The Mushroom Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu
Ovidia Yu’s most recent tree mystery is set at the end of World War II. We get to know our delightful protagonist Su Lin better and learn of conditions in Singapore at the time.
The Japanese occupy the island. With the Chen mansion under quarantine and the local police under Japanese control, Sun Lin finds work — and also trouble — in a Japanese household.
As the war winds down, food on the island is scarce and rumours are plentiful. Is it true that the Americans dropped a devastatingly destructive bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima? Do the Japanese really intend to retaliate by using the poison bomb developed by a “crazy” professor?
For Su Lin, almost as worrying is whether, if they lose the war, the Japanese really intend to kill all the prisoners of war in Chiang Mai. Among them are her old English policeman boss Le Froy and Dr. Shankar, her best friend’s father.
In this novel, we get an enhanced sense of the Singaporean identity and the various ethnic groups who live there together. Su Lin observes that in an effort to divide and conquer by sowing dissent among them, the Japanese are “less aggressive” toward Indians and Eurasians than Chinese and Malays.
Like many Singaporeans, Su Lin has mixed bloodlines. The granddaughter of a man whose family in China cut him off for the dishonour of “marrying a straits-born woman without bound feet,” she is also the cousin of Hideki Togawa, a useful connection that has obliged him to give her work.
Her main task is to find and prepare food for the household. Early in the novel we see her at her resourceful best, growing and harvesting mushrooms to supplement their limited supplies. Observing what goes on around her, Su Lin thinks about many things. From her, readers learn about Japan’s early involvement in the war. She knows that “Prime Minister Koiso, an ardent supporter of state Shintoism and supremacy, had been instrumental in starting the war against China, and then against the Allies.” Forced to view a Japanese propaganda film promoting death over dishonour, Su Lin remains unimpressed. She prefers to stay alive. Amid the rumours that the war is turning against Japan, the local population are cheered by the fact that Allied bombers still come over, showing Singaporeans they haven’t been forgotten.
As well as being rich in historic details of the time, the novel is full of cultural observations, seen mainly through Su Lin’s intelligent narration. Living in the Japanese household, she notices the accent-based differences between the upper class Mrs. Maki, whose husband was a diplomat, and the Japanese men in the house. This, she observes, parallels similar British class distinctions, seen when Oxbridge educated officers mock men with regional dialects, calling them Brummies or Scousers.
As the story develops, we also see how war changes people’s priorities and relaxes formerly rigid social strictures. Some cultural differences between the British and the Japanese are profound. As Su Lin observes, “The Japanese seemed to revere suicide as much as the British despised it.” We glimpse the social rules that pin Japanese men, and especially women in place. Since Hideki Tagawa is unmarried and without a sister, Mrs. Maki must serve as his housekeeper and hostess.
At the same time, Su Lin foresees a time when her two young kitchen boys will be obliged to do work traditionally left to girls — learning useful skills, as she sees it.
Yoshio Yamamoto is descended from a samurai family, but “failed to rise in the ranks.” On top of that, his mother, the daughter of a Buddhist monk, “left the temple to become a shoemaker,” and left the family “hanging onto respectability by their fingernails, trying not to drown in poverty.” We later learn of Yamamoto’s association with the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia.
War takes a psychological toll as well as a physical one. Like many others who have narrowly escaped death and watched others die, she suffers from survivor guilt, and suspects a similar emotion is contributing to the rise in suicide among the Japanese. For herself, she sets aside her guilt and follows the advice of her Uncle Chen, who asks “Why kill yourself when you can make them (the enemy) do the job?”
Fear is all around, and that includes fear of poison. Poisonous gas bombs. Possible poisonous food, including mushrooms. Not to mention the small poison kits carried by Japanese soldiers to be used in case of imminent capture. A related fear is the one of spies. As such fears spread, the general level of trust in the community is further eroded.
To combat their fear, survivors have rules, which cover “how to dress, whom to trust, which streets are safe, which are not, and so on.” As Su Lin explains, “They grow out of fear, superstition, nightmares and irrational hope because most of us survivors don’t know which of our rules is keeping us alive.”
Along with her knowledge of languages and her position on a cusp between cultures, Su Lin’s philosophical outlook helps her survive in this time of great threat. “So much of how people behave is a reaction to how they feel about the people and circumstances around them,” she reflects. “We are only our true selves when alone and under no stress. Then some people vanish,” while “others blossom and are happiest.”
Among both Chinese and Japanese, there is enormous inequality between the sexes. Yoshio Yamamoto is “afraid of females,” as the Japanese professor explains to Su Lin. “It’s part of his belief system...the hardest thing for a man to free himself from.” According to a certain Buddhist sutra, “women are condemned to a Blood Bowl Hell forever. Their sin is the polluting of the world through their menstrual blood.”
The professor also opines to Su Lin that in wartime, being beautiful endangers a woman, and that invisibility is her great strength. “Once a beautiful woman is noticed,” he warns, “she is in danger,” then reassures her that “nobody is going to fight over a skinny cripple who can scavenge for food.” Under no illusions about her looks, she takes a bit of comfort from this idea.
Scientific knowledge, explains the professor, is co-opted for use in war. As an example, he informs her that bubonic plague fleas were dropped on China — until some of them “escaped and contaminated the research lab.” This war has also seen experiments with nerve gas and DDT.
Much as she learns from the Japanese professor, Su Lin uses her own powers of observation to see the temporary and arbitrary nature of enemies. She also sees the parallels between historic excuses for territorial conquest. “I knew mythology claimed the Japanese were descended from the gods and destined to rule the world. I’d thought it was like the Christian crusaders massacring Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who happened to be living on lands they wanted.”
By the end of the book, Su Lin has once again faced great danger and come through. The tone of her narration in this book shows how the hard experience of war has toughened and matured her. However, she still tries to live by an old ideal she has learned, whether from “grandmother, the Mission School teachers, or LeFroy: ‘Every person matters.’”