In the Pond by Ha Jin

Zoland Books, 178 pages, $20.

In the past decade, Ha Jin has emerged as one of the preeminent English-language chroniclers of day-to-day life in the People's Republic of China. His short stories, which can be found in the collections Ocean of Words (Vintage) and Under the Red Flag (University of Georgia Press), respectfully portray ordinary men and women trying to hold on to their honor and dignity as they are pulled back and forth by the currents of modern China's cultural and political changes.

Jin knows of what he writes. A native of China, he served for six years in the People's Liberation Army before immigrating to the United States in the mid-'80s. In his compelling first novel, In the Pond, Jin again gives voice to the disenfranchised, this time through the story of roguish underdog Shao Bin.

A low-level worker at the Harvest Fertilizer Plant in provincial China in the late '70s, Bin lives in a 12-by-20-foot room with his wife and his two-year-old daughter. When Harvest's housing committee passes him over for a new apartment and assigns it to a less senior employee who is having an affair with a party leader, Bin is incensed.

And so begins a tireless fight for justice. Although he is at the bottom of the factory hierarchy and is not a physically imposing fellow, Bin nonetheless possesses a secret weapon that makes him a man to be reckoned with: he is a talented writer and painter. "The true scholar's brush must encourage good and warn against evil," he reads in a book called The Essence of Ancient Chinese Thought; inspired, he draws a scathing satirical cartoon lampooning the party leaders, Party Director Ma and Secretary Liu, who have denied him housing. As soon as his cartoon is published in a local newspaper, Bin finds himself in an all-out war with Ma and Liu, who dock his pay and verbally and physically abuse him. Using his pen as a sword, Bin responds by barging in to party meetings with elegantly drawn signs that denounce the officials. He also publishes a barrage of cartoons and critical articles in regional, then national, publications.

Jin employs both broad slapstick comedy and refined humor to make his narrative flow as freely as Harvest's fertilizer. In an inspired scene reminiscent of a silent-movie brawl, Ma and Liu attack Bin at a party meeting he is trying to disrupt. Pinned to the ground by Ma, smothered under Liu's bottom, "Bin realized he would faint in a few seconds if he didn't take action. So he . . . took a big bite." Jin milks this bottom-biting gag for all it's worth: Liu has a photo taken of his bruised rump, presents it as evidence of Bin's instability at a factory meeting, and sends copies to his superiors in the party. Unfortunately for Liu, the results are more damaging to his reputation than to Bin's.

In many European tales -- those of Koestler and Solzhenitsyn spring to mind -- individuals are crushed by the fates meted out to them by heavy-handed Communist bureaucracies. Jin's Chinese protagonist, however, seems to thrive on conflict. As Ma and Liu try to thwart Bin's quest for justice and his attempts to leave the factory, Bin begins to discover and realize his artistic potential. He receives job offers and an invitation to attend university, things that he had never before dreamed possible. The reader laughs with Bin as he transforms untenable situations into remarkable opportunities; because of the interference of his superiors, however, he is unable to take advantage of them.

Underneath its humor, In the Pond exposes the plight of a country where food, housing, and job prospects are scarce while corrupt officials are abundant. It's a clear-eyed commentary on the deprivations and limitations of life under Communism.

-- Nicholas Patterson