Ha Jin: The Bridegroom

By HELENE WONG

At first, the stories in this collection seem small, domestic, of petty concerns. Only as you progress do the writer's purpose and meaning become clear, and although it's not quite a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, the small and domestic is revealed to be a microcosm of wider social change.

In his acclaimed novel Waiting, Ha Jin examined in subtle and painstaking detail a couple's conflict arising from cultural change in China. Again, only this time in a dozen different ways, he captures how individuals respond when values and traditions are in a state of flux.

His characters are middle-class academics, factory supervisors and shop assistants - perhaps because their education and new-found wealth render them more susceptible to Western influences than the peasant or the sophisticated and/or conservative elite.

At the heart of many of their stories is the classic struggle between East and West, the dilemma of whether to be an individual or part of a community.

Individualism takes different forms. In The Woman from New York, it signifies independence: a happily married teacher decides to go to New York to explore a new way of life. But it also refers to difference, when her family and community are so suspicious of her unconventional decision that they effectively write her off.

In A Tiger-Fighter is Hard to Find, individualism is about competition and when the quest for fame leads to loss of judgment. The ways in which characters cope with uniqueness, either in themselves or others, creates a palette of behaviour ranging from funny to tragic, with acts of defiance, irrationality, gossip, envy and revenge, often with damaging consequences.

A more direct clash between East and West is found in After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town. Employees of a fast food outlet are puzzled and fascinated at the capitalist ways of their American owner, but when they try a little democratic behaviour of their own, they are out of their depth. As with most of the characters in this book, their attempt to integrate value systems ends in loss.

The psychological effects of the rapid uptake of Western culture in China are becoming a recurrent theme among its writers and film-makers.

The picture they present is almost invariably of people adrift. Ha Jin's everyday stories demonstrate a shrewd and compassionate observation of the resulting confusion and unease and how this manifests itself.

He doesn't always spell out his characters' motivations; he leaves that for the reader to reflect upon. The reward for doing so is a feeling of poignancy and a deeper understanding of the small tragedies of life.

* Helene Wong is an Auckland writer and script consultant.

Publisher: William Heinemann

$34.95