A Response...

Ha Jin’s novel, War Trash, is an excellent book written to enlighten and entertain us with knowledge of things that occurred in the prison camps during the Korean War. Jin follows the life of Chinese soldier Yu Yuan through these prison camps and the struggles he endures. Yu Yuan is a dedicated son and fiancée throughout the novel and his only desire is to return home to take care of his sickly mother and marry the woman he loves. This overwhelming desire will lead him to make many conflicting decisions in regards to the Communist army and the pro-nationalist group. Yuan appears to be indecisive and has no strong desire to be with either group. Eventually Yuan makes a string of decisions to leave the Communists and then returns to them in order to get back to China. When he returns he finds that his mother has died and his fiancée has dumped him because he had brought dishonor to the country by allowing himself to be captured and not sacrificing his life.

                War Trash is a very well written book and before reading it I had no idea that things like what was described could ever happen. For example, in chapter 9, labeled Before the Screening, a man named Liu Tai-an terrorized the Communist camp in order to get them to side with the pro-nationalists. Liu Tai-an took a man up on the stage and asked him where he wanted to go when the screening occurred the next day. The man responded that he wanted to return to the homeland and Liu Tai-an then cut the man open and tore out his heart in front of everyone in the compound. This kind of brutality was something I never thought could have occurred, even in a prison camp.

                One thing that I thought was interesting about the novel was all the different stereotypes found within it. For instance, the one that stuck out the most to me was when Yuan says “I was shuddering all over, never having thought that an educated man like Mei Lufu could be as vicious as Liu Tai-an.” (Pg. 109). Because Yuan himself was an educated man and he was not aggressive he thought that all educated men must understand the importance of the human life and would never be so ready and willing to destroy one. This was also addressed previously on page 68 when Yuan writes “I noticed that the illiterate ones among us were particularly quick-tempered at mealtimes.” Yuan seems to associate aggressiveness with being illiterate and when someone breaks that association he is thoroughly frightened and surprised.

Another stereotype that is addressed in the book is that of Americans being timid and big “pussycats.” The Chinese soldiers were taught that the Americans were spoiled with cars and an abundance of supplies, that when faced they would just give up because they were not as prepared for war as the Chinese were. Although the Chinese soldiers knew that the Americans had more advanced weapons they still believed that they could beat the Americans because they were not used to such harsh conditions. Yuan realizes that this isn’t the truth once he is in the camps because the Americans, despite being spoiled, were still very adapt to wars and they should not be taken lightly.

Overall I thought the book was very good. I didn’t like that Yuan was so back and forth with all of his decisions. Once he thought he had decided something he would change his decision another three times. And another thing that seemed a little odd is that the thought never crossed his mind that his mother could possibly have died while he was away, or that his girlfriend didn’t want anything to do with him because he was captured. They were his sole reason for wanting to go back to China. And yet, when he was in the pro-nationalists compound he enjoyed it and liked the people but he still chose to go back to China because he believed his two reasons for going back would still be there after two years apart. Yuan was a smart man, but I was surprised he never thought about this possibility.