Waiting Summary
Ha Jin

Waiting Summary

Waiting is a story of love in limbo and the lives it leaves on hold as Lin Kong, a doctor in the Chinese Army, battles cultural forces and his own uncertain heart in a quest for love's fulfillment.

As a twenty-seven-year old military medical student in 1962, under heavy pressure from his ailing mother and his father, Lin agrees to an arranged marriage. When he returns home to meet Shuyu, the girl his parents have chosen, he is horrified. Although she is a year younger than he is, she looks much older and Lin finds her singularly unattractive. As a young man in a China moving toward the Cultural Revolution, he is particularly repelled by her bound feet, an old-fashioned custom acceptable in his small village but mocked by his contemporaries in Shenyang City. Lin feels Shuyu is completely inappropriate and begs his parents to break the engagement, but they... View more of the Waiting Summary