1. The Sea Change and the Challenge of Dr. Zhivago

As a first-generation Chinese American writer, Ha Jin has been best known for his stories of mainland China, which he left behind. It was not until 2007, twenty-two years after he had moved to the United States, that he published his first novel about the diasporic Chinese-American community. In A Free Life, Ha Jin tells a moving story about how Wu Nan,¹ a Chinese immigrant in the US, decides to pursue his writer’s dream despite his realization of the American dream in terms of material gains. Since writing, freedom, and the immigrant experience are tightly interwoven in this novel, we might as well call it “a portrait of the artist as a middle-aged immigrant.”

In comparison with Ha Jin’s previous novels, A Free Life involves a sea change and is distinguished from earlier works in two major respects. In terms of content, Ha Jin’s attention shifts from China to the US, focusing on the Chinese-American community to which he belongs. So far as the structure is concerned, unlike his previous novels, which are presented in the form of long, consistent narratives, A Free Life is divided into two sections. The first section (Jin, Free 1-621), a long narrative in seven parts, is about Nan’s struggle to fulfill his American dream and, after its fulfillment, his further aspiration to achieve his ideal as a poet. The second section (623-60) is an “Epilogue,” consisting of the aspiring poet’s thirteen journal extracts (625-29) and twenty-five poems (633-60), which serves to substantiate the previous narrative and conclude the novel.

This structural arrangement reminds us of Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago. To Nan, “Pasternak wrote as if no novels had existed before. The loose structure of the book seemed improvident, yet after finishing the last page, Nan felt everything hung together, uncannily unified. What an amazing book!” (Jin, Free 517). “Amazing” as it might be, Nan is puzzled by the connection, or rather, non-connection between the story and the poems attached at the end of Dr. Zhivago. Moreover, a little bit to his disappointment, this literary masterpiece hardly mentions “how the protagonist struggled to write poetry” (517). Seen in this light, Dr. Zhivago is an important intertext from which Ha Jin draws inspiration, but which he also strives to challenge. This is proven by my interview with the novelist:

In other words, the novelist knowingly attaches those poems and runs the risk of reminding people of the artistic affinity with, or even artistic flaw of, Dr. Zhivago. However, Ha Jin is willing to accept this challenge to demonstrate the protagonist’s talent and frustration with the process of his literary creation due to his status as “the writer as migrant,” to borrow the title of Ha Jin’s collection of critical essays. In addition, he also seeks to emphasize Nan’s determination to become a poet in his adopted country so as to achieve “some kind of spiritual ascendance.”

2. Homeland and Loyalty

Although Ha Jin is reluctant to admit to the autobiographical elements in A Free Life, a careful reader will not fail to detect similarities between the author and the protagonist. For instance, both pursued advanced studies at Brandeis University, decided to stay on in the US after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, and were determined to fulfill their dream of being a writer in English rather than in their Chinese mother tongue. Moreover, this novel functions to flesh out some of the crucial ideas presented in The Writer as Migrant, which draws heavily from Ha Jin’s own writing experience. One of the main arguments in this collection of essays is the idea of “homeland.”

In his famous essay on diaspora, James Clifford distinguishes between “roots” and “routes,” arguing that the former has to do with the past, history, native land, and nostalgia, whereas the latter, the future, innovation, alien country, and prospects. In their introduction to Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations, Graham Harvey and Charles D. Thompson Jr. contrast “indigenous” with “diaspora,” associating the latter with “dispersed, separated, spread, strange, alien, alienated, disconnected, outgoing, other, rootless, uprooted and so on” (Harvey and Thompson, Indigenous 1).² However, as Yu-cheng Lee rightly points out, diaspora can also serve as a positive and productive space, where what was previously prohibited could be expressed freely (Lee, Diaspora 26). In addition, people might just take roots and make themselves at home in a non-native land. Based on his own experience, Ha Jin has this to say about “homeland”:

After giving some literary examples, Ha Jin concludes, “for most migrants, especially migrant artists and writers, the issue of homeland involves arrival more than return. . . . Its meaning can no longer be separated from home, which is something the migrant should be able to build away from his native land. Therefore, it is logical to say that your homeland is where you build your home” (Jin, Writer 84, emphasis added). This very same expression also appears in A Free Life (635), providing further proof of the close relationship between these two books.

