In stories such as "Saboteur," Jin has stated that he is not attempting to explain Chinese culture to his Western readers. He believes that "at heart we are all the same. Literature operates on the principle of similarity and identity, not on difference."
Ha Jin was born Xuefei Jin in mainland China shortly before the start of the Cultural Revolution, which closed schools and colleges throughout the country. The son of an army officer, he volunteered at age 14 for the army and served for nearly five years on the Russian border.
He recalls that "In the beginning, I was basically illiterate. I couldn't read. Then in the second year, the border calmed down. We knew there would be no war, we would live in peace, and I began to think of education."
Working as a telegrapher at a railroad company, he taught himself English from a radio course of study.
In 1977, when colleges reopened in China, he left the army and enrolled as an English major at a university in Harbin. Jin earned a B.A. in English in 1981 and an M.A. in 1984. The next year he left China to become a doctoral student at Brandeis University, intending to return to China as an English teacher and translator.
The atrocity of the June 4, 1989, massacre at Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese soldiers killed dissident students and civilians demonstrating against the repressive government, convinced him that he should stay in America with his Chinese wife and son.
Jin said he became an American citizens because he felt he could never write honestly in China.
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