If you knew what was missing in your life, and could travel back in time, what would you go back and do differently? We also asked ourselves, “Who was waiting in this novel?”Lin Kong (doctor) – Lin did not appreciate Shuyu because she was not pretty and did not have the type of body he desired (plus she had “old fashioned” bound feet). Lin never seems to know what he really wants and this ambivalence drives the story, as everyone, Lin included, waits for him to decide between Shuyu and Manna.
Shuyu (his wife) – The wife his family chose for him when he was young is a humble and touchingly loyal woman, whom he visits in order to ask, again and again, for a divorce. Once Manna dies, Shuyu is transformed into the beautiful woman that Lin had always desired, however, it is too late.
Manna Wu (his girlfriend/love interest) – For more than seventeen years, this devoted and ambitious doctor has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. When Lin finally marries Manna, he realizes that time has turned her into a bitter, old woman.
Mai Dong (Manaa’s first love) – Mai can’t wait for Manna and therefore ends up marrying his first cousin.
Bensheng (Shuyu’s brother) – Is he hoping that Lin won’t ever come back so that he can run the farm and make money?
Lin Kong’s daughter – Is she waiting for him to recognize her as his daughter? Is she waiting for a complete family? She doesn’t seem to be waiting to move to the city, appreciating her farming life, and yet that is what Shuyu wants for her (thinking it will bring a better life).
“Tell her not to wait for me. I'm a useless man, not worth waiting for.” The realization that the feelings of other's matter hurts and Lin Kong had waited so long to leave his wife for another woman that he seldom thought of her feelings. All that mattered was the divorce and that he would finally be able to marry someone he loved.
In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still hold sway and where adultery discovered by the Party can ruin lives forever, Lin's passionate love is stretched ever more taut by the passing years. Every summer, his compliant wife agrees to a divorce but then backs out. This time, Lin promises, will be different.
Tracing these lives through their summer of decision and beyond, Ha Jin vividly conjures the texture of daily life in a place where the demands of human longing must contend with the weight of centuries of custom. Waiting charms and startles us with its depiction of a China that remains hidden to Western eyes even as it moves us with its piercing vision of the universal complications of love.
THEMES (with some website research to help me out)
- To appreciate their family the way it is.
- To portray the societal changes that China was traversing. In communist China there were many rules and the book mimics these, for example, how the nurses had to be virgins to enter the hospital workforce or how men and women weren't allowed to walk together outside the hospital grounds.
- To know and trust yourself, your feelings, and your ability to make the best decision. Although Lin Kong faces formidable social and political pressures as he tries to form a committed relationship with Manna Wu, the greatest conflict he encounters comes from within.
1. Ha Jin has said that the idea for Waiting came to him when he read a newspaper story about a woman who described her husband as loveless: "She wished her husband could have an affair with another woman.... At least that would prove he was capable of love" Atlanta Journal, 15 Nov 1999, E1]. When late in the novel Lin realizes that "he had never loved a woman wholeheartedly and that he had always been the loved one" (p. 296), do you think Ha Jin is calling attention to an individual problem -- his protagonist's passive temperament -- or a universal one?
2. Lin Kong is a man who seems to want to move beyond the values of traditional village life, with its familial bonds and rootedness. If marrying Manna Wu will bring him the more modern life he desires, one based on self-fulfillment and independence, why does he have such difficulty obtaining his divorce? Is he undecided as to what he wants? What does he stand to lose in giving up Shuyu? How do the choices he faces relate to similar ones faced by men and women in America today?
3. Geng Yang tells Lin, "You're always afraid that people will call you a bad man. You strive to have a good heart. But what is a heart? Just a chunk of flesh that a dog can eat. Your problem originates in your own character, and you must first change yourself" (p. 167). How insightful is this remark? Should Lin try to be more heartless with regard to his wife? How is the remark tempered by what you know of Geng Yang's character?
4. Ha Jin does not present Manna and Lin as perfect characters; what are their weaknesses? Could anyone, no matter how strong and forceful a personality, fare better than they did in the coercive social system in which they live? Does Ha Jin imply that people like Geng Yang can thrive only because they have no conscience?
5. In Western culture and in Freudian psychology, the goal of true adulthood is individuation, as well as the ability to realize one's desires through will and action. In the world of this novel, such ideals are considered corrupt and bourgeois. Is it possible for readers raised in this Western way of thinking to find Lin's passivity admirable? Do you find both Lin and Manna too childlike? Or are they simply trapped in a no-win situation?
6. Why is the situation so much more difficult for Manna Wu than for Lin? Should she have pursued other possible mates more aggressively? At the beginning of the novel, we're told that Manna is "almost twenty-six, on the verge of becoming an old maid" (p. 19). How sympathetic are you to her difficulty in finding a mate? The narrator has said that "Men and women were equal" in Maoist China (p. 37); do you find this to be the case in the novel, or is Manna Wu at a serious disadvantage?
