Waiting
Jan, 17/2021 also in: Contemporary Chinese Literature
If you are looking for a novel that breaks down how social and personal expectations compromise lives, Ha Jin’s Waiting is for you. Lin Kong, a doctor working in Muji city after graduating from medical school in 1963, is the protagonist of this story, along with two major female characters, his first wife Shuyu and Manna Wu.
Shuyu is the wife chosen by the parents, confined in the remote Goose Village where Lin is from by her bound feet and her belonging to a China that is no more. She is in many ways a metaphor for the society that collapsed with the end of the Qing empire in 1911, whose value kept living on, but were immediately felt obsolete. Ha Jin captures this in Lin’s exclamation “But this is the New China!”, when he first meets Shuyu and discovers, to his shock, that she has bound feet. She belongs to the past.
This is indeed one of the themes of the book: the coexistence of two eras in spite of attempts to eradicate the “old China”. Lin Kong is a doctor, believes in science, lives in a city unlike the rest of his family, that is confined in a village oblivious to progress. At the same time, the hospital in Muji city where Lin works and resides most of the time is a village in its own way, a place where women and men cannot mingle easily and naturally; where unmarried women over 25 are seen as helpless old maids.
The hospital is where Lin meets Manna Wu, another personification of the Waiting that titles this book. She falls in love with Lin slowly, drawn to him by his kindness and willingness to do what is right by others. With the exception of few politicians who take advantage of people’s misery (a veiled indication of the Chinese political scene during the 60s and 70s), like all other characters, Manna is a simple person who tries to navigate the uncertainties of life without hurting others. Unlike Lin, she shows at moments a more resolute passion for life, which she suppresses knowing very well that there is only one path in front of her. Her union with Lin is driven by a mixture of affection and resignation to realizing that, as she grows old, he is the only option left.
So who is Waiting, and what for? Lin waits that a judge grants him a divorce from Shuyu, so as to be able to be with Manna. He trusts his union with Manna is what he needs to be finally happy, and waits patiently for things to move. Finally divorced after 18 years, in a twist at the end of the book, he gets in line for waiting for another change of life. Manna waits for her life to gain normality according to the standards she is imposed: marriage and children. Having a family seems to Manna all the more important, having grown up as a orphan in Shanghai. Shuyu, instead, is never portrayed as waiting. Through the entire book, she is the antithesis of waiting: still, obedient to Lin or her brother, rarely speaking her mind (in fact, barely speaking at all). More generally, Waiting is the condition of humanity in this narration: one can easily picture the entire population waiting for the New China to take place; for a change in life for the better; for an imagined romance that loses its appeals as soon as it becomes real. Waiting, and the Boss has it, “for a moment that just don’t come.”
The mastery of Ha Jin lies in writing a book centered on the idea of immediate change, while giving its protagonists a sense of heavily and cumbersomely moving through life. Indeed, the reader continues to read waiting for the always-so-close moment of revolution, and grows uneasy realizing that she is also waiting for the romance to take off. Another feature that I particularly enjoyed is his ability to capture the essence of a character in a few sentences, eliciting emotions without really describing them. The entire background that shaped Lin’s character is summarized in a paragraph describing his relationship with his brother Ren:
“Lin had never felt attached to Ren because they did not grow up together. In their adolescent years, Lin had gone to school most of the time while Ren worked in the fields. Yet he was grateful to his elder brother, who had never complained about the arrangement made by their parents, which deprived him of the opportunity of education. Ren hadn’t even finished elementary school. Looking at his brother’s scarred face, which had been hurt by a rock twenty years ago at a construction site, Lin felt bad for him.”
The unhappiness in their lives is blamed at times on the circumstances protagonists find themselves into. Like everybody, they do not choose when and where to be born. But Ha Jin implies something else is the problem: the inability of each protagonist to choose and act a bit more badly. They all remain trapped in their belief that waiting is the only thing left.
Shuyu is the wife chosen by the parents, confined in the remote Goose Village where Lin is from by her bound feet and her belonging to a China that is no more. She is in many ways a metaphor for the society that collapsed with the end of the Qing empire in 1911, whose value kept living on, but were immediately felt obsolete. Ha Jin captures this in Lin’s exclamation “But this is the New China!”, when he first meets Shuyu and discovers, to his shock, that she has bound feet. She belongs to the past.
This is indeed one of the themes of the book: the coexistence of two eras in spite of attempts to eradicate the “old China”. Lin Kong is a doctor, believes in science, lives in a city unlike the rest of his family, that is confined in a village oblivious to progress. At the same time, the hospital in Muji city where Lin works and resides most of the time is a village in its own way, a place where women and men cannot mingle easily and naturally; where unmarried women over 25 are seen as helpless old maids.
The hospital is where Lin meets Manna Wu, another personification of the Waiting that titles this book. She falls in love with Lin slowly, drawn to him by his kindness and willingness to do what is right by others. With the exception of few politicians who take advantage of people’s misery (a veiled indication of the Chinese political scene during the 60s and 70s), like all other characters, Manna is a simple person who tries to navigate the uncertainties of life without hurting others. Unlike Lin, she shows at moments a more resolute passion for life, which she suppresses knowing very well that there is only one path in front of her. Her union with Lin is driven by a mixture of affection and resignation to realizing that, as she grows old, he is the only option left.
So who is Waiting, and what for? Lin waits that a judge grants him a divorce from Shuyu, so as to be able to be with Manna. He trusts his union with Manna is what he needs to be finally happy, and waits patiently for things to move. Finally divorced after 18 years, in a twist at the end of the book, he gets in line for waiting for another change of life. Manna waits for her life to gain normality according to the standards she is imposed: marriage and children. Having a family seems to Manna all the more important, having grown up as a orphan in Shanghai. Shuyu, instead, is never portrayed as waiting. Through the entire book, she is the antithesis of waiting: still, obedient to Lin or her brother, rarely speaking her mind (in fact, barely speaking at all). More generally, Waiting is the condition of humanity in this narration: one can easily picture the entire population waiting for the New China to take place; for a change in life for the better; for an imagined romance that loses its appeals as soon as it becomes real. Waiting, and the Boss has it, “for a moment that just don’t come.”
The mastery of Ha Jin lies in writing a book centered on the idea of immediate change, while giving its protagonists a sense of heavily and cumbersomely moving through life. Indeed, the reader continues to read waiting for the always-so-close moment of revolution, and grows uneasy realizing that she is also waiting for the romance to take off. Another feature that I particularly enjoyed is his ability to capture the essence of a character in a few sentences, eliciting emotions without really describing them. The entire background that shaped Lin’s character is summarized in a paragraph describing his relationship with his brother Ren:
“Lin had never felt attached to Ren because they did not grow up together. In their adolescent years, Lin had gone to school most of the time while Ren worked in the fields. Yet he was grateful to his elder brother, who had never complained about the arrangement made by their parents, which deprived him of the opportunity of education. Ren hadn’t even finished elementary school. Looking at his brother’s scarred face, which had been hurt by a rock twenty years ago at a construction site, Lin felt bad for him.”
The unhappiness in their lives is blamed at times on the circumstances protagonists find themselves into. Like everybody, they do not choose when and where to be born. But Ha Jin implies something else is the problem: the inability of each protagonist to choose and act a bit more badly. They all remain trapped in their belief that waiting is the only thing left.