Where Waters Meet

by Zhang Ling

A daughter discovers the dramatic history that shaped her mother’s secret life in an emotional and immersive novel by Zhang Ling, the bestselling author of A Single Swallow.

There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother, Rain, didn’t live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix’s life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain’s unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.

Struggling with the loss, Phoenix comes across her mother’s suitcase—a memory box Rain had brought from home. Inside, Phoenix finds two old photographs and a decorative bottle holding a crystalized powder. Her auntie Mei tells her these missing pieces of her mother’s early life can only be explained when they meet, and so, clutching her mother’s ashes, Phoenix boards a plane for China. What at first seems like a daughter’s quest to uncover a mother’s secrets becomes a startling journey of self-discovery.

Told across decades and continents, Zhang Ling’s exquisite novel is a tale of extraordinary courage and survival. It illuminates the resilience of humanity, the brutalities of life, the secrets we keep and those we share, and the driving forces it takes to survive.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, China, Historical, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club

281 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2023

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

AKA as 张翎 and Ling Zhang

张翎 Zhang Ling is the award-winning author of nine novels and numerous collections of novellas and short stories. Born in China, she moved to Canada in 1986. In the mid-1990s, she began to write and publish fiction in Chinese while working as a clinical audiologist. Since then she has won the Chinese Media Literature Award for Author of the Year, the Grand Prize of Overseas Chinese Literary Award, and Taiwan’s Open Book Award. Among Zhang Ling’s work are Gold Mountain Blues and Aftershock, adapted into China’s first IMAX movie with unprecedented box-office success at the time. from Amazon.com

Reviews

[Ritu Bhathal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where Waters Meet is a heartwrenching story about a daughter and her journey to discovering the truth about her mother's life after her death.
Phoenix, or Yuan Feng, travels from Canada to China in search of answers and peace for her mother, Rain, or Chunyu, from the only living relative left on her mother's side, her mother's sister.
The novel is told in a bit of a disjointed manner, moving back and forward from the present to various times in the past.
It took me a while to realise that the 'past' chapters were based on a manuscript that Phoenix is writing and sending back to her husband, George, in Canada, about her mother's life and her own.
Once I got into the swing of it, I was intrigued.
I wanted to know the secrets of Chunyu. I felt the trauma of a young woman during the war-torn era in China, with the communist regime, facing famine, with a young daughter and a husband who couldn't help due to injuries while in service.
I feel like I wanted to know more from Phoenix about how she felt when hearing about the most shocking parts of her mother's past, which is not revealed until the final quarter of the book, as it is not something any child would expect to hear.
But I was invested in the story and felt the raw emotion of adult Phoenix and the young Chunyu before she could leave China with her daughter.

[Pat Brune · Rating 2 out of 5]

It feels like I should be embarrassed to write a negative review after the trials these women endured, and reading of the awful conditions they lived in during their youths. However, this book was a monumental struggle. I almost closed the covers several times. In some areas the writing is profound, but the majority is difficult to piece together and the book jumps around between time periods without any sense of connection. Moreover several of the characters go by different names, at different times of their lives, even in the same scenarios. Can't quite put my finger on why I feel the need to apologize to someone for not enjoying this book - but there it is.

[Kym Hamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the second half of this where it focuses on Chunyu's life (a 4 star rating), however the lead up to getting to this point felt drawn out and unnecessarily involved in detail. Overall enjoyable enough but a bit of a slog to get to the heart of the story. 3 stars

[S. ≽^•⩊•^≼ I'm not here yet · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Some might call this a lie; others, magic. What’s truth, anyway? Truth is like water, assuming the shape of whatever it flows into."

The story of Phoenix now in Canada, plus another story of younger Phoenix and her mother Rain in China, plus young Rain and her sister before everything... was unexpected, touching, and beautiful.

"That gray, sunless afternoon taught her something the school never had: for everything she wanted, there would be something else she had to give up, as the price."