7. How does the character of Manna Wu compare with that of Shuyu? Does Shuyu's traditionalism protect her from suffering the tug of neurosis that affects Manna Wu as time grinds on? Would you say that, especially after moving to Muji City, Shuyu is more free to enjoy her life than either Lin Kong or Manna Wu? Do both women really love Lin Kong?
8. Why does Ha Jin choose Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass as the book given to Manna by Commissioner Wei? Does the book, which celebrates democracy and the self, indicate that Commissioner Wei is not a model revolutionary? Do you accept the idea that Manna's handwriting wasn't up to his expectations, or do you think that her "report" on Whitman was too cautious? What do you find most comical about Manna Wu's date with the commissioner?
9. While the political background of the novel underscores the reality of an ongoing Marxist revolution, the personal issues focus more upon what might be considered "bourgeois" concerns, like the desire for a fulfilling domestic life with its attendant personal and sexual comforts. Do the personal desires of Lin and Manna necessarily conflict with the ideals that Mao Tse Tung's revolution has thrust upon the Chinese people? How do you respond to the description of their wedding ceremony, in which they bow three times to a portrait of Chairman Mao?
10. It is a romantic notion that true love will survive all sorts of trials and separations. While Manna and Lin are together in a sense, the fact that their relationship cannot be a sexual one surely constitutes quite a long trial and separation. Are you surprised at Lin's feelings when they finally are married? What do you find comical about the long-awaited sexual encounters between Manna and Lin?
11. When Lin leaves the house in a rage after Manna scolds him for burning the rice, a voice in his head tells him, "Actually you never loved her. You just had a crush on her, which you didn't get a chance to outgrow or to develop into love.... In fact you waited eighteen years just for the sake of waiting" (p. 294). Is this a moment of real insight in the novel, devastating as it is?
12. What is most remarkable about the scene in which Lin, standing in the snowy darkness outside their window, watches as Shuyu and his daughter prepare dumplings (p. 301)? Why is this sight both nostalgic and painful for him?
13. The narrator doesn't reveal much about Shuyu's feelings; why not? What does Shuyu most desire? Why does she seem to be in such control of her own emotions, as contrasted with Manna? Is it surprising that she remains generous toward Lin even after he is married to Manna?
14. Ashamed of the things he said to Shuyu while drunk, Lin tells Hua, "Tell her not to wait for me. I'm a useless man, not worth waiting for." She responds, "Don't be so hard on yourself, Dad. We'll always wait for you" (p. 308). Does Lin deserve this unwavering loyalty from his first wife and daughter? Do the traditional values which he tried to escape in divorcing Shuyu triumph after all?
15. Many critics have commented on the affinity between the work of Ha Jin and that of such nineteenth century Russian writers as Turgenev and Chekhov, who also wrote about ordinary people caught up in times of wrenching change, and about communities in which simple peasants come into conflict with more sophisticated, modern and complex characters. How are the peasants in Waiting represented, and how are they different from those who are more educated and ambitious?
16. Much of this book is given up to what happens while its characters are waiting. How does Ha Jin overcome the danger of stasis, and the reader's impatience, in constructing the novel? How would you describe the structure and pace of the plot?
17. What do you notice about the way Ha Jin describes the physical details of everyday life like food, housing, clothing, people's bodies? How does the material culture of this novel differ from that of America? Do you feel that, because Ha Jin is consciously writing for an American audience in his adopted country, such details have greater resonance?
18. Ha Jin has not returned to China since he left in 1985; in 1990, he made a commitment to write and speak solely in English. Speaking of that decision, he says, "There was a lot of fear. It's like changing your body, to write in a different language. And it wasn't just a matter of finding an audience, it was a matter of survival -- I have a family to support. Finally I decided to write in English, absolutely uncertain of whether I could do it. I'm still uncertain! In the end, though, every project is a risk, not just the language. And that's true for every writer" [From "A conversation with Ha Jin," by Mary Park, amazon.com]. How would you characterize the style in which this novel is written? If you have read the work of Vladimir Nabokov or Joseph Conrad, two other emigré writers who adopted English as their literary language, how would you compare Ha Jin's use of the language?
OTHER QUESTIONS FROM BOOK RAGS:
Discuss the parallels between Lin's life and the political cycle in China during the time of the novel. How does his desire to leave Shuyu for Manna and then his eventual dissatisfaction with Manna and awakened interest in Shuyu mirror the experience of the Chinese people before, during, and after the Cultural Revolution? How do the two women represent the differing cultures within China at the time?
