Rating: 
Summary: insightful look at chinese culture
Review: i am a chinese woman myself & find this to be a beautifully written book with a real story to tell about love & life in modern china.admittedly the novel does sound strangely "translated" from the chinese. u can actually pick out many literal chinese phrases like "stupid egg" that a western reader would perhaps find weird, disjointed & possibly unintelligible. believe me when i say that this book describes very truly how chinese people love & why. not only has "waiting" magically captured the universal truths of love (in all it's fragility & forms)amidst the pressures of society, culture & enforced political climate, which would explain why it won a well-deserved national book award, it also serves as a very accurate behind-the-scenes look at why the chinese act & behave the way they behave. there are different little character rhythms from lin kong, manna, shuyu, hua & her uncle sprinkled all over the book that are only too familiar to any chinese who have been brought up in strict households from infants to be ruthlessly filial, obediant & good to the point of being uptight & submissive. i am not saying that western people are not brought up with the same good qualities but the almost-oppressive way that these virtues are drummed in from young are a totally chinese thing. read this book with an open mind & heart to learn more about the chinese people & i believe u will not be disppointed.
Rating: 
Summary: I different view
Review: Understanding this book requires accepting a different view of living. The book hits on two levels. One is a reflection of daily life in Mainland China. A life where, since the 60's, so much attention is needed to live from day to day that international events are not much on the minds of the people. A society in which the communists have leveraged the bureaucratic way of life in a manner much the same as the prior dynasties. The other level of the book is the story of the characters and how their faults, frailties and personalities blend into well told tale. Waiting is a description of the modus operandi of the main character. Even if you don't like the person, the prose is exceptional and the story appealing. I can't profess to understand the Chinese mind any more than any other anglo can. But I do recognize that this book provides a subtle view of that mind in a well written style. A recommended read to anyone interested in trying to understand a life style totally differnet than their own.
Rating: 
Summary: Read It While I was Waiting . . .
Review: I actually read this book while I myself was waiting - in a hotel in Guatemala to meet the son I was to adopt! Like most of the other reviewers, this book was a disappointment to me. Interestingly enough, it is the first book I've ever read which was written in English, but the style makes you think it was translated from Chinese. The best part of the book is that it offers a rare view of day-to-day life in China during a terrible period. In addition, the descriptions are quite beautiful; rendered in a rich, yet delicate manner. And I was thrilled that the author made the wife out to be a decent human being, and not some shrew. However, the plot just doesn't deliver. Even though the idea of it is quite staggering -here is this man waiting for almost 20 years to marry this woman - there is really very little dramatic content. Events just happen quietly, unfolding as if you were watching clouds move in the sky. Why it won the National Book Award is beyond me.
Rating: 
Summary: Elegant, simple prose but - -
Review: just read the prologue and you've got the whole story. If you want to immerse yourself in Communist China through the 50s and 60, there is a certain value in the story. There are many little surprises about life in that culture. But if you expect to connect with the characters and fall in love with the love story like you may have with Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth [parts of which are still with me after fifty years] then you are in for a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Tepid.
Review: This is not a book that evokes strong emotions. I found it mildly moving, mildly humorous, mildly involving. The reviews I read in the New York Times Book Review and other places lead me to expect something more. It wasn't a chore to finish it but I was left vaguely unsatisfied- like after finishing a light snack when you are hungry for a meal.
Rating:
Summary: A quiet study of the human heart
Review: What a remarkable, gentle, story. I was enchanted with Mr.Jin's style of writing. I felt that the story wasn't "told" so much as it was unfolded. I enjoyed reading a story set in contemporary China. The contrasts between the village and the city were interesting and told in enough detail to really give you a feeling for how life would be. Plus the information about traditions that were still being upheld and others that had been let go was fascinating. Overall I felt this was a relaxing, pleasurable read.
Rating:
Summary: A Book Worth Waiting For
Review: "Waiting" turned me into an enthusiastic Ha Jin fan. I cannot exactly describe the book as a page turner but it's interesting and downright suspenseful towards the end. The story is an unsentimental one about feelings, often deep feelings of love and yearning. Jin has an irrepressibly wry sense of humor. I chuckled throughout the book. I feel sorry for those who got turned off by the first several chapters and never finished the book. In simple and un-flowery language, Jin reminds this reader - who struggled through the slow beginning - that the heart sometimes has to hibernate, and even die in order for the body to survive in a cold and repressive environment. And who hasn't experienced the disappointment after a long wait, and the regret after a careless loss?
Rating:
Summary: Poor Lin, poor Shuyu, poor everyone!
Review: Ha Jin's plot moves steadily, at times blandly, through several decades of Lin Kong and Manna Wu's lives. Lin and Manna, hardly in love, wait 18 years for nothing at all! Eighteen years wasted struggling for a divorce and Lin finally realizes his cowardly mistake. I was impressed by Jin's portrayal of a vivid and lively China. However, I was frustrated with the extraneous, needless, superfluous descriptions that were quite apart from the whole narrative. I was also frustrated by ALL the characters: Lin, Shuyu, Manna, Bensheng... there is no hero, no one admirable, all are flat, tragic characters absorbed with their own selves. The only reason I give this book 4 stars is because, in the end, Lin realizes a few of life's harsh lessons. He finally opens his eyes. Jin executes this revelation with such poignancy that, upon finishing the book, I couldn't help but linger on Lin's future and happiness. The finale in _Waiting_ leaves a mark quite like a church bell that rings and leaves a residual humming...
Rating: 
Summary: Tired of Waiting
Review: This was a very slow book for me. I wouldn't recommend it. The plot seemed to lack the complexity necessary to hold my interest. The plot seemed redundant covering the same ground each year as he went back to try to convince his wife to divorse him. The only reason I finished the book was because it annoys me to buy a book and not finish it. And The Ladies of the Club is the only one on my shelf not read.
Rating:
Summary: WAITING - Politics as Personal
Review: This novel provides an excellent fictional counterpoint to Nien Cheng's autobiographical Life and Death in Shanghai. Ha Jin's characters' internalization of political rhetoric and submission to the whims of the dictatorship under which they live becomes understandable when viewed in the glare of Mrs. Chen's ordeal. China was and continues to be a place that expects total fealty to the State and to its normative values, stripping the wayward as well as the loyal of their humanity. This novel illuminates the slow erosion of the human spirit that accompanied the characters' acceptance of their fate as opposed to the physical punishment meted out to Mrs. Chen and others who strove to maintain individuality under the weight of their society's crushing demand for conformity.
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