I wasn't sure about an Asian contemporary novel, but this was a historical drama fiction set in brutal times!

"Don’t people always love the things they hate?"

Thank you Amazon Crossing via NetGalley for DRC. As this book has already been published, I listened to the audio version of it and have given my honest review.

[Nursebookie · Rating 4 out of 5]

TITLE: WHERE WATERS MEET
AUTHOR: ZHANG LING 张翎
PUB DATE: 05.01.2023 Available Now

As a mother, my relationship with my daughter is one I treasure. The bonds we have formed are unbreakable. WHERE WATERS MEET by Zhang Ling is a poignant and immersive story about a mother and daughter relationship, as Phoenix searches for truth about mom Rain and her life before settling in Canada.

I loved reading about Rain (Chunyu) and the suffering she had to endure in war torn communist China. I loved the parts about Rain’s story in the past - it was gripping, and heartbreaking. But what I took from this book is the hope and resilience of strong women as they go through hardships of life, never ever giving up, and always finding ways to make life better for their family.

This was a beautifully told story that had my heart.

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

April’s first read choice

I chose this book as April’s first read, free each month for Amazon Prime members. I enjoyed this story as it unfolds while Phoenix is writing a memoir within it. Very well written with a glimpse of what life was like during the Chinese/Japanese war.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Phoenix (daughter) and Rain (mother) is a messy one, but by the end of the tale's telling you realize in full the depth, breadth and sacrifice that stands there in that story. Fiction it may be, but one knows given the place and time, there were many in real life who experienced something similar along the edges of these particular waters. . .

Of these two women, one is at the final gate - ready to go but with a number of loose ends she cannot articulate specifics or convey her inmost hopes; she lapses in and out of her disease with the regularity of cycling tides. The other woman stands on a cliff edge in her life, ready to toss away all, disappointed and frustration-filled. Her next move changes everything.

Life is messy, full up with reasons to freeze in place - better a messy known than a terrifying unknown. This story speaks directly to such choices.

*A sincere thank you to Zhang Ling, AmazonCrossing, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and independently review.* #WhereWatersMeet #NetGalley

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was difficult for me to follow the back and forth between time periods and characters. Some phrases the author wrote drew me in when I was ready to give up reading. I do respect the author sharing her memoir of her Mother and Aunt and the horrible events they endured.

[Traci Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand why the book was structured the way it was - Phoenix's mother has just passed away, and she's trying to recreate her history in a memoir based on what she remembered, what was in Rain's memory box, and what her Auntie Mei revealed. Auntie Mei wasn't strictly chronological in her stories, so Phoenix didn't get everything in the right order. The book is really two books in one - what's happening "now" with a few flashbacks of how she met her husband, George, and the memoir she's writing. There are emails between Phoenix and George while she's in China interspersed with chunks of the memoir. It's an interesting structure, but since we knew Phoenix wrote the memoir, I couldn't get past wondering how she knew what her mother was thinking at various points or how she even knew what her mother was doing when she wasn't with Phoenix or Mei. Rain hadn't told Phoenix about her youth, then she got Alzheimer's, which closed her off completely.

The language was beautiful - I just wish that the chapters of the past weren't described as Phoenix writing the memoir. That took me out of the story quite a bit.

[Hayley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had so much potential. I actually really liked how it was written, using email correspondences was a unique style I enjoyed reading. But there was just no pay off for how sad this book was.

[Resh · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am going to be so honest here. i read this book literally 4 months ago. so im not going to remember much. but what i do remember is that this is somewhat historical fiction and a story of a mother and a daughter. thats all ive got! now for the quotes. i also got this for free!

"Grief was messy, with its many folds, layers, and loose ends that were vaguely familiar to him from the days when he had lost Jane, his first wife. A void filled with amorphous grayness, so he came to remember it, a numbness to the evanescence of all things."

"It was the little glow in her eyes, the shimmer of childlike longing for good food, for a chance to know the world, for a moment to be kind, that had fended off the erosion of time."

