REFLECTION ON THE NOVEL

WAITING
BY HA JIN
Waiting 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 longtime friend, a nurse. At first I found the guy heartless for
planning such thing but something is urging me to continue reading the
novel. Waiting is a story of love in limbo and the lives it leaves on hold as Lin
Kong, a doctor in the Chinese Army, battles cultural forces and his own
uncertain heart in a quest for love's fulfillment.
Jin is not a native English speaker; he served six years in the
Peoples Liberation Army, and came to the U.S. in 1985. It is astounding to
me that he could write such a beautiful novel. The pacing and the feeling as
you move through the book, coupled with the deep character development
and great use of irony makes reading this book a really transcendent
experience. I couldnt put it down, even though it was slow at times. It was
like a long, bittersweet reflection. The only thing I didnt like about this book
is that it is slow and quite depressing.
The story begins 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. This book went a
long way to helping me understand what life has been like for the Chinese.
The title could not be more accurate.Life in China for the last fifty years has
been a lot of patient waiting. Waiting for something better to come along, for
someone else to figure out whether traditional values would win out, for the
government to actually recognize its people as individuals, for reform to
catch up to the needs of each personal life hopefully in lifetime, for a better
promotion to maybe or maybe not come on their way, for a party official to
decide to make any woman his wifeor not, for the leaders in power to die
off, or for 18 years to pass so a man can marry his first love.
The plot of the novel revolves around the fortunes of three people: Lin
Kong, the army doctor; his wife Shuyu, whom he has never loved; and his
girlfriend at the hospital where he works, the nurse Manna Wu. Waiting is
primarily a novel of character. It presents a 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. Upon reading the prologue of
the novel, I felt bad with Lin Kongs attitude. I am very eager to know how his
life unfolds in the novel.
Lin Kong is a man who has always tried to do the right thing. First he
followed the wish of his dying mother and married the wife she had arranged
for him. But being a Doctor in the Peoples Liberation Army meant he only
went back to see his country bumpkin wife with bound feet once a year. He
falls in love with another woman, a nurse named Manna, in a forced military

march. That time I hated Lin Kong for cheating his wife even for 18 years
they never touch one another.

Lin returns to his country wife every summer to attempt to divorce her.
I was so happy when the Communist law states that an officer cant divorce
his wife without her consent for a period of 18 years. I felt there is a little
hope between Lin Kong and his wife, who raises his daughter and suffers
quietly. So an entire lifetime goes wasted as Manna and Lin wait to be
together. And by the time they were together, Lin seemed to pay all his
shortcomings in his first family.
Lin is not at all excited about Mannas pregnancy. This shows that he
was not excited about the longevity of a relationship that having children
brings about. When Manna was delivering the twins she screams at Lin about
how much she hates him and asks why she did that to her. These are normal
things for a woman in labor to say, but these words have more meaning in
this situation. Both Manna and Lin are unhappy at this point and the birth of
the twins only solidifies the existence of this unhappiness.
Lin never knew what he wanted, so his missing his first wife was
inevitable because she was always good to him and he never would have
divorced her had it not been for Manna whom he is finally with, but is not
happy as he had expected. Shuyu represents certainty and security in Lins
life and when he finally divorced her he lost that stability. Lin was a weak
character whose actions were predictable for the most part. His thought
process foreshadowed what was to come through the entire novel.
The line Tell her not to wait for me. I'm a useless man, not worth
waiting for made me cry. 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.
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.