Intimately related to the idea of homeland is that of loyalty. At the end of Part One, bitterly disappointed with China, Nan says to his friend Danning, who has decided to go back to China to teach at the People’s University, “I spit at China, because it treats its people like gullible children and always prevents them from growing up into real individuals. It demands nothing but obedience” (Jin, Free 96).³ He even claims, with tears in his eyes, “I’ve wrenched China out of my heart” (96). However, his previous homeland does not allow its native son to get away so easily. One afternoon while Nan is at the Gold Wok, the restaurant he and his wife, Pingping, acquire after years of hard work, he is approached by a man and a woman connected with the Georgia Tech Chinese Student Association who ask for “a donation for the flood victims in mainland China” (232). At first Nan refuses to donate, saying, “We’ve separated ourselves from China long ago, and for good. We don’t owe it anything” (233). After some heated conversation between the solicitors and Nan, his wife finally writes a check, much to the protagonist’s reluctance. Whereas Nan wishes, “If only we could squeeze the old country out of our blood,” this incident reminds the immigrant couple that “China would never leave them alone. Wherever they went, the old land seemed to follow them” (235). Therefore, as Chinese American immigrants affected by both “old” and “new” lands, the Wu’s find themselves living under what L. Ling-chi Wang calls “the structure of dual domination.”⁴

If in the previous episode the “old land” comes to him, Nan voluntarily approaches it in the following one, which occurs while he is still in the process of applying for US citizenship, since his Chinese passport has already been revoked for political reasons. Attending a meeting to discuss China Can Say No, a controversial book by two mainland China journalists, at the community center of local Chinatown, the protagonist finds his in-between status under severe attack. Before he attends the meeting, he comes up with “a pair of metaphors” to describe his relationship with his native and adopted countries, “comparing China to his mother and the United States to the woman he loved” (Jin, Free 489).⁵ Trite though they appear, these metaphors could help him “sort out his emotions” (490). As the discussion of the book becomes more and more vehement, Nan cannot help jumping in, expressing that as Chinese Americans, their position and interest differ from the authors’. To him, “China is our native land, while America is the land of our children—that’s to say, a place of our future” (495). After he reveals that he is going to be an American citizen before long, he is called a “shameless American!” and several persons demand “Americans out!” (495). What is more, his choice to write poetry in English, which he regards as an expression of his freedom of speech, makes him appear to fellow Chinese Americans like “a madman” and “a banana” (496). What to him is “my personal choice” to be “a real individual” only makes him “a lone wolf” (496) in the eyes of the audience. Consequently, the whole meeting becomes a farce and ends “in a tumult” (496). This incident shows that even among Chinese living in the US, the strong attachment to the native land is sometimes more powerful than expected, and capable of putting people like Nan, who tries to negotiate past and present, in a complicated situation.

3. The American Dream and Its Discontent

Geographically and psychologically unable to go back and settle down in China, their native land, Nan and Pingping strive to provide a decent life for their son, Taotao, for “[b]y any means, the boy must live a life different from his parents’ and take this land to be his country!” (Jin, Free 9). Ha Jin gives a detailed description of the couple’s struggle in this new land of opportunity, which could be seen as a small part of the collective history of immigrants to the US. After years of hard work, they finally own a restaurant and a mansion by the lake, something far beyond their reach in China. To an ordinary immigrant, or to be more exact, to Nan as an FOJ, “fresh off the jet” (10), this would be the realization of the American dream. Indeed, when he wants to buy the mansion, his lawyer tells him, “This is a major step toward realizing your American dream” (219). Pingping’s former employer in America is glad to find this Chinese couple is doing well, for “in less than a decade you already have your own business, a house, and two cars” (390). She continues, “Amazing. This can happen only in America. I’m very moved by the fact that you and Nan have actualized your American dream so quickly. I’m proud of this country” (390). Obviously, Nan and Pingping seem to offer another example of Chinese Americans as a model minority.

