‘Waiting’ is a story of a man who is a victim of the historic Chinese traditions and who is caught in between guilt and desire. The guilt part of his feeling attaches to his wife who has been chosen by his parents for him to marry and his heart’s desire is the woman that he is in love with, ‘Manna’ who also works in the same hospital as him. The cultural, social and the political climate had a widespread impact on the lives of not just the characters of the story but also many others like them. Sadly, most of this impact was less than pleasant and one that many wanted to be eliminated from their lives.
Lin, or Manna or even Shuyu had no part to play with the turn that the Cultural Revolution took at the time their lives were in progressions, but their lives were very directly interlinked to the regulation which was in force prior to and following the movement. Lin and Manna specifically had great care as to how people see them as a couple because they both had their careers attached to the image that they held in the society. This is the reason why both of them made the choice of keeping their bond a secret at every step rather than revealing it to the people around them except for the closest of their friends. Lin was painfully aware that accusations of his family and his pushing for divorce could lead him to be investigated, and this is the chief motivation for him to keep a lid on his affair. It was the same culture which was behind the couple choosing not to take their bond to a more intimate level, and this meant that every turn that their story took had a very direct link with the rules and expectations which were in force at the time.
The story itself is set amidst the Cultural Revolution that was underway in China at the time the story of the three characters was recounted. Even though there is no in-depth involvement of the characters in the revolution at the time, the story does, however, reveal to us the struggles which the characters had to go through in their lives and how hard they always tried to free themselves from the obligations of the tradition and the laws of the army.
For instance, there was a time in the story when Lin Kong and Manna made covers for certain books which have been banned because of their foreign roots. Despite there being a threat in the event of their discovery, Lin still chose to hide those forbidden books rather than turning them into the authorities.
As for the divorce in between Lin and Shuyu, the law of the army had said that if a man seeks a divorce from his wife, there either is to be mutual consent between the two partners, or only one partner can file for divorce but only following eighteen years of sexual separation. Under restriction from the same law, Lin used to return to his home village every year to ask his wife for freedom and she used to agree with him but used to break down in tears when they approached the court on the subject. This is why Lin returned to work empty handed after every visit from home.
Apart from the impact that the political regulations of the time had on the relationship between army personnel, the life of people residing in the rural parts of the country was different yet quite alike in the state of its hopelessness. Because Lin belongs to a village which follows the practice of arranged marriages, he is forced into one himself to a woman that he discovers to be ill-matched for him following the martial ceremony. (Sturr, p.3) This marriage is one that he submits to just to accept the wish of his dying mother, and this is despite his regret that his wife is not pretty enough and sophisticated enough for him to show in his life in the military.
Shuyu who is Lin’s wife has her feet bound because of the traditional practice in the spirit of her fidelity to no one but her husband. The difference in the culture of Lin’s home village and the city of his hospital, however, has Lin feeling ashamed of the same tradition of having her wife’s feet bound and because of her same commitment to tradition; he keeps her at arm’s length from his life at the hospital and feels embarrassment of being seen with her. The same shame of his is reflected in his thought at seeing couples walk hand-in-hands with one another. He wished that he could do the same with his wife. In that instant, he used to wish that his wife was pretty and also that her feet were not bound. This thought expresses how important it was for him that her wife did not follow the tradition of the time.
The story of the forbidden books and Lin’s and Manna’s relationship without physical contact for no less than eighteen years as well as Lin’s frustration over his relationship with his wife are all sentiments which convey frustration towards the political rules which have been imposed over the characters in a culture such as that. These traditions and rules that applied to the time the events of the novel transpired contributed in depth to how the life decisions of the main characters were taken and how their lives were driven.This could very well mean that the relationship which had remained chaste for eighteen whole years had the political rules as its chief driving force towards their decision. We would also not be completely off-base in saying that had the people not objected to Manna’s relationships with Lin so much; the couple may have found happiness with one another rather than discovering frustration in a relationship that the both of them had so long awaited.
Works Cited
French Center for Research on Contemporary China. "HA JIN, WAITING." n.d. <http://www.cefc.com.hk/article/ha-jin-waiting/>.Accessed 16 August 2016
Jin, Ha. "Waiting." Pantheon Books, 1999.(Reference from the book)
Prose, Francine. "The 18-Year Itch." 24 October 1999. <https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/10/24/reviews/991024.24proset.html>.
Sturr, Robert D. "The Presence of Walt Whitman in Ha Jin's Waiting." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (2002): 1-18.
