Sunday, 24th August 2003, 5:31pm
An opinion by:
Rascal
Waiting by Ha Jin
I finally pulled "Waiting" off the library shelves. I'd passed it over several times, repelled by the back blurb: "Every summer Lin Kong, a doctor in the Chinese Army , returns to his village to end his loveless arranged marriage with the humble and touchingly loyal Shuyu. But each time Lin must return to the city to tell Manna Wu, the educated, modern nurse he loves, that they will have to postpone their engagement once again." Yuck.
But for some reason this time I grabbed for it. And it wasn't because I had an impatient three year-old trailing me through the adult section either, hurrying me along: "It's taking a long while, huh?"
My first impression of this book ended up being right
and wrong. I was wrong because it is a genuine and involving story. It's about other people in another culture at another time and that always works for me. The detail of Lin's city life and country life are fascinating. His relationship with his family in Goose Village is well-drawn. The relationship between Lin and Manna Wu morphs and evolves against a vague backdrop of China's tumultuous history from the mid-60s to today. I liked that part. It was nice to read a book set in China where the surreal craziness of revolutionary politics is not the driving plot line. And nothing is as cut and dried as the back cover blurb would have you believe.
I started reading almost immediately, sitting in the children's section of the library. I continued to read at home, while an invited guest watched a Richard Scarry video with my son. I read after dinner and straight through bedtime duties. I righteously told my family I needed "quiet time, by myself." I finished "Waiting" sometime in the wee hours. I guess I couldn't wait.
So yeah, I would recommend this novel--much. I was particularly struck by a moment in the story where Shuyu, the country wife, visits Dr. Lin Kong at his hospital in the city for the first time in over 20 years of marriage, to give him a divorce.
"Show us just once, please," a tall nurse begged with a suave smile. "We won't tell others about it."
"No, I won't do that. You know, take off your shoes and socks is like open your pants."
"Why?" the tall woman exclaimed.
"'Cause you bound your feet only for your husband, not for other men, to make your feet more precious to your man. By the way, do you know what this was called in the old days?" She patted her left foot, whose instep bulged like a tiny knoll.
They all shook their heads. She continued, "It's called Golden Lotus, Like a treasure."
They looked at her with amazement, winking at one another. Nurse Ma asked, "Wasn't it painful to have your feet bound?"
"Of course it hurt. Don't tell me about pain. I started to bind my feet when I was seven. My heavens, for two years I'd weep in pain every night. In the summer my toes swelled up, filled with pus, and the flesh rotted, but I dared not loosen the binding. My mother'd whack me with a big bamboo slat if she found me doing that. Whenever I ate fish, the pus in my heels dripped out. There's the saying goes, 'every pair of lotus feet come from a bucket of tears.'"
Why did you bind them then?' a ruddy-cheeked girl asked.
"Mother said it's my second chance to marry good, 'cause my face ugly. you know, men are crazy about lotus feet in those days. The smaller your feet are, the better looking you are to them."
"How about Doctor Kong?' Nurse Li asked earnestly. "Does he like your small feet?"
The question puzzled Shuyu, and she mumbled, "I don't know. He never saw them."
So sad.
But the last part is badly done. Up until then, Ha Jin manages to be simple and direct, yet subtle too. But when crisis hits, Jin's technique seems to flail around in sympathy with his characters.
Suddenly "a cold voice" appears out of the blue, and starts speaking in Lin's head. Yeah, it's a quick way to show Lin's disenchantment with himself, a new self-awareness. But it jars. The author allows his personal polemic to show through. For the last part of the book, it's as if Ha Jin has fallen out of love with all his protagonists. And we are getting the angry version of the still-fresh breakup. You don't do your people justice Mr Jin! They fall into charicatured extremes to make your point. Which is too bad, because if I still cared about these characters, the ending would be devastating.
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