However, the protagonist is somewhat disappointed with material success and laments that “[t]he struggle had ended so soon that he felt as though the whole notion of the American dream was shoddy, a hoax” (Jin, Free 418). Characterized as a “dreamer” and “idealist” several times in the story (43, 55, 588), Nan has been nicknamed “Mr. Wagon Man” by his fellow Chinese students in the US because he once quoted the Ur-transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous saying, “Hitch your wagon to a star” (55). At last, legally a naturalized citizen and yet mentally an exile, Nan demonstrates characteristics which Edward W. Said ascribes to the life of an exile: “Exile is life led outside habitual order. It is nomadic, decentered, contrapuntal; but no sooner does one get accustomed to it than its unsettling force erupts anew” (Said, “Reflections” 186). As a result, even if Nan gets used to the kind of material comfort his adopted country offers, something deep inside remains unsettled and unsettling. Therefore, after Nan returns from his frustrating visit to China and finally decides that the US would be his home for the rest of his life, his dissatisfaction with his current situation increases, with one of the main reasons being “[h]e couldn’t make any progress in his writing” (604).

This sense of dissatisfaction and frustration grows day by day. Finally, there comes the moment for explosion. One afternoon after busy hours, Nan sits down to read Good Advice on Writing and comes across a remark by William Faulkner: “The writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart” (qtd. in Jin, Free 604).⁶ As if struck by lightning, the protagonist suddenly realizes that the reason why he has been procrastinating and endlessly delaying his dream of writing is due to his fear of leaving his comfort zone and of undertaking a soul-searching task. This shock of recognition ignites his long-hidden discontent. What follows is the climax of the whole novel:

Symbolizing his strong dissatisfaction with the material side of the American dream, this violent act shocks Pingping and other witnesses. After this incident, Pingping’s health problem and the terrible cost of treatment enable him to understand that external material conditions do not necessarily guarantee inner peace nor a sense of security. Consequently, he decides to sell their hard-won restaurant and find a job at a motel, which provides medical insurance, though he has to spend one-third of his income to pay for the insurance. In exchange, he has time to follow his literary dream, take care of his family, and not worry about the tremendous costs of medical treatment if a family member falls ill. Just as Ha Jin says in my interview with him,

This sudden change shatters the stereotype of Chinese Americans as being hardworking merely in pursuit of material prosperity. Nan’s friend Shubo tries to dissuade him from his “impatient” attempt and “impractical” dream of writing poetry in English as a first-generation Chinese American: “We’re new here and cannot go a million miles in one life. Writing poetry can be a profession only for your grandchildren”” (Jin, Free 420). As Shubo observes, “Nan, you’re too impatient. In your life span you want to go through the course of three generations” (421). In fact, Nan is not unaware of the situation of ordinary immigrants, for “[u]sually the first generation drudged to feed and shelter themselves and their families,” so that the second generation might “go to college and become professionals and ‘real Americans’” (418-19). Consequently, it is for the third generation to pursue literary and artistic ideals. He compares first-generation immigrants to “manure used to enrich the soil so that new seeds could sprout and grow” (419). As for himself, however, he wants to be both manure and new seed, and, hopefully, to flower by achieving both his secular and spiritual goals.

4. Poetic Ideals and Practices

With this vision in mind and “at peace with himself” (Jin, Free 616), Nan is “determined to follow his own heart” (618) and find a home in his adopted language by writing poetry. Composed of thirteen journal entries and twenty-five poems (one more than Dr. Zhivago) by the fledgling poet, “Epilogue” shows his effort to think through the significance of writing poetry, the hardships encountered during the writing process, as well as the results of his poetic endeavor. In contrast with the consistent and linear narrative, this section is relatively loose and fragmentary in structure, with an aim of complementing and reinforcing the narrative, something that Pasternak fails to do in Dr. Zhivago. Written between January 3 and October 30, 1998, these journal extracts—“a traditional practice of ancient Chinese poets”—articulate the aspiring poet’s thoughts and feelings in daily life and offer the “material for his poems” (616). Presented in journal form, they allow readers a glimpse into the protagonist’s inner state, and have a unique claim to privacy and authenticity.

