>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Good afternoon and welcome.
I'm Ron Charles, the editor of "Book
World" at "The Washington Post,"
which is a charter sponsor of The
National Book Festival [applause].
Thank you.
Our guest this afternoon is a
celebrated poet and novelist,
was such a response are just
as it is a celebrated
poet and novelist Ha Jin.
The life of this remarkable
writer began in China,
where his father was
a military officer.
At 13, Jin, himself joined
the People's Liberation Army
which he stayed with
until he was 19.
He earned a Master's Degree
in literature in China
and earned a scholarship at Brandeis
University in the late 1980s when he
and the rest of the world watched
the Chinese government crackdown
on the democracy demonstrations
in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
He decided to remain
in the United States.
He eventually earned a PhD.
And now teaches at
Boston University.
Over the years he's published
several unforgivable novels
about life in China,
and the immigrant experience
here in America.
In 1999 he won both the
PEN/Faulkner Award here in DC,
and The National Book Award in
New York for his novel "Waiting."
His award-winning short
stories have appeared
in "The Best American
Short Story Anthologies."
In 2004, he won a second
PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel
"War Trash," which was also a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
His most recent novel
is "A Map of Betrayal."
A story, loosely based
on a real-life event
about a quiet unassuming man who
works as a translator for the CIA
and eventually becomes the
biggest Chinese spy ever caught
in North America.
"A Map of Betrayal comes
to us along two timeframes.
In the present day, a middle-aged
American woman describes her efforts
to piece together the
duplicitous life
of her late father
that convicted spy.
And in sections set in the
past, we follow that spy's life
until he's finally
caught by the FBI.
It's a story of a modest man pulled
away from his family into spy craft
by twisted strands of
patriotism, egotism, and naivete.
Like Joseph Conrad, Ha Jin is
writing in his adopted language.
When he accepted The
National Book Award
for "Waiting" he said I
also wish to thank America,
the land of generosity
and abundance,
they accepted me as a citizen.
Above all, I thank the English
language which is embracive,
and vibrant, and has
provided me with a niche
where I can do meaningful work.
Please join me in welcoming Ha Jin.
[ Applause ]
>> Hi thank you for being here.
And I'm going to talk briefly.
I think I will start,
pick up where Ron stopped.
I did, I think I did on several
occasions I expressed my gratitude
to this country and also
to the English language.
For me I think it's very important
to always keep the ease of language
in mind because as a writer,
especially a non-native speaking
writer, we have to be aware
of our position in the language
because we always come from kind
of different margins and eventually
a writer's value, or worth,
can only be measured in their
contribution to the language.
I think that's a huge ambition.
Because partly because I
started my [inaudible],
also my writing life as a poet.
So that was the essential
issue in poetics.
That's why I have to be
aware of this constantly.
Although I always stated that
I'm a writer, I envision myself
in the tradition, established
in the English language
by Joseph Conrad and
Vladimir Nabokov.
That's a grand tradition in which
there are some great prose writers
whose native tongues
are not English,
but eventually became
essential writers
to the literature, to the language.
In the sense that if we
took Conrad and Nabokov
out of the English letters,
there's somehow the literature feels
incomplete with a few incomplete.
I think that's the
kind of measurement
for really a good literary writer.
But of course there
was kind of two grand.
That's why I hesitated for
a long time before I decided
to write in English.
In face when my son arrived
in this country, in July 1989,
my first thought was very clear,
at airport that he would become
American, because that was right
after the Tiananmen massacre.
At the time, I imagined,
I believed there was kind
of a cycle in Chinese history.
A cycle for violence that was when
[inaudible] serving no purpose.
So I wanted my child to
get out of this cycle.
So that's why the thought came
to me, he must be American.
And for a long time I didn't
know what to do with my life.
It was a very rational
decision to immigrate.
But psychologically I was not ready.
I had a job waiting for me in China
at a University, Chang
Lu University.
It was a good job, but I
couldn't return to it because all
of the universities were state
owned I would not serve a brutal
government like that.
