The Art of Fiction, HA JIN, Interviewed by Sarah Fay

The Art of Fiction, HA JIN,
interviewed by Sarah Fay

The Paris Review,

Issue 191, Winter 2009

INTERVIEWER

Why did you decide to write in English?

JIN

I wanted to separate myself from Chinese state power. The Chinese language has a lot of political jargon. You can talk at length without saying much, because these pieces of jargon become like formulas for public speech. And those expressions become a part of people’s consciousness. Very often people don’t question the meaning of what they’re saying.
When I first began writing in English, I’d written poetry in Chinese, and one or two short stories, but I hadn’t been published. And if I continued to write in Chinese, where would I have been published? I’d have to be published in mainland China and propaganda officials would censor my writing. I’d send in a manuscript, and I wouldn’t be able to interfere with the editing process. I would be completely at the mercy of censorship.

INTERVIEWER

What are the main differences between the two languages?

JIN

English has more flexibility. It’s a very plastic, very shapeable, very expressive language. In that sense it feels quite natural. The Chinese language is less natural. Written Chinese is not supposed to represent natural speech, and there are many different spoken dialects that correspond to the single written language. The written word will be the same in all dialects, but in speech it is a hundred different words. The written language is like Latin in that sense; it doesn’t have a natural rhythm. The way people talk—you can’t represent that. The accents and the nongrammatical units, you can’t do it. You can’t write in dialect, like you can in English, using a character to represent a certain sound, because each character has a fixed meaning.
When the first emperor wanted to unify the country, one of the major policies was to create one system of written signs. By force, brutal force, he eliminated all the other scripts. One script became the official script. All the others were banned. And those who used other scripts were punished severely. And then the meanings of all the characters, over the centuries, had to be kept uniform as a part of the political apparatus. So from the very beginning the written word was a powerful political tool.

INTERVIEWER

When did you begin to write?

JIN

After the Tiananmen massacre, I decided to stay in the U.S. but was at a loss to know what to do with my life. I looked for jobs related to Chinese, but for every job teaching the language or translating for newspapers there would be hundreds of applicants, most of whom had degrees in Chinese. All my degrees were in English!
I wanted to write in English, but it took me about a year to decide to do it wholeheartedly. I was intimidated. To be a literary writer does not mean just to write books—you need to look for some space in a language and find your niche in it. That was what intimidated me. Beyond the practical reason of earning a livelihood, there was the desire for a meaningful existence despite the forces that mean to reduce and silence you. In this sense, for me, to write is to suffer, but there is so much meaning in it that I must fight my battles on the page.

http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/5991