"We always remember what we want to forget, and forget what we want to remember."

"Everything she wanted, there would be something else she had to give up, as the price."

"Nothing in this world is totally spoiled, if one thinks about it. There is always some part left worth salvaging."

"It would take twenty more years for her to wise up and accept the plain truth that every daughter in the world loathes but nevertheless ends up living; the life of her mother."

"Can one outgrow the language of birth, simply casting it aside like a pair of shoes that no longer fit?"

"A marriage is like a pair of shoes: only the wear knows whether they fit, went the old saying."

[Kim Gross · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a parent, what lengths would you go to to shield your child from anything that could upset or harm them? To provide for their needs? To hide the horrors of your past?

Yuan Feng, or Phoenix, finds a suitcase containing relics of her mother’s past upon her death. She decides to go and visit her aunt in China to find out her mother’s story. It becomes a journey out of which she writes a book. What she discovers, along with what she remembers, gives her a more complete understanding of her mother.

I really enjoyed this book! The story is very interesting from a historical perspective as well as a storytelling one.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn’t really a fan of this one. It took me quite a while to get into, but once the story finally got going it was ok. I actually liked that it was presently asynchronously, as I found that made for a more powerful telling of Chunyu’s story. I learned some Chinese history I hadn’t previously been aware of.

Where it really loses marks for me is the writing. It drags on and on in a lot of places, and I found myself frequently having to re-read sections as I stopped paying attention. I can appreciated that this the author’s first book written in English, but the editors should have definitely helped tighten it up.

[klaudia katarzyna]

Where Waters Meet released on the 1st May, 2023!
— ★ chinese history, mother-daughter relationship, ancestry ★ —

thank you so much to Netgalley and AmazonCrossing for a free e-ARC in exchange for my review.

[Marguerite · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the most over written books I’ve ever read. The author rambled on and on with uninteresting and irrelevant details. I forced myself to finish it and regret it.

[Buchdoktor]

Als „Rain“ Yuan/Yuan Chunyu mit über 80 Jahren Anfang unseres Jahrhunderts in einem Pflegeheim in Toronto stirbt, lebt sie seit 20 Jahren mit ihrer Tochter Phoenix in Kanada. Die 1953 geborene Nix/Phoenix/Yuan Feng hatte ihre Mutter in die späte Ehe mit dem Ohrenarzt George eingebracht, eine komplizierte Beziehung, belastet durch Rains Alzheimer-Erkrankung und die Kriegs-Traumatisierung in ihrer Jugend. Rain hatte kurz vor ihrem Lebensende ihr Englisch verloren und durchlebte in der Gegenwart offenbar Kriegsszenen, die ihrer Tochter bis dahin unbekannt waren. Obwohl Phoenix und George beide beruflich mit Einwanderern aus vielerlei Ländern zu tun haben, wirken sie beim Thema PTBS, Kriegsveteranen und Kriegsenkel (Kinder dieser Veteranen) wie unbeschriebene Blätter. Mit einer chinesischen Mutter im Haushalt wird das Paar sicher ahnen, um wen es sich z. B. bei Little Tiger handelt, der Rain erscheint; Phoenix spannt jedoch ihre Leser:innen so lange auf die Folter, bis die Figur im entsprechenden Kapitel ihren Auftritt hat.

An ihren Vater erinnert sich Phoenix aus der Kindheit in China nur als den, auf den stets Rücksicht genommen werden musste. Da ihre Mutter über ihr Leben offenbar eisern schwieg, beginnt die Tochter nun ein Buchprojekt, zu dem George sie ermutigt und für das sie zu ihrer Tante Mei nach Shanghai reisen wird. Mei ist offenbar Mutters einzige Verwandte, zu der der Kontakt mit der Zeit eingeschlafen war. George wird Phoenix später nachreisen und erhält in der Zwischenzeit von ihr die jeweils niedergeschriebenen Kapitel ihres Entwurfs, die er lektorieren wird. Die Beziehung zwischen George mit seinem höchst interessanten Lebenslauf und Phoenix wirkt sonderbar, da sie ja in Kanada studiert hat und ihm mit ihrer Tätigkeit als Lehrerin und Beraterin von Einwanderern ebenbürtig sein sollte. Die einzelnen Buchkapitel, die George erhält, zeigen Phoenix‘ Eltern als Veteranen und Opfer dreier Kriege, erzählen von Hungersnöten, Zwangsprostitution, Blutspenden zum Lebensunterhalt und der lebenslangen Verpflichtung, die in diesen Zeiten zwischen Menschen entsteht.