Explain how the strict rules and regulations of military conduct both restrict and protect Lin. Do you think his relationship with Manna would have been different if their society had embraced them as a couple?
Which is more prevalent throughout the book, internal dialogue or conversations with other people? Explain the effect on the reader of being taken deeply into the thought process of the main characters.
ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL
AUTHOR - Jin Xuefei, also known as Ha Jin, was born on February 21, 1956, in Northern China, in the province of Liaoning. In 1969, at age fourteen he voluntarily joined the People's Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution, where his father was an officer. Most of Ha Jin's youth was spent in the turmoil of communist China.
While he was in the army, Ha Jin taught himself high school courses. At age nineteen he was able to leave the army and sought to attend college. However, the Cultural Revolution was still at hand and colleges were closed. Hence, he settled for a job as a railway telegrapher in north east China. All along he desired to learn English.
In 1977, colleges reopened. He acquired his Bachelor's degree in English studies from Heilongjiang University in 1981, and his Master's degree in Anglo- American literature from Shandong University three years after.
In 1985, he went came to the United States to get his PhD in English at Brandeis University. To support himself, he worked as a busboy at a Chinese restaurant and as a watchman at night in a factory.
After completing his PhD, Ha Jin decided not to return to China. He had originally intended to do so, but situations occurring at the time changed his mind. He had no desire in writing in Chinese and hence, all his works were written in English although, they were set in China. Most of his novels take place in the Army, which is the setting of his favorite novel, Waiting.
After his publishing of Free Life, he taught poetry and English literature at Emory University in Georgia. Waiting (1999) is a novel written in English by Ha Jin, a Chinese author who as of 2006 was teaching creative writing at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. The book is based on a true story that Jin heard from his wife when they were visiting her family at an army hospital in China. At the hospital was an army doctor who had waited eighteen years to get a divorce so he could marry his long-time friend, a nurse. But now his second marriage was not working. Jin thought that this situation would make a good plot for a novel, and he began working on Waiting in 1994.
Prologue
Waiting begins in Goose Village in China in 1983. Lin Kong, an officer and doctor in the Chinese army, has returned from the army hospital in Muji City, where he works, with the intention of divorcing Shuyu, his wife of twenty years. He has been doing this every summer for many years. The court always turns down his request because at the last minute Shuyu changes her mind and refuses to agree to it. Lin’s marriage was arranged by his parents, and although he does not dislike his wife, he has never loved her either, and they have not had sexual relations for seventeen years.
In the courtroom, Shuyu’s brother Bensheng protests that Lin is acting unfairly to his wife, and the judge declines Lin’s request. Lin returns home and tells his girlfriend Manna Wu that he will seek a divorce the following year, because according to the law an officer could divorce his wife after an eighteen-year separation, with or without her consent.
Plot Synopsis (also see here)
Beginning in 1963 and stretching over a twenty-year period, Waiting is set against the background of a changing Chinese society. It contrasts city and country life and shows the restrictions on individual freedoms that are a routine part of life under communism. But Waiting is primarily a novel of character. It presents an in-depth portrait of a decent but deeply flawed man, Lin Kong, whose life is spoiled by his inability to experience strong emotions and to love wholeheartedly.
This is the story of Lin Kong, a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every move and stifle the promptings of his innermost heart.
Every summer, during his annual leave, Lin Kong, a doctor in the Chinese army, returns to his home village to attempt to divorce his wife, Shuyu, whom he has never loved. His marriage to Shuyu was arranged. Before their wedding, they had only seen each other by a picture. This picture showed a beautiful, young woman who would make a good wife and care for his parents. When they met, Shuyu was not that woman. Lin was disappointed at this but had no heart to let his parents down. They married, had a daughter, and he lived unhappy.
Lin spent most of his time at the hospital. Although his family could go live with him at the compounds of the hospital, he chose not to bring his family there. He did not like the idea of going home to Shuyu as if he loved her. Soon after he met a woman.
Manna Wu, a comrade nurse, had just suffered a horrible break up with a soldier named Mai Dong. She was heart broken and saw her future as an old maid. She found consolation in Lin, who felt sympathy for her. It wasn't long before their friendship turned into a relationship. However, it quickly soured because of the rape of Manna by a friend of Lin's.
While Lin had been sick with tuberculosis he stayed in the sick ward. There, he discussed with Geng Yang, another patient, how Manna wasn't his mistress. His intentions towards Manna were anything but good and he took advantage of both of their trusts to commit the crime.
Lin and Shuyu divorced and he and Manna married. Their relationship suffered horribly as if destiny cursed them for Lin leaving Shuyu. It was then that Lin begun to appreciate Shuyu's caring and understanding.