Many people who dream of being writers aim at fame and fortune. However, the very first extract shatters this rosy picture, when Nan finds in a used bookstore a remarkable collection of poetry published in 1969, which is “fresh, elegant, intimate, and full of mysterious lines” (Jin, Free 625). And yet, there is no information about the poet, and no big chain store carries any book by the poet. This crude fact makes Nan realize “how fragile and ephemeral a poet’s reputation can be” and that the result of writing poetry “may be only failure” (625). Still, this shock of recognition does not prevent him from writing poetry. On the contrary, it shows that Nan writes with full knowledge of inevitable oblivion; nonetheless he cherishes poetry as a means of self-exploration and self-expression, rather than as a route to fame or fortune.

Fully committed to his chosen path, Nan submits a number of his poems to poetry journals. Some are accepted, others rejected. Among the editors, one lady is especially harsh, warning in their first correspondence, “English is too hard for you” and criticizing the way he uses the language as being “too clumsy” (Jin, Free 626). On another occasion, she quotes William Butler Yeats, “no poet who doesn’t write in his mother tongue can write with music and strength” (628) and questions, “Can you imagine your work becoming part of our language?” (628). These remarks are disheartening for the poet at the beginning of his literary career. However, with no intention of seeking fame or fortune, Nan already regards himself “as a loser who has nothing to lose anymore.” To him, writing poetry is of existential significance, for “[t]o write poetry is to exist” (626). In a sense, writing poetry has become his calling, in that he feels “I write only because I have to” (628). His determination is strengthened by famous lines from the preeminent Chinese poet Tu Fu (712–770 CE): “Writing is a matter of a thousand years; / My heart knows the gain and the loss” (627).

With regard to writing in a language other than one’s mother tongue, Ha Jin deals with this issue in The Writer as Migrant. As the holder of a PhD in English literature, a prolific writer in English with a number of prestigious literary awards to his credit, and a man of letters versed in Chinese and Russian literature, Ha Jin has much to offer concerning this topic. In my opinion, The Writer as Migrant aims at two ends at once: (1) to establish a tradition of migrant writers using their adopted English language, with Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov as two maestros writing in different styles but making significant contributions to English language and literature, and (2) to find Ha Jin’s own place in this literary tradition by highlighting, not downgrading, his unique cultural resources as well as linguistic and literary “foreignness.”⁷ As Nan asserts in his journal, “the vitality of English has partly resulted from its ability to assimilate all kinds of alien energies” (Jin, Free 628).

With this in mind, Nan embarks on his poetic journey. Closely related to the dichotomy between roots and routes, the aspiring poet decides to sever his ties to his native land and make the US his homeland. Moreover, he attempts to go beyond the material side of the American dream by pursuing something more spiritual and transcendental. His situation is in perfect accord with Theodor Adorno’s statement: “In his text, the writer sets up house. . . . For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live” (87). Nan’s feelings and thoughts find their best expression in his poems.

For instance, the speaker in “An Admonition” (Jin, Free 653) offers a contrast between his native land and his new homeland. The first stanza lists a number of things that “you used to see” (653) back in China. In contrast, “Here in America you can speak and shout, / though you have to find your voice and the right ears” (653). Therefore, as a Chinese immigrant in the US, the Promised Land, “All your sufferings are imaginary,” “all your misfortunes are imaginary,” and “Your hardship is just commonplace” (653). Whatever difficulty and complaint the immigrant might encounter in his adopted country, his is still “a fortune many are dying to seize” in his old homeland (653). In other words, in contrasting his land of arrival with that of his departure, the speaker in the poem urges acceptance of a sense of appreciation and satisfaction in his new homeland.

The poem that immediately follows, “Immigrant Dreams” (Jin, Free 654), tells a different story concerning the attractions and pitfalls of material achievement in the US. For the two persons in the poem, probably husband and wife, the female immigrant’s “dream has evolved into a house / on two acres of land with a pool” by “[giving] up art school” and “sell[ing] her hours in America” (654). Here in a capitalist society, “dollars can equalize most lives” (654). On the other hand, the male immigrant wishes that he could return to “twenty again” or “stop patching his dream / with diffident feet and rhymes” (654). Propelled by his creative urge, the male immigrant is still filled with youthful ideals of creative writing. Short as it is, this poem serves to complement the long narrative by showing the achievement of the American dream in terms of material gains on the one hand, and the unflinching devotion to the art of poetry writing on the other. It can be read as an alternative version of “An Admonition,” reminding immigrants to the US about the attraction and pitfalls of the American dream, and the significance of youthful ideals.