Wenn ich mir Fragen vorstelle, die Phoenix ihrer Mutter zu deren Biografie gestellt haben könnte, beantworten ihre Einzelkapitel genau diese Fragen: Woher stammen Mutter und Tochter, wer war Phoenix‘s Vater, warum bestand Rain damals darauf, einen körperlich und seelisch versehrten Veteranen zu heiraten, wer ist Meng Long, was erlebte Tante Mei und warum heiratete sie Onkel Chen, wer ist Little Tiger, und was liegt unausgesprochen zwischen George und seiner Frau? Phoenix fördert Überraschendes zutage, das sich zu einem Gesamtbild fügt. Die Orientierung, was wem wo und wann gerade geschieht, finde ich allerdings sehr komplex. Einfacher zu lesen wäre eine chronologische Erzählung, in die die Einzelschicksale integriert sind. Mit der Konstruktion aus Entwurf, Mails und Nachrichten entzieht Zhang Ling sich jedoch dieser Erwartung ausdrücklich.

Insgesamt ein berührender Roman über eine bi-nationale Ehe, Kommunikation zwischen den Kulturen, Mütter und Töchter, transgenerationales Trauma, sowie Kriege fremder Kulturen, der leichter zugänglich ist, wenn man sich für Grundlagen chinesischer Geschichte interessiert.

[Trisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compelling story about a timeframe and area I knew little about. I liked Phoenix and her struggle to know her mom. I loved George's little notes breaking up the chapters and adding little quips.

But the story is a tough one. Famine, struggle, survival - there were so many parts that were hard to get through. A few times I didn't quite understand why something was so emotionally charged, but I could respect that it could be a big moment and rolled with it.

I did this as an audio and thought the narrator did a great job. It's a touching story about a mother learning about her mother's life after she's gone.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[Taylor Minnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautifully written book about family, grief, and mother/daughter relationships. This one will stick with me for some time.

[Clarissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me unfortunately

[Andrea Kallfa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully well written

