The Bridegroom (2000) by Chinese-American author Ha Jin is a collection of twelve short stories set in China years before the turn of the millennium. The collection was praised for its economy of writing, irony, and insight into the human condition. Ha Jin is well known for winning the National Book Award in 1999 for his novel, Waiting. In the tradition of many Chinese authors, Ha Jin is a penname; the author’s birth name is Xuefei Jin.
The Bridegroom explores the themes of inter-cultural influence, life in post-Cultural Revolution China, unjust social structures, and chauvinism. While all of the stories revolve around contemporary China, they are ordered to hint at China’s increasing acceptance, however unconscious, of Western values.
The collection begins with “Saboteur.” This story,
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Publically disgraced, Mr. Chiu redoubles on his pledge of vengeance. He ends up giving over 800 people in the town an acute case of hepatitis.
In the short story, “Alive,” a survivor of an earthquake, Tong Guhan, has been so traumatized that he forgets his past life. He is forced to start a new one. “In the Kindergarten,” is about a young girl realizing the meaning of community living. Ha Jin mocks the soldier mentality in “A Tiger-Fighter is Hard to Find.”
In the title story, “The Bridegroom,” Cheng is worried about the fate of his best friend’s daughter, Beina. Though he’s paired her with a kind and handsome man named Huang Baowen, Cheng still wonders if Huang really liked the decidedly unattractive girl.
Then one day, months after the wedding, it surfaces that Huang was found in a club called “Men’s World,” i.e. his son-in-law is gay.
Haung is sent to a mental institution and is forced to undergo shock therapy, which includes sitting in a bathtub while electric currents flow through the water. Haung and Beina decide to stay together and await for the “cure” to take