And but it took me a long time,
a long time to decide
to write English.
Returning to the issue of language,
because I was writing
my dissertation.
I knew there was a great prose
tradition in the language.
Before I decided to write in
English there was nothing new in it.
It all depended whether I had the
ability, the luck, and the courage.
So eventually I decided to do it.
Partly because I realized certainly
is another human condition.
And part of the price for
freedom is uncertainty.
So that's why, there was a sense
of failure at the very beginning.
I think I was deeply influenced
by Kafka's short story
"The Hunger Artist."
The artist, he was total failure.
In this life, he couldn't find
the food, suitable for himself.
So the only art for him was fasting.
And so I think for me
that was the reason
for artists [inaudible]
to start with a failure.
And from there.
I think that's another very
important moment in my life.
I was reading Chekhov, very
attentively at the time.
And in his beginning years, Chekhov
wrote a lot of short stories,
very short pieces for newspapers,
because he had to get money
to pay immediately so that he
can buy bread for his family.
So when older critics
saw his stories,
and was very touched by them.
And he wrote to Chekhov, he said,
"I don't know about your
situation, your income.
If you're income is
small, then starve."
We all starve from there.
And the essence of the letter
was to cherish your talent.
And Chekhov of course from
that point on he began
to write longer pieces and later
would have the small masterpieces
in his later years.
And he became a more accomplished
writer and a playwright.
And then it dawned to me that
in the United States you would
never starve.
As long as you're healthy, you
work some, you don't abuse drugs.
You'll be fine, you won't starve.
So that I think was a very
important moment for me.
I realized I wouldn't ruin myself
even if I failed as a writer.
And so that was another
kind of encouragement.
But gradually step by step I think
I became kind of professional writer
in the middle of my graduate work
of doing it at Boston University.
I was hired by Emery University
to teach poetry writing.
So from there step by step
I became a fiction writer.
But I'm still writing poetry.
In fact I'm still struggling
between the two languages,
Chinese and English.
In fact I just publish a book
of poems written in Chinese.
But I'm finishing another one,
but meanwhile I'm re-writing some
of the poems for an
English poetry book.
And so that shows that I'm still
at some kind of a, not crossroads,
but at some kind of a choices,
a fork I would say, where to go.
But I think I'm working in
between the two languages
and see what I can do.
In other words I'm still
becoming kind of a writer.
And let me say a few words about
my new novel that I read briefly
and I hope you have questions so
that we can have some conversation.
And this novel is called
"A Map of Betrayal."
The [inaudible] of the book
is based upon true happening.
In the beginning year, or the
second year of my graduate work
in the states, and there
was a well-known case,
a Chinese spy working at the CIA,
Larry Chin was arrested by the FBI.
And he was discovered as the most,
the highest, the biggest spy,
Chinese spy, in North America.
And it was a huge event.
And we all thought this guy, because
he was such a high-ranking official,
he was already a wise minister
for the Chinese National Security.
Really, a major figure in
China's intensive circle.
We thought that he would be
returned to China as kind
of exchange for American spies.
And by the Chinese side soon
denied any connection with him.
The man was so crushed, he
killed himself in prison.
So that was the [inaudible]
of the novel.
This case stayed with
me for a long time
because the essence is a bit
of, this is a country betrayal
of a person, an individual.
And for me that was a
vital subject in my life.
Because in China, people,
they were educated as patriot.
You have to, not only respect and
love, but worship your country.
The Chinese society used to
have very little religion
and very few religions
tolerable by the government.
Basically the country and
the government, the party,
the great leader, they
became the religious figures.
So a lot of religious
fittings were cast on those
as a result and people got confused.
I think that was one of the
sources, perhaps main source
for trauma among the Chinese.
They got confused and felt betrayed.
I think this is the case the
country betrays a person.
But how to present and
how to write about this
after so many years
especially this man's life.
He started his inspiring
career a long time ago.
A half a century ago.
But how to make this past
and the present relevant,
or related to each other.
I think that's the
basic challenge is
when we work on a historical novel.
The past must be re-interpreted
in the light of the present.
