Waiting: Part 1

I didn’t quite make the deadline to finish Waiting at the end of January; apologies. Anyway, I thought it would be better to post my thoughts on the novel as I’m reading the novel, so here goes…

Language

Jin’s writing in Waiting is very different from Díaz’s in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (our book club’s first selection). The language here is simple, precise, full of metaphors and details (“Meanwhile the judge was waiting patiently, waving a large fan, on which a tiger stretched its neck howling with a mouth like a bloody basin” (Jin, 11)); I find it kind of Hemingway-esque (I may be stealing from the Chicago Sun-Times‘s reviewer). It’s almost more difficult to read Jin’s prose (than Díaz’s) simply because the language is so restrained; I find myself rereading passages because my eyes gloss over the words without taking anything in. This is not a sign of boredom; it is a sign that I need to read everything carefully, patiently. I think the language demands that of you.

One thing does strike me as odd. Has anyone else noticed little bits of ‘broken English’ here and there? When Shuyu is telling the story of his brother’s con job at the market, she says, “‘[The piglets] were heavier and worth more, only ’cause they couldn’t crap, almost burst’” (90). That is a clear grammatical oddity, right? I’m not imagining things here.

The characters here are Chinese, and, I am assuming, in the ‘real’ world of Waiting, the characters are speaking Chinese to each other. But we are reading the novel in English (because it was first written in English), and, I assume, because the author wants an English-speaking audience. So I do not get why there is ‘broken English’ placed here and there in the novel. Are they mistakes? I found a typo/publishing error on page 119, “Two or three wrinkles appeared at the left corner her mouth…” Do they only appear when Shuyu (the country wife) is speaking, further embellishing her lower-class status?

I find this odd because, it’s almost like watching a film production of Les Misérables that stars British and American actors who, in the film, speak English with French accents. It’s weird. Either make the film in French or have the actors speak in their own accents; do not give me this ‘in-between’ nonsense.

On another note: Because I speak and understand Chinese, I can literally translate the characters’ dialogue into Mandarin Chinese. In my opinion, the dialogue sounds very typical of the way Chinese people express their feelings. I mention this because it creates a wider gap between the Chinese and the English. The question I’d like to throw out there is, if Ha Jin is expressing these characters’ thoughts in a very Eastern way, and he wants to throw in some ‘broken English,’ then why write the novel in English at all?

It’s like the author intentionally wants to tell the story in the area of ‘in-between.’ I will be thinking more about this as I read.

Structure

I am responding well to the way the story is unfolding (cleanly, meticulously), with each of the chapters focusing on the psychology of one of the three central characters, and the way these focalisations are alternated. So far, Shuyu’s story has been the least explored, but I am hoping that that will change in the upcoming sections.

Chinese Culture

• Let’s start with the description of Shuyu: “By contrast, his wife Shuyu was a small, withered woman and looked much older than her age. Her thin arms and legs couldn’t fill up her clothes, which were always baggy on her. In addition, she had bound feet and sometimes wore black puttees” (6). At first, I had no idea what the author meant by ‘bound feet,’ but i kept reading on. The other characters in the novel, including Lin Kong, kept commenting (negatively) about Shuyu’s small feet.

I grew up in a Chinese household, and know how much Chinese people prize tiny feet. I was reminded of the story of Pan Jinlian (“Jinlian” means “golden lotus” in Chinese) from one of those old, mythical folk tales, and how she was a beauty known across the land, one of the reasons being that her feet were so small. Thus, I found it strange that these characters were speaking disparagingly about Shuyu’s feet. Finally I wikipedia’ed the term ‘bound feet’ and was shocked by what I read (the word “puttee” in the above description should’ve informed me of some medical thing, but I had no clue what “puttee” was, either). It reminded me of two things: female circumcision, and male circumcision.

• The depiction of Lin Kong’s ancestor veneration (pages 93-94) is an accurate portrayal of what all Chinese people do. Even we do it in our family, and (one of) our grandmother’s buried in a cemetery in smalltown, Texas. We set out the various plates of food in front of her headstone, light incense, burn paper money, kowtow. A bunch of white people drive by thinking that we’re having a picnic on our grandmother’s grave. And probably complain to the main office that we are going to burn the entire cemetery down.

• Shuyu says of her daughter Hua, “‘A girl isn’t a reliable thing. She belongs to someone else after she’s married’” (95). My mother still says this to my sisters; it’s amazing how Chinese parents still pass this idea onto their children. I do not think this is strictly a Chinese thing (Koreans also think this), but it is indicative of how Chinese men (used to) view women.

On page 93, Lin Kong looks at his mother’s headstone and realizes that “his mother had never had her own name”; it just said “‘Kong’s Wife.’” On my grandmother’s headstone (in smalltown, Texas) it reads, in Chinese, “(her name), mother of (son’s name) and wife of (husband’s name).” When we grew up in South Korea, the other housewives in our neighborhood called my mother by her role in life instead of by her name, “(my sister’s name)’s mom.” Fun-ny.

• Manna Wu has a dream about “halibuts” and she automatically thinks this is a sign of good fortune (101). My father used to constantly badger me about my dreams. He would ask if I dreamt of any fish because if I did, we would have to immediately go purchase a lottery ticket.

I just think all these Chinese cultural things are really cool. They make me feel…what’s the word? Valid.

Characters

Before Part I is the Prologue, where I found Lin Kong to be an awful person. I was worried that I would have to follow this selfish, adulterous main character for the remainder of the novel. However, after the Prologue, I was relieved to find that he is this gentle, complicated, scholarly man. He tries to do the right thing, and he does feel guilty about having an affair with Manna Wu (who I have yet to warm up to). I sympathize with him because yes, he should live life the way he wants to (if China permits, that is), but my loyaty lies with Shuyu. For now.

Lin Kong reminds me a little of the character Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. Both are stuck, passive, inactive, and bound by social constructs.

I am looking forward to the rest of the novel. And yes, if you haven’t guessed already, I am really liking the book.

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