At one point, Walter leads them to several boatmen from the isolated Karen tribe. They find a Burmese tour guide, Walter, who shows them around the typical tourist sites and souvenir markets. Since there is no more sightseeing to do in China, the group decides to head to Burma earlier than originally scheduled. They engage in a series of gradually escalating misunderstandings, and finally, Harry, a British dog TV show host, gets the group banned from all Chinese tourist sites by mistaking a shrine for a urinal.
Their solution to any problem they encounter is to either throw money at the situation or to start blaming each other.
None of them has prepared for the trip in advance, and they are basically entirely ignorant of local culture and customs. The group’s first stop is China, but because Bibi isn’t there to steer them, the tourists immediately deviate from her carefully structured schedule. The fisherman tries to soothe the fish flopping around on the shore, but they all end up dying, at which point he is free to take them to the marketplace. Every morning, he pledges to save 100 fish from drowning by netting them out of the river. The title of the novel comes from an old joke: a fisherman tells a friend that it’s wrong to kill, but it's good to save lives. The book is narrated by a ghost who is watching over the group in exasperation, offering continuous color commentary on the pieces of culture, language, and beliefs that the sightseers are misinterpreting.
Unceasingly self-involved and sure of their own interpretations of their surroundings, the dozen travelers fail to understand or correctly read most of what they encounter. Purportedly (but fictionally) based on a true story, this novel is structured as a satiric look at American tourists and the culture clash they experience on a trip through China and Burma. The popular American author Amy Tan published her novel Saving Fish from Drowning in 2005.
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