Then, it must speak to the present,
but how to make this
dramatized, the different times.
So for me this was the challenge.
And then I was in a way,
enlightened by a novel,
"Heat and Dust" by Ruth Jhabvala.
I think this kind, the
novel is very small,
but technically it's
really perfect novel.
And in that book the
author used two lines
of the narrative is
spoke by one person.
One is in the past, in 1921.
The other in the present,
in the 1970s.
And I think among all these
kinds of narrative structure,
telling two stories
at the same time,
this is the most accomplished
book technically.
So I learned a lot from that.
I also taught the novel
several times.
And occasionally some students would
raise the question or misgivings
that the narrative didn't have
blood relationship the woman,
the heroine in the novel.
So it became an issue.
For me it was not, but some
occasionally some students would
have question, have issue with that.
And so for me that's why I
decided upon the daughter,
a daughter as a narrator.
I was not sure you
know the actual figure,
whether he had a daughter or a son.
He had children, but who?
What kind of children,
who they were.
I wasn't sure.
Also because of his case,
it was still classified.
A lot, a lot of information
is not available.
But in a way it's good because
this gave me room for creation.
I had to depend on imagination
or some basic research.
And that's why I used the
daughter as a narrator.
And also I had other structure
changes that improved,
that made the novel
structurally different.
But I think I learned
a lot from that novel.
And I think the basic challenge
in telling two stories is
how to begin and how to end.
The two stories must
start at same time.
At some point they must entwine
and help propel each other,
also contextualize each other.
Shedding light on each other.
This is kind of complication
process, complicating process.
And at end, put end the
two stories must merge.
If they don't merge, then the
structure the whole novel would
fall apart.
I think there are a lot
of examples like that.
And the story was exciting
and everything would come
to the end the two did not merge.
So that was the biggest
disadvantage.
So I had to be aware of that.
But by deciding on the daughter,
I think also I create
a third generation.
So that should resolve
the structural problem.
And there are other
disadvantages in the structure.
In a book like this
with this kind of novel.
Because you have to be aware
of the two lines all the time.
There is a sense of a balance.
For instance you can't tell one
episode in the present for 30 pages,
then next chapter only 6 or 7 pages.
You destroy the balance.
So you have to be aware
of the pace, the balance.
That really influenced the folding,
unfolding of dramatic scenes.
But that is the kind of a
restriction a writer had to deal
with was you use this form.
And there is another kind
of inherent imposition
between the two stories.
That is they are told
by the same voice,
but in the past story I used the
third person narrative to indicate
that this whole story about
her father is constructed
by a historian.
Whereas the present story
is told by a first person,
in a kind of memoire voice.
This is kind of reversal, in a
way reversal of Jhabvala's novel.
Because in her case the first,
the present story is
told in pure diary form.
And so that is I think
basically the map of this novel.
I will read very, I'm going
to read very briefly here
and then maybe you have issues
about writing [inaudible] channel,
and the stage of the culture things.
I'd be happy to talk
about, speak about them.
Okay where should I start?
Okay. Okay I think I should start
where he first came to the, Gary,
the grandfather when he
came to the states in 1955.
"American life amazed him,
particularly the good wages.
Some jobs even paid by the hour.
The fabulous libraries
of which he could check
out as many items as he wanted.
The streets big or small.
All illuminated by lamps at night.
And the supermarket, where
even spinach, celery,
and mushrooms were
wrapped in cellophane.
He liked the foods here,
especially banana, $.14 a pound
and oranges $.25 a dozen.
He was also fond of American nuts.
Their kernels are full and plump.
But he didn't like some
meats, farm raised their fish
and vegetables, which tasted bland.
Despite of everything, Gary
was sure he'd feel miserable
if he lived here for long.
Where ever he was, he couldn't shake
his wariness and twinges and jolts
of fear, often galvanized.
And sometimes when
passing a street corner,
he was afraid that a hand
might stretch out and grab him.
Walking home alone from work, he
had to force himself not to spin
around to see if he
was being shadowed.
