War Trash by Ha Jin
Simple Prose, Objective, Convincing Characters
Ha Jin’s masterful new novel casts a searchlight into a forgotten corner of
modern history, the experience of Chinese soldiers held in U.S. POW
camps during the Korean War. In 1951 Yu Yuan, a scholarly and self-
effacing clerical officer in Mao’s “volunteer” army, is taken prisoner south of
the 38th Parallel. Because he speaks English, he soon becomes an
intermediary between his compatriots and their American captors.
With Yuan as guide, we are ushered into the secret world behind the
barbed wire, a world where kindness alternates with blinding cruelty and
one has infinitely more to fear from one’s fellow prisoners than from the
guards. Vivid in its historical detail, profound in its imaginative empathy,
War Trash is Ha Jin’s most ambitious book to date.
Personal Review: War Trash by Ha Jin

With an eye to recent headlines, Ha Jin has in interviews dismissed his
choice of subject matter for War Trash as coincidental. The Abu Ghraib
scandal was yet to break when the idea for Ha's war memoir-style fiction
took root. All the same, readers may wince to consider the immediacy of
this tale. Revealed is a world in which prisoners of war are held in an
American-controlled camp, where Geneva Convention guidelines function
as a debatable set of criteria, bent at will by upper brass. Small comfort
can lie in the sharing of blame. "In the art of inflicting pain, the Chinese
and the Koreans were much more expert than the Americans," notes the
narrator. A striving, even-handed work of fiction, War Trash follows a
Chinese army "volunteer" in Korea, who describes the experience of
interned Communist POW's.
Narrator and protagonist Yu Yuan is a man of reserve who eschews
ideology and embraces instead the politics of preservation in his attempt to
navigate the wartime landscape of the Korean Peninsula. A graduate of a
Nationalist military academy, Yuan's English-speaking abilities qualify him
as a potential asset both to his Red Army superiors and to the Nationalist
factions that rise to prominence in the prison camps, and so Yuan's loyalty
is tried at turns. Aware of the political and personal stakes of the game
playing out around him, he depicts in his memoir the power struggle
among the captured. With careful detail of character, kingpins are
sketched in their comeuppance. Corrupt leaders drive the formation of
Nationalist and Communist camps among the prison population, further
enforcing an atmosphere of violence.
Employing a tone that is remarkable in its restraint, Ha Jin populates
Yuan's narrative with more quiet outsiders than dangerous henchmen.
Numbering on the side of the Communists are a great many men who, like
Yuan, simply wish to return home, though this desire is tempered by the
possibility of being shamed, or worse, by a Communist regime that has
ordained capture to be dishonorable. War Trash explores the practicalities
and motivations of choosing between countries, between opposing
systems of government. Propaganda campaigns notwithstanding, the
deciding factors between China and Taiwan often boil down to a captive's
sense of fear or notion of honor. Apart from suicide, there seem to be few
options available to a captured Chinese soldier wishing to maintain the
good stead he held prior to the war. Refusing repatriation to China would
mark him as a traitor and spell danger for his family left behind on the
mainland, finally resulting in a life of uncertainty in Taiwan.
Yet this choice is embraced by a large majority of Chinese POW's, who
have declared loyalty to the Nationalist party of Chiang Kai-Chek. With the
Generalissimo's radio address for weekly inspiration, these men do their
best to coerce other prisoners into joining their camp, even going so far as
to tattoo anti-Communist designs or slogans on men of rank in an attempt
to force hands. In spite of being classified under a false name and rank,
Yuan is discovered by the leader of the Nationalists, a certain Chief Wang,
to be an officer and graduate of the very military institute once headed by

Chiang Kai-Chek. Wang marks Yuan as a man with a bright future in
Taiwan and makes a play for his loyalty, frustrating Yuan's attempts to
remain uncommitted with a particularly outrageous tattoo.
A broken jade barrette from his fiancée reinforces Yuan's desire to remain
true to his life in China, as obfuscated motives encroach from all sides,
threatening his simple loyalties. Threats are enacted by both political
factions. Meanwhile, rumors filter through the camp fueling speculation on
the prospective success or failure of truce negotiations, as the certainty of
outside realities begins to fade. Yuan plays his role dutifully through twists
of plot and fate, attempting to serve reason and decency. Shadowy
informants repeatedly thwart Yuan's intentions, and the forthright man
slides into duplicity in an attempt to guarantee his future and his sanity.
Accompanying scenes of battlefield and political conflict are Yuan's
accounts of friendships and observations of nature. Ha Jin's use of detail
is inspired in its ability to conjure up for the reader the Korean landscape,
as in a description of pheasants in the demilitarized zone: "In the east,
toward the Imjin River, stretched an orchard, whose apple and pear trees
had all shed their leaves, their branches often bearded by hoarfrost in the
morning. In the west rose a hill, treeless but covered with tall grass and
teeming with ring-necked pheasants. We often gathered along the barbed-
wire fence to watch the birds fly up and away with fruity cackles. From the
distance the males' iridescent plumage glittered in the sunlight like tiny
explosions and often brought out shouts among us. How we wished we
could have gone hunting for them. ...Pheasants, unlike human beings,
seemed to have multiplied thanks to the war."
Resisting any signs of collapse under the weight of historical accuracy
(which it nonetheless maintains), War Trash celebrates the human
moments stolen from the ordeal of imprisonment. Ha Jin creates a literate
and compassionate narrator in Yuan, who makes an opportunity of his
detainment as he can, teaching his peers the basics of how to read and
write. In efforts to improve himself he is led to the Bible, where he finds
solace in the futile plight of man as recounted in Ecclesiastes (though his
primary purpose in reading is the expansion of his English vocabulary).
Yuan's quiet urges toward education and the arts belie a character that in
other circumstances would prove decent but unexceptional. However,
amidst a cacophony of competing slogans, the voice of our narrator
remains for the reader a steady guide on a difficult journey.
Ha's prose excels in quietly recalling images of a Korea torn by a sense of
futility. Now, as contentious and protracted negotiations with North Korea
reappear in today's headlines alongside accusations of American human
rights violations, the perspective of War Trash retains a certain immediacy.
A challenging but enjoyable read, the book is surprising in its ability to
strike a clear and convincing depiction of Chinese, American, and Korean
cultures, and the interactions among the three. Revealing fault as well as

humanity on all sides, War Trash edifies both our historical and human
perspectives.
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