Whatever variations might be found in immigrant dreams, at least one thing remains certain: how to redefine “homeland” is a theme that constantly haunts immigrants. The three stanzas in the poem “Homeland” (Jin, Free 635) appear like a syllogism. In the first stanza, the one going abroad assures his/her friend that he/she will return in a few years “like a lion” and “[t]here is no other place I can call home” (635). The following stanza presents a different picture, for somehow he/she is not allowed to go back and becomes “expendable to / a country never short of citizens” (635). The third stanza thus concludes: “Eventually you will learn: / your country is where you raise your children, / your homeland is where you build your home” (653, emphasis added). This conclusion not only supports the protagonist’s stance in the narrative, but also echoes one of the main themes of The Writer as Migrant.

In brief, whereas these poems are the embodiment of Nan’s poetic practices, the journal extracts represent his feelings, ideas, and the story behind his creative writing. Moreover, extracts and poems not only illuminate each other, but also showcase the results of the protagonist’s dedication to his ideal. In his interview with Ming Di, the Chinese translator of Ha Jin’s poems and The Writer as Migrant, Ha Jin thus comments on the quality and function of these poems: “The poems in A Free Life are personalized poems, written solely for Nan. They are not as good as those in Dr. Zhivago because Nan is not a successful poet. But as a whole, A Free Life may stand side by side with Dr. Zhivago” (Ming, “Interview” 225). The reason for Ha Jin’s confidence comes mainly from the recognition that, structurally speaking, the poems in this novel are organically intertwined with the whole narrative and enhance its main theme, characterization, and the development of the plot. All these work together to give a vivid representation of the writer as a migrant, writing in a language other than his mother tongue.

5. “Garlands of Words” and “A Path of Flowers”

The difficult situation of a migrant writer can best be observed in “An Exchange” (Jin, Free 658-59). This five-stanza poem forms a dialogue, or rather, a debate between the poet and a collective “we” from his native land. In fact, the first stanza creates a species of ambiguity, for the reader does not know exactly who the speaker is. It remains unclear whether the poet or someone else is blaming him(self) for his “folly” or wishful thinking for having “determined to follow the footsteps of Conrad / and Nabokov” and for having believed “you can write verse in English, / whose music is not natural to you?” (658). The second stanza makes it clear that it is actually “our people” in the native land who condemn the poet for betraying them and “our ancient words” by choosing to write in “gibberish” (658). The third stanza delves even deeper by invoking racism to further discourage the poet from his artistic pursuit in a foreign language, for even if he is accepted “in the temple housing those high-nosed ghosts,” he will still be regarded merely as “a clever Chinaman” (658).

In the next two stanzas, the poet refutes these accusations and formulates his own idea of loyalty. To him, “Loyalty is a two-way street” (Jin, Free 658). In return, he accuses the nation of having betrayed its people and condemns “those who have hammered / our mother tongue into a chain / to bind all the different dialects / to the governing machine?” (658-59). In other words, a nation is not entitled to demand loyalty from its people unilaterally. Instead, the nation and its people should be loyal to each other. Furthermore, those who diminish the diversity and heterogeneity of different dialects in order to serve the state machine are being disloyal to their mother tongue. Confirming the poet’s determination, the final stanza brings the whole debate to an abrupt end: “To write in this language is to be alone, / to live on the margin where / loneliness ripens into solitude” (659). The longest poem in the book, “An Exchange” expresses in a nutshell both the poetics and politics of the freedom of writing in an adopted language in an adopted country. Faced with various accusations from his native land and severe challenges from his new homeland, Nan embraces his task as a poet and embarks on his journey.

After “An Exchange” comes the last poem, which concludes not only Nan’s collection of poems but also the whole novel. Written in a serene mode, “Another Country” (Jin, Free 660) readily reminds the reader of Yeats’s famous poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” A utopian state for the poet, it is “a country without borders, / where you can build your home / out of garlands of words” (660). It seems that after his journey from his native land to the US as his new homeland, after his material success as a new immigrant in the land of opportunity, and after his determination to accept his calling as a poet writing in another language in another country, Nan finally wins entry into a truly free life in his promised land:

Notes

Works Cited