He hoped he could return
to China soon.
And again walk on solid
farming ground.
In his first matter to his
handler, it is insinuated
that he felt homesick and out of
place but the [inaudible] replied
that they had to stick
to the original plan.
The plan includes that he
was to marry American woman
so that he would be Americanized.
That means he would have to be
spy in the states for a long time.
Soon after Gary settled down,
a tallish young woman
walked into his life.
That was Nellie.
She waited the tables
in a small restaurant
where Gary often went for lunch.
She noticed him because of his quiet
disposition and gentle demeanor.
Unlike other men, he
never raised his voice,
and seemed to prefer to eat alone.
Yet, whenever he saw somebody he
knew, he would greet them warmly.
He seemed easy going
and good natured.
One day at the end of the busy
lunch hour, Nellie got up the nerve
to speak to him, to see
if he could talk at length
like normal men, especially
with a woman.
For a brief moment,
he looked perplexed.
His eyes intense, starring at her.
Then his face relaxed into a smile
that showed his square teeth.
He said I don't think
I introduced myself.
I'm Gary. He stretched out his hand.
Nellie McCarick [assumed spelling].
The second she said
that, she felt stupid
to have mentioned her last name.
She must have sounded as if
she was at a job interview.
But Gary didn't seem to
have noticed her unease.
The grip of his hand felt forceful.
And she liked that.
There were a few customers around,
so she sat down across from him
and put her elbow on the table.
Her face rested on her hand to
check the shivers of excitement
and to keep her lips from trembling.
Yet, she managed to hold his
gaze while a pinkish sheen crept
up her face.
Even the tops of her
ears turned red and hot."
Let me see.
Okay that start their love affair.
Eventually they got married.
Basically, I think Gary was
full of guilt in his palms
because if he was a married
man, he couldn't say anything.
So he was kind of passive, but
he was determined to find a wife.
So they got married.
And let me see.
And another purpose for doing
this was to get a green card.
So he, because otherwise if he
would have tried to renew his visa
that would be too much for him,
it would make him want to go.
So he, in a way he used his wife
to become a permanent resident.
And following this chapter
is the kind of story,
the narrator in the year 2011
and went to the countryside
to look for Gary's first wife.
But the first wife
already passed away.
But the narrator still had a
half-sister in the country side.
So this is after they
met in the countryside,
in the very remote
small town, [inaudible].
Let me see where should I read.
"After big dinner" and okay
this is the moment, okay.
"Manrong's."
This is the sister's home.
"Manrong's home was clean
and spacious, the floors made
of find bricks sealed with cement.
A large flat-screen TV stood against
the back wall in the sitting room,
a stainless steel floor
lamp inclined its gooseneck
from a corner, and framed
family photos were propped
up on a long oak chest
against another wall.
'This is my mother,'
Manrong told me,
pointing at a black-and-white
picture.
I leaned over to see
Yufeng in her mid-forties,
a smooth egg-shaped face, narrow
cheekbones, a straight nose,
bright but pensive eyes, a mole
above the left corner of her mouth,
and graying bangs covering
a part of her forehead.
She looked healthy
and somewhat citified,
like a nurse or a schoolteacher.
She must have been very capable both
inside and outside the household.
Next to this photo stood
another one, a wedding portrait,
in which she and my father,
shoulder touching shoulder,
were smiling blissfully.
They were a handsome couple,
lean-faced and rather elegant,
a veil over the bride's head while
the groom's hair was pomaded shiny
and parted on the side.
In his breast pocket was
stuck a fountain pen.
Above their heads, towards
the right-hand corner,
was a sloping line of
characters, for Weimin
and Yufeng's happy
union, January 16, 1949.
'Your mother was very
pretty,' I said to Manrong.
'Yes, she was voted the
number one beauty back
in our home village in Shandong.'
'Voted by whom?'
'By some men in the
village, secretly.'
'No wonder it as so hard
for her to live there.'
I remembered the proverb and quoted,
'gossips always cluster
around a widow's house.'
I mean without her husband around
she must have lived like a widow.'
