At the beginning of Ha Jin's new novel: “I'm looking for a tank driver“, a Harvard sophomore, seems on the verge of throwing her life away. Pei Lulu is the pride of her divorced parents. Her life in Boston is supported by the salary of her mother, who works at Tsinghua University, and her father's business sculpting Buddhas and dragons for overseas clients. That Lulu managed to study abroad – at Harvard, no less – is already an achievement. But she is also especially dedicated to her craft, even among her distinguished peers. When she is rich. Rachel's friend is vacationing in Newport or skiing in Vermont, Lulu is content to stay on campus, reading books in the library. There's just one problem: she's studying history. All governments have their own preferred versions of the past, but some are more comprehensive than others, being interested in the wrong subject can seriously mess things up.
It's 2008. Many Chinese, including those educated abroad, still see themselves as serious underdogs with much to learn and much to prove. (Lulu couldn't imagine that a presidential order might one day jeopardize her place at Harvard or call into question her eligibility for a student visa.) But was there ever a simpler time to be Chinese? Lulu's turning point comes when she decides to join the crowd welcoming the Chinese Prime Minister. She feels obliged to do this “because the delegates, although we did not like them as officials, were from our homeland.” The mood is jubilant, hundreds of miniature red flags and smiling young faces, with the exception of one slender middle-aged woman. She is not accompanied, but holds a sign indicating she is not alone: “We will not forget the Tiananmen Square massacre!” The crowd is repulsed by her presence. A group of students disavow her message (“Nobody believes you!”), question her motive (“Why help Americans demonize our country like that?”), and call her names (“Bitch!” “Cunt!” “Loser!”). Lulu is not involved and worries for the woman's safety. However, she uses the first person plural form to describe the crowd's reaction. We intervene, she says, just like We I feel obliged to welcome delegates from the Motherland. The small flags that were at first a sign of confidence in national identity now seem to have morphed into something else.
I found myself wincing at this scene, not only because of the blatant and tense confrontation, but also because of Ha Jin's decision to present it as a focal point. Jin left China in 1985 to attend graduate school at Brandeis University. The brutal suppression of student protests in Tiananmen Square occurred four years later. Subsequently, Jin's decision to publicly support the students' democratic values apparently cost him the opportunity to visit his home country. It is impossible not to see him in the figure of a lone protester; he probably faced the same insults, the same accusations that he was dredging up the past. “The massacre, if there ever was one,” Lulu thinks to herself, “occurred almost two decades ago, and I was amazed that a woman still intended to protest about it today.” For the author to choose this story as a topic is to insist on exploring the long-festering wound of his generation.
Before In Search of the Tankman, Gene had published twenty titles in America. Some were poems, some were essays, but most were works of fiction dedicated to well-educated Chinese people dissatisfied with their lives. These characters were first set in China, where Jin grew up. Then, starting with Nan Wu in “Free life(2007), they began to migrate to the United States. Nan, like Jin, an American graduate student shocked by the news from Tiananmen Square, is followed by a number of characters in the story collection “Good fall(2009), who find themselves caught between two worlds, struggling with hope and disappointment.Boat rocker(2016) and “The song is eternal(2021) – successful professionals: an expatriate journalist known for his exposes of the Chinese government, a popular opera singer whose inability to obey the state hinders their path to a quiet, traditionally successful life.
The drama of these insider-become-outsider stories is clear; displacement promises deep confusion, conflict, discovery and entanglement. The same goes for Lulu, who after meeting a protester becomes obsessed with the Tiananmen Square massacre and enrolls in a course on the topic. This is not an easy class. Having seen photographs and documents of the crushed people, and having visited the bloody objects recovered from the scene and stored in the basement of the Harvard library, Lulu no longer doubts the facts. She focuses her investigation on the students' intentions. She believes they were peaceful and law-abiding, advocating dialogue rather than undermining the political system. (After Mao Zedong's portrait was vandalized, some even turned the culprits over to the authorities.) Lulu is particularly drawn to the famous photograph of the “Tank Man” seen from behind, blocking the advance of a column of armored cars. Something about this image contradicts her feelings. To her staunch nationalist friends, she fiercely defends her place as a global symbol of resistance; at the same time, she can't stand the white guy with the mullet who displays his photo prominently on his closet like it's a poster of a rock star.
The decisive turn comes when Lulu returns to China to visit her ailing grandfather, who tells her a secret that has been hidden for decades: her parents were involved in the spring 1989 protests. Her father worked on the famous “Goddess of Democracy” statue, and her mother was one of the first to go on hunger strike. Once Lulu starts asking questions, her parents don't put up much of a fight. They say they still believe in the ideals of freedom and democracy, but have become deeply skeptical of the reforms they once demanded and of their own sense of free will at the time. Her father feels driven mad by rage. Her mother believes that she and her peers “were meant to be sacrificed.” However, upon learning that Lulu is writing a dissertation about what happened, she hands over her diary. “I hope this is helpful for your studies,” she says. Lulu's father's face twitches, but he encourages her: “You have to do what you have to do. Being controlled by fear is no way to live.”
As her high school graduation approaches, Lulu contemplates her future. On the one hand, she sees the appeal of finding a job in Beijing to be close to her mother, who raised her alone. On the other hand, she feels she has unfinished business in America, where, ironically, she can best understand the special history of her home. She is surrounded by adults who advise her to be pragmatic, but there is no consensus on what this entails. Her father feels obligated to earn money for his new family—his young wife driving an Audi and twin boys preparing to eventually study in America—but wishes he could be more honest as an artist. Lulu's mom regrets not getting a higher education. She gives her daughter ambiguous instructions: Lulu should find a good man as soon as possible, but she should remain self-sufficient, never beholden to money, power or love.