The descriptions were vivid, dreamy and sang true. Her thought processes were touching and intricate. Author is a master of written language.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book details, in no particular chronological order, the life of Phoenix, aka Nix, and George, her later in life husband, and her Mother, Rain - whose care she included in her marriage vows as incumbent upon George as well as Nix herself.
Now, Rain has died, and she wants to have her ashes spread "at home," but where is home, specifically, to someone who has lived 2 places in Canada and more than 2 in China? And so, some of her ashes are memorialized near their home in Canada, and Nix, laptop in hand, research on the era in hand, and manuscripts already started, journeys to Aunt Mei's nursing home to ask her questions and get answers, not only to who her Mother was, but in many ways, to who she herself is.
And so, having given George a copy of her manuscripts to look over or not as he wishes, she begins her journey with Aunt May. Much of the story between Nix and George is told in their email exchanges while she is in China. The rest is related as if Nix herself was there - which, for part of the time, she was. At the end, questions answered, manuscripts proofread, does Nix know where Rain considers home? Can Aunt Mei shed enough light on Rain's life for Nix to determine that?
The author has poured her soul into this book. You can feel her empathy for the good and decent and the innocents, those who generally suffer the most in times of turmoil. The characters are each revealed in their utter humanity, their grief, sadness, fear, isolation, their fear of making any error, however small, that their current overlords can exploit to turn the attention of the people away from their own, unrevealed sins, their own guilt heaped on the heads of someone whose infraction is tiny comparatively, their payment put to the account of the one who made a small error. Their fears, their love of all sorts, even their jealousies and envy, as real as the reader's own. It can be - and to me, should be - taken in smaller bites; this is not a marathon read like a thriller. It must be processed in the context of a culture that most Westerners don't understand easily, in a time that we in the West consider as solely containing WWII and its aftermath, but during which a lot more was happening in the East than we know.
To that purpose, I offer a bit of a brief history of the major Eastern confkicts that WWII impacted. You can skip it if you're not the type to put a book down and ask just when Japan invaded China, how close that was to Hitler's country-by-country takeover of Europe, when the Axis added Japan relative to its own wars, and dig a bit more. So, FWIW, read - or ignore - the history bits below.
History is, IMO, very pertinent to filling in some of the blanks if you, like me, like more depth to the historical and cultural factors as well as the political ones. In the book, the context for the past is a civil war between the Nationalists (the Emperor's forces) and their Muslim allies, vs. the Communists and their Soviet allies, begun in 1927 & carried out intermittently before and resumed after the 2nd Sino-Japanese war (they joined together, however reluctantly, against the common enemy). This is the war that brought the world the horrors of the Rape of Nanjing as its introduction and included Unit 731 (which rivaled and IMNSHO exceeded, anything the Nazi "Angel of Death," Joseph Mengele, did at Auschwitz-Birkenau), and the introduction of so-called "Comfort Women" in every country and island conquered and occupied by Japanese soldiers. Girls and women, some as young as 12, commanded, deceived, or outright kidnapped to be trafficked for nightly horrors of being "gang banged," a new male every 10 - 15 minutes, mandatory for the men on the eve of any battle to "purify" them so they had a better chance of winning. The innocent victims were treated as having invited, and even shamelessly enjoying, the shame their cultures heaped on them and brought to their families by extension. They were kept from suicide, but some still managed, while others died of botched abortions and of miscarriages before they even knew what had happened to them, brought on by the stress of gang banging. This started years before Japan signed on with the Axis powers, and years before Mengele's experiments at Auschwitz-Bukenau, against Romany travelers, Jews, and anyone caught helping the Jews escape. After Japan lost WWII and its territories in China, the Civil War began again in earnest, the Nationalists and their Muslim allies scattered to, respectively, Taiwan and Central Asia by the Chinese Communists and their Soviet Allies, the latter of whom took control of the Central Asian Republics and promptly repeated the Soviet procedure of outlawing all religions. China followed suit, and has "improved" on the granularity of the processes of war and punishment (the war being aginst anything not of the Party, which is the sole law amd religion of China). China is still at it, with 6 square miles of "re-education" centers full of any who don't follow solely the state religion (Communism) but are also Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoists, animists, and Falun Gong, where the live vivisection techniques of Unit 731 are now used to harvest and sell organs of, esp., Falan Gong practitioners because they are generally healthier than the other prisoners. In ways, it seems, from countries to individuals, if we aren't careful, we can easily become what we hate. For what came before the Xinjiang prison complex, look at the first and second Great Leap Forward initiatives, the 2nd of which killed at least 15 million and, with rural records before the Communists being a bit of a mess, may be closer to 55 million from induced famine. Next, check out the Cultural Revolution and the high number imprisoned or dead from purges similar to Stalin's. That ended in 1976, 4 years after Nixon opened up trade with China, and there was never a condition that they stop killling their own people before the trade embassies were opened on each continent and the other Western nations followed our lead. All of them hoped a bit of capitalism would help democratize a country that has never had a democratic government in the thousands of years it has existed, to best of my research efforts. It hasn't worked, not when there are 6 square miles of prisons ready to beat, torture, and cut out organs from those who offend the CCP in any way, no matter via a misunderstand word or a major protest.