'You really understand
the Chinese, Lilian.'
'Our father always demanded
that I learn Mandarin.
One of my fields is Chinese history.
I saw a bottled watercooler stand
in a corner, similar to the one
in Henry's superintendent's office
in our apartment building
back in Maryland.
Fushan County is right
on the Songhua River,
whose water must have
been quite polluted.
The bottled drinking water also
indicated the Manrong's family was
doing well, though I noticed
she used tap water for cooking.
In the back of the house
was a low-ceilinged office,
where I saw a computer, a scanner,
a fax machine, and a laser printer.
I was impressed that even in such a
backwoods town the family was savvy
about electronics.
Juya" that's the niece.
"Juya said that she went to Weibo,
the Chinese microblogging
site, every night.
She had online pals in other
provinces, even one in Mongolia.
I told her I didn't blog.
That was a surprise to
her, because she thought
that most Americans were bloggers.
'Why don't you blog, Aunt?'
Juya asked me in her throaty voice.
'It's too time-consuming.
I prefer to spend my, I was reading
books, that's part of my job too.'
'It's really wild out there.
You can make all kinds of
friends through blogging.
Also, it's fun and helps me follow
what's going on in the world.'
'I have many students already.
I might lose my mind if I have
to deal with more people.'
She gave a chesty laugh."
And then the family
had a big dinner.
After dinner her sister, the sister
Manrong wanted to stay the night
with the narrator, Lillian.
The two stayed together and chat.
Okay. Let's see.
"That night Manrong
chased her husband
to another bedroom saying she wanted
me to stay with her so we could talk
about our father and
also girl to girl.
In fact we had hardly
mentioned him during the day.
I would not confine to my sister
that he had been a Chinese
spy caught by the FBI,
or that he had been a lousy husband.
I told her instead he
missed your mother a lot,
but couldn't come back.
We all knew he was on an
important mission overseas.
Manrong said, 'Did he know
about my brother and me?'
'Yes, in the late fifties
his higher ups informed him
about the two of you.
When he died he assumed our
brother was often still alive.
He often mentioned your
mother in his diary.'
'My mother had a hard life.'
She paused, as though
expecting my response.
But I didn't know what to say.
We were lying on the brick bed
in the dark two feet apart.
The room was so quiet that
there was only the tick tock
of the wall clock.
Manrong continued, 'Mom often said,
my dad was a distinguished man,
with a degree from
Tsinghua University.
That was really something.
I don't know who else in our
home county went to Tsinghua.
On her deathbed, my
mother said to me,
when you see your dad someday tell
him I was a good daughter-in-law
to his parents and
a good wife to him.
While I wish I could
have let him know that.'
'I went to my [inaudible]
village last month I said.
I was told that you and your mother
had left because of a brother died.'
'He was [inaudible] not like
me, although we were twins.
In the fifties we lived decently
on the money from the government.
But when the famine struck we
became worse off than the villages
because we couldn't grow crops
and money became worthless
like straw paper.
Our brother and I were 11 that
year, both skinny like bags
of bones, hungry all the time.
It was reported that
lots of people had died
of hunger, so mom was terrified.
Then our brother died.
And my mother almost
lost her mind with grief.
When Uncle Mashing
[assumed spelling] asked us
to join his family here, we
left [inaudible] right away.'
'It was a smart move.'
I said. 'More than
200 villages starved
to death in the following years.
As a matter of fact later mom
told me there was another reason
we moved.'
'What's that?'
'There was a man in the village
Uncle Winfu [assumed spelling]
who was from our [inaudible] clan,
a distant cousin of our father's
and I remember him,
quite humble man.
He was a bachelor and
very kind to us.
And he often came to help
mom with household work,
like fetching the roof, digging
ditches to drain rainwater
out of our yard, getting a
hog for the spring festival.
He was a handsome man, tall,
muscular with a straight black
sparkling eyes and his family was
so poor he couldn't find a
girl willing to marry him.
The village was whispering
about him and mom.
The two were fond of
each other for sure.
