited version of herself, and she has a veneer of safety. But how can you thrive when that safety is contingent on the repeated destruction and oppression of those around you?

To me, Su’s story of self hatred, denial and desperate attempts to cling to societal acceptance is reflective of so many queer and trans people. The attempt to pass, no matter the cost even if that is to the detriment of self and others. To uphold the values of the wrong people in order to fit into the proper mold.

Meanwhile, Emerald with little wealth or status to her name represents self expression and courage. She knows who she is and refuses to lose sight of that in exchange for power and safety. She would rather spit in the face of authority because she knows that people who enforce authority are the hands of oppressors. She has lived long enough to learn that there is more to life than safety, more to life than conformity. Her life is not perfect and her choices come at a cost (a lack of monetary security, lack of societal power, and sometimes a lack of physical safety) but she is content because she has all that she needs; her friends, her freedom, her nature.

Emerald represents the stories of queer and trans people who find their truth and self worth not in the validation or confines of society but in their chosen community. Emerald surrounds herself with those who support her, who understand her, who love her for what and who she is. Not because she fits into a preconceived idea of who she should be. Does this mean that Emerald is free from pain? No. But it does mean that Emerald is not shackled to the pressures that would restrict her expressions. She is not shackled to who she “should be”.

Su fears being anything other than the perfect human. But there’s no such thing. To be human is to flawed and to live a life that does not move in perfect harmony. She cannot attain this dream of perfection because it does not exist. And I believe that is why Emerald thrives where Su does not. Emerald embraces the imperfections of humanity and the “grossness” (her words) that come of being human. To love, to lose, to hurt and to heal. She would rather experience the whole spectrum of human emotion and life while being true to who she is than to live in a cage that keeps everything “safe”.

In the end, everything that Su strived for was ruined the moment she embraced the one want that reflected her own desires. She wasn’t protected by her husband, her bodily autonomy was stripped away from her in the most sinister way possible, and she was forced to confront the reality as soon as her illusions were shattered. A reality that Su was not ready to face and is punished with. Had it not been for Emerald and Tik, two people that Su’s action and inaction directly impacted, stepping in to save her, Su wouldn’t have survived.

But as Emerald so beautifully puts it:

“What does ‘survival’ mean these days anyway? It’s not just food and shelter, humans have gotten themselves stuck shitless jumping through hoops.”

While Su fears being human and the uncomfortable moments of humanity, and the imperfections that come with being human, Emerald embraces it. All of it. Because humanity is intricate and full of good people even among the bad. And we should not live just to survive, but to experience.