Author of the week: Ha Jin

For his story collection, A Good Fall, Ha Jin made 20 visits to New York's Flushing neighborhood to fully grasp the challenges faced by new Chinese immigrants at a time when technology makes it difficult to sever ties with th

The novelist Ha Jin felt he couldn’t complete his latest story collection without making a fresh study of the immigrant experience, said Anna Mundow in The Boston Globe. In 1999, only 14 years after he emigrated from China himself, Jin won a National­ Book Award for his novel Waiting. But when he decided, four years ago, to start writing about the new Chinese immigrants crowding into New York’s Flushing neighborhood he sensed that the challenges they faced had been subtly changed by technology. They still come to America expecting to start a new life, he says. “But you can’t sever your ties with the past; it’s impossible. With e-mail and such technology, the distances are shortened. No matter where you go, you are closer than ever, in a way, to those at home.”

Jin’s new story collection, A Good Fall, makes inventive use of reporting he did in Flushing, said Alexandra Alter in The Wall Street Journal. Jin visited the neighborhood some 20 times while writing, but never spoke to anyone while he was there. “They get nervous; they won’t tell you the truth,” he says. “It’s better to just walk around, keep notes, and observe.” Jin listened closely to patterns of speech, then created his own idiom to capture that speech in English. In Flushing, he explains, no one would actually use the expression “hitting a dog with a meat ball,” as one of his characters does. “Hitting a dog with a pork bun,” however, is a common phrase. It means bestowing a reward when your intent is to punish.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us