Mom later told me that Uncle
Winfu had asked her to marry him,
but she would never do that because
she was still married to our dad.
She said to him, 'what if my
husband comes back one day.'
Despite for everything, she couldn't
help but develop a softer spot
in her heart for Uncle
Winfu and would get heavy
with joy whenever he was around.
She confessed to me that if we
hadn't moved away, soon enough,
she might not have been
able to restrain herself.
She dreaded a scandal.'
Something surged up in
my chest and tears welled
out my eyes and baiting my face.
I covered my mouth with my palm,
but still Manrong heard me sobbing.
'Why are you crying?'
She asked.
'I feel so sad for your mom.
She was a good woman.
I wish she had lived
a different life.'
'You're a good woman too.
The moment I saw you I knew you
were someone I could trust.'
She stretched out her
hand and gripped my arm."
Okay I'm going to stop here.
And I hope you have
questions so that we can.
[ Applause ]
Okay.
>> I had a question this
goes back to the novels
"Waiting" and "War Trash."
I felt in reading them that I
was getting a particular insight
into maybe personal dilemmas that
a Chinese everyman would have
that maybe, and every man in
the United States would not.
They always seem to be caught in a
dilemma that involves their culture,
their family, the government,
communist etiology.
And had these terrible struggles
trying to work with all of them
and I wanted to ask if you felt
that elucidating I guess sort
of the personal Chinese
dilemmas that people have as part
of the storytelling that you do.
>> Sure. That in fact,
that is kind of yes.
There is the kind of inward
struggle, in most of my characters.
And I think there are
different dimensions.
Obvious on the surfaces there
was kind of social pressure,
kind of odd kind of constraints that
make them unable to act at the signs
of responsibility and morals.
And but there are also some kind,
something I think psychologically
that may not be typically
Chinese, or only Chinese.
For instance when I was working
on "Waiting" for a while I gave
up because I couldn't see
the meaning of the story.
I studied literature for many years.
I knew that the universality is one
of the principles,
two of the principles.
And so if the story is
not meaningful to others,
other than Chinese, the
Chinese, it can't be literary.
So that's why I stopped
working on it.
That was after many revisions.
Then one day I read an interview
given by the wife of a Navy officer,
an American Navy officer.
And the wife complained that her
husband didn't love her, was cold.
And then the interviewer said,
"Do you think that he
is having an affair?"
The wife said, "Affair?
I wish he could have affair
so that he could prove
he could love a woman."
So that was a turning point.
I realized there were good
American men, decent men,
but still had similar problem.
Because in other words, the kind
sometimes the [inaudible] think
somehow is this warped, suppressed.
In fact later when
the book came out,
I also received letters
from American woman.
She had a similar problem,
could never be engaged
emotionally with anyone.
So that psychologically this
doesn't have to be political.
But the story itself, like "Waiting"
this is obviously there was
such a harsh pressure, either it's
on the man lost his ability to love,
he didn't understand it
instinctively he doesn't understand
it anymore.
So that was kind of a
complexity of the story.
And then there's another theme
that is the individual
in the [inaudible].
This is also I think
dramatized in "War Trash" right.
A person is used ruthlessly
and abandoned.
Not just the person,
a lot of soldiers.
But again there's a
universal resonance.
And most the countries do that.
Not only China.
I think it happened to
many, many soldiers.
Yes?
>> I'm interested in your working
in two languages simultaneously.
Can you compartmentalize them
so that when you're working
in English you're not
dealing in your head
in Chinese, or do they run together?
And what kinds of problems
do you have
with English because of the Chinese.
Your writing is so beautiful.
I can't imagine you have any.
>> You know I think there
are so many problems.
And I really kind of generalize it.
But there are some principles.
A person in my situation.
For instance we know that if you
write poetry in very traditional,
even kind of conservative
conception of this is
to purify, refine the dialect.
This is by T.S. Eliot.
To refine, to purify the
dialect of the tribe.
But if you are from another
language, this is impossible,
meaningless, out of the question.
So there is another
way of thinking of this
that is to enrich the language.