[Lorina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very interested in the story,but when i read the book i was taken on a journey. A journey of discovery, strength, love and the sacrifices we as women make. This was a slow start book but the pace was actually perfect to tell the story.

[Sarita Molla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another tough but satisfying read by Ling. Despite being less than 300 pages, this book had so many layers because it followed an unconventional narrative. The process of learning who her mother was after her death was so well done because we learn about Rain, her mother, through all these disjointed bits and pieces. Again, Ling uses such clever writing to trick you but also remind you how fallible memory is. The journey is uncover Rain wasn't mean to be easy and Ling builds the suspense but also brings it all together with well placed hints. There were several plot twists that were very realistic because it was centered around the Second World War and Korean War. These topics will always have an immense amount of horrific generational trauma and Ling always subtly writes these awful experiences without it feeling like trauma porn. This book hits close to home because as a child of immigrants whose parents have also survived war and other harrowing experiences, sometimes I wonder how much I truly know my own parents. There's only so much they feel comfortable telling and my heart always hurts for their own pain and suffering, similar to how Phoenix (the main character) felt with her own mom. All in all, another rare find and another author I truly enjoy reading. Her writing did take some getting used to but that's cause her imagery is very different and out of the box but very beautifully written.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

|| WHERE WATERS MEET ||
#gifted/@otrpr
✍🏻
An emotional sage of mothers and daughters, secrets, resilience and love.

WHERE WATERS MEET is a well written chronicle of two Chinese women that spans decades, explores the brutality of life and war and the depth of the human spirit. I couldn't put this one down! Mother, daughter storylines are one of my favorites and this really hit the mark!

For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong

[Anya Räsänen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite startling

I don't recall if I've ever read a book written in a Chinese voice about Chinese characters within a Chinese and North American setting, but this one certainly opened up some earlier vaguely understood concepts of Chinese history and culture. The story was immersive and beautifully written with its lyrical unfolding, even during the brutal moments, awakening my appreciation of the lexical and poetical choices made by the author. What a story, what language, and what a read! The only minus was that I occasionally got mixed up between Phoenix's (the eventual narrator) and Rain's different timelines and events.

[Amy]

No
A book I borrowed from the library to try before I buy (tired buying hundreds books and hating half)

I do not rate these “tested”
books. This is really for me. I will not be buying, reading borrowing this book.

I read first ch or more -first 10-100 pages skim around at times. I read many of my GR friend’s reviews. This is what I did and didn’t like:

Love small short book hate orange cover

Tried to read & writing feels choppy. I really dont like it

[Kay M · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Absorbing Story

This tale is about the way individuals are affected by the history in which they're living very much in the way Pearl Buck told stories.
I loved Rain, her brain-damaged husband, and their daughter Phoenix and her white husband George, Auntie Mei, and Old Chen.

At the beginning, Rain is living with Phoenix and George in Toronto. Rain has dementia and when she dies, Phoenix takes her ashes back to Shanghai and reconnects with Auntie Mei.

Talking to Auntie Mei, Phoenix writes about her mother's life and sends the tale back to George in email attachments.


Many hardships, near starving, always striving for the sisters to find their own ways to survive in 50 years of Chinese wars and upheavals. Sometimes I was confused with the back and forth in time. However I couldn't put this book down until I finished.

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. at the beginning I felt it was slow and really difficult to get into and considered DNFing multiple times. By the mid- end of the story I ended up enjoying it and understanding the timeline and characters much better. I enjoyed the content, journey and the story the book is trying to tell but as I considered DNFing multiple times it has to get <3 stars

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting into the book, at first, and laid it aside for a while. When I came back and finished the book, it became really interesting. I decided to go back and reread the beginning and picked up in several previews/hints of things to come. Only then did I realize how well written/complete the book was, and how much I liked it.

[Jacqi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading a book set mostly in China and covering a war other than WWII. This book was the first book that Zhang Ling wrote in English and she absolutely nailed it. It had an interesting set up too that I kind of liked.