Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for his 2004 novel, War Trash (Vintage, $14.95, new in paperback), a powerful story set in an American-run POW camp for Chinese prisoners during the Korean War, Ha Jin spoke to us recently by phone from his home in Massachusetts, where he’s a professor at Boston University.
Seattle Weekly: How did you come across this historical period, and why did you choose to write about it?
Ha Jin: I was always interested in that period of the Korean War, because my father was an officer.
Did anything in your research about the war surprise you?
I was surprised that every side is capable of brutality—there is a guy in the novel who eats the flesh of another prisoner, for example. That actually happened! I couldn’t believe that. I thought that was Communist propaganda.
Did your own experience in the Chinese army help?
Actually, when I was in the Chinese army, in the first half-year we lived in a Korean village in China. It gave me a sense of the custom and language and people. Then we traveled and saw the other side. It’s very similar to Manchuria.
You lied about your age to enlist at 14 in 1970. How long did you serve?
Five and a half years. Schools were closing, and it was a better choice, comparatively, than going to work in the countryside.
You emigrated to the U.S. in 1985. Do you see American soldiers being different than their Chinese counterparts?
One big shock when I came here was that I saw POWs who returned home and were welcomed as heroes. When I was in the army, some soldiers, me included, we were afraid of captivity more than death. If you were captured, your family would be humiliated. If you got killed—as a POW it was terrible—you were a hero.
Did the army teach you what to do if you were captured?
Yes, you were to kill yourself.
In China today, is there resentment toward Americans about the Korean War?
No, they felt they won the war; there was a lot of pride. China was a new country, one year old, and here it was able to confront the United States. People tend to neglect the human cost, though. That’s why I tried to tell the losers’ side of the story. The people who suffered the brunt of the war. Not just the people who took pride in it.
Ha Jin will appear at UW Parrington Hall (206-634-3400, free), 7 p.m. Fri., Oct. 14; and at Elliott Bay Book Co., 7:30 p.m. Sat., Oct. 15.