And that I think in most
non-native speaking authors,
I think that is the
ultimate ambition.
To bring something to the language.
That also means you have
to bring from a source,
bring things from a source.
And the answer is basically
you use another language
to serve the other way.
So that's heartbreaking issue.
A problem.
In the very beginning,
was hard, really,
but gradually I could
be more rational.
And so that's why when I was
interviewed in the Chinese media,
very often I say if I wrote
in Chinese I could
have accomplished more.
Because I would try to find
things in your other languages,
try to learn more languages
when I was young, and then
and to bring things into
the Chinese language.
But life is very limited.
We are all very small, you know
constrained by circumstances.
We can't do too much but while I
work on two languages and I do feel
that I have to use one language
to make the other language fresh.
I basically when I write in
Chinese I would do the same.
But I didn't write in
Chinese for a long time.
Not until recently.
You know I do feel that I was,
very often I was incensed.
People said if you couldn't write
Chinese, and if you gave up,
if you betrayed our language.
So I wasn't really, I was angry
at that and so because I do feel
that I could write
good poetry in Chinese.
That's why in recent years,
I've been publishing a
lot of poetry in Chinese.
But again I would have
to rewrite many of them,
well some of the poems in English.
Again, there's the
issue of the language
in sensibility and other things.
It may work well in Chinese,
but would not work in English.
Because it doesn't have
the cultural resonance.
And a lot of things would not
be meaningful to English at all.
But, recently I realized
when I re-write a poem,
the English is really much
better, because it's really,
it's a different kind of music in
poetry, I wouldn't say in prose
because while you work on a poem,
you have to spend many
days, more careful.
So I feel I wasn't
encouraged by the process.
But in principle, I have to use one
language to serve the other one.
Thank you.
>> You mentioned how the Tiananmen
Square massacre was instrumental
in your decision to stay in the US
and to have your son in America.
And so I'm wondering how
you feel about the changes
in China in the last 25 years.
And whether you think
that the government
and the country has
changed fundamentally,
or if it's really the
same as it was then?
>> That's a great issue,
but I think as a writer
if my situation I have
to consider it.
I think on the whole China
economically developed a lot
and also the living
standard has improved a lot.
But I don't think in recent years
the country really has been getting
better or improving
politically or culturally.
I think there is a great
step back toward the cultural
revolution years.
And there's a huge,
you know the parade,
military parade I thought
was a huge mistake.
I think the president
Xi Jinping lived
in the United States,
in Iowa for some time.
He also lived many years in
the country side in Sansei
and he knew the difference
between the two kinds of farmers.
I think he shouldn't have
wasted the money like that.
I think the parade cost $19 billion.
Imagine how much the
country could have done
for the poor children
and the peasants.
So I'm not optimistic.
I know the new president
has a lot of popularity
but from the historical perspective
I think the country moving backward.
We have time for one more question.
Last question.
>> Hi. So first of
all I'm a huge fan
and it's a great honor to be here.
So thank you for that.
And my question is so I feel
like there's been a really kind
of compelling wave of Asian
American and Asian writers writing
about their experiences
and particularly about kind
of cross-cultural issues and kind
of being at the vanguard of that,
how do you feel about this
new wave and how do you,
I guess, locate yourself in that.
And what do you think
that means I guess
for Asians writing in
English literature?
>> I think not only Asians,
looking at other languages a lot,
people from different
continents, different lands
to become really meaningful writers.
I think it's a good thing.
I really, I think anybody
should try to write a book.
But there is a difference
between writing a book
and to write some meaningful books.
In other words, that's why I
don't encourage my students
to become professional writers.
It's a hard life.
And as if, you were
like athlete you have
to perform you knew
you couldn't continue,
but you had to because
you are in the field.
You kind of stop.
I don't think it's a good life.
But I think if a person
publish two or three books.
That's good.
It make your life rich
and meaningful.
But I don't think a professional
writer's life is a good life.
There are many ways to become
a meaningful happy person.
Sorry about that [laughter].
Thank you.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at LOC.gov.