Second paragraph of third story (“The Fish Bowl”):

She did not have strong feelings about Puan Lai, but she liked the house. Between the entrance and living room there was an expanse of cool, white marble floor that would have been a hallway in a normal house. Puan Lai had dug out a hole in the floor and filled it with water. The pond was rectangular, like a swimming pool, but the water was green, swarming with koi and goldfish.

This is a tremendous collection of short stories by Zen Cho, including “If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again” which won the Hugo in 2019 (one of my years). They are all in the fantasy vein with some of them slipping towards horror. They all feature Malaysian culture, especially Malaysian Chinese culture, which is a particular point of interest for me as I get on with editing my grandmother’s memoirs of her time living and loving in Penang. Some are set in Malaysia, some in England, some elsewhere entirely. The ones I liked most were “House of Aunts”, a story of an undead teenager and her older (much older) relatives; “Prudence and the Dragon”, about an unlikely love story; and the Hugo-winning “If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again”, another unlikely love story. But they are all excellent. You can get Spirits Abroad here.