49 pages • 1 hour read
Ha JinThe Bridegroom
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Stories 10-12
Story 10 Summary: “An Official Reply”
A letter arrives for a Professor Pan Chendong, at the English Department of Beijing Humanities University. The letter writer identifies himself as Zhao Ningshen, the chair of the “Foreign Language Department at Muji Teachers College” (149). Zhao writes that they have met at a conference before, and that he once sent Professor Pan a paper he wrote.
Zhao writes Professor Pan in response to an inquiry Professor Pan made regarding another teacher, Professor Fang Baichen. Zhao claims that in the following pages he will provide some facts about Mr. Fang, from which Professor Pan might draw his own conclusions.
Zhao arrives at Muji Teachers College as a student in 1977. Against his wishes, Zhao majors in English. Mr. Fang dictates the comprehension test on Zhao’s first evening on campus. While many students prove extremely strong in English from the very first day, Zhao hardly knows any English at all. He places in the lowest class, and often skips class.
He likes Mr. Fang’s teaching style. Mr. Fang tries to get all students to speak in class to bolster their confidence.
One evening, Mr. Fang unexpectedly knocks on the door of Zhao’s room. He asks Zhao why he did not come to class that morning. Zhao says that he felt ill. Mr. Fang then gives Zhao a lesson in his room, which lasts around two hours. The following evening, Mr. Fang comes again. After ending the lesson an hour early, he tells Zhao that learning English will provide good career opportunities. Zhao feels inspired to become a more focused student after hearing Mr. Fang’s words. He begins to rise early to practice his English.
Mr. Fang receives promotion to a professorship and stops teaching Zhao’s class. When students go on strike to demand class placements based on merit, Mr. Fang meets with the students and explains that the current hierarchy of students will remain unchanged. The students persist and Mr. Fang loses his temper. One student makes fun of Mr. Fang’s weight, which causes him to shout more and storm out of the room. Zhao suggests that Mr. Fang’s promotion has changed his character.
Two incidents cause Zhao to become suspicious of Mr. Fang. For one, Mr. Fang joins the Communist Party. This causes Zhao to wonder if Mr. Fang had only shown him special attention because Zhao himself was a party member. Another incident that makes Zhao suspicious is that a student who Mr. Fang considered a troublemaker receives a difficult job at a coal-mining company, perhaps as a punishment.
Mr. Fang founds a successful journal called Narrative Techniques. He lectures at colleges and writes short fiction. Zhao contributes work to Mr. Fang’s journal and their relationship improves.
After Zhao finishes his graduate work in 1984, he returns to Muji Teachers College. He hears that Mr. Fang’s journal, Narrative Techniques, is on hiatus because Mr. Fang faces sexual misconduct accusations by female students and teachers. In one such occurrence, he had gotten a promising young poet pregnant.
Mr. Fang loses his high rank, and the Party Committee disciplines him, but Zhao doesn’t reject him. Zhao invites him to dinner one evening, and Mr. Fang gets inebriated and speaks openly about his feelings. Mr. Fang feels that he is getting old and hasn’t accomplished anything. He then speaks about the young women he has been involved with. One had wanted to marry him, but he was unable to divorce his wife, who was ill. Mr. Fang suggests that Zhao should get to know a girl poet.
After that dinner, Mr. Fang seems to avoid Zhao. Due to high demand, Narrative Techniques begins production again, with Mr. Fang returning to his role as editor. The quality of the journal improves and Mr. Fang’s fame rises. He publishes a volume of short fiction and becomes a full professor.
At a conference in the United States in 1987, he commits a blunder that proves to be his downfall. Zhao, Mr. Fang, and several others from their college are set to present on American literature. Before the start of the presentation, Mr. Fang tries to attract the attention of passersby in the lobby. He tells them a great writer will soon speak. Some people laugh, but a larger crowd comes to the panel than expected.
After the professors get introduced, Mr. Fang begins delivering a lecture. He makes a fool of himself by speaking loudly and aggressively and making outdated claims. Zhao and the rest of the professors are ashamed. The audience snickers and applauds mockingly when he finishes, but Mr. Fang is oblivious.
Upon returning to China, Mr. Fang’s membership in the Provincial Writers’ Association gets revoked, new leadership takes over Narrative Techniques, and Mr. Fang returns once more to being a regular faculty member.
Zhao finishes the letter by predicting that despite his fall, Mr. Fang will rise again. Zhao suggests to Professor Pan that Mr. Fang might make a useful faculty member, although he isn’t trustworthy.
Story 11 Summary: “The Woman from New York”
People in the neighborhood are surprised when Chen Jinli comes back from the United States after living there for four years. Before she left, she had had a good life with a job at the Teachers College, a husband, and a young girl. They didn’t understand why she’d left in the first place.
When she comes from America, she looks different than before, with makeup, jewelry, and red polish on her toenails. There is a rumor that she had been the concubine of a wealthy man in New York City. Her husband said that she was studying English, then fell ill. Eventually it’s said that she ran a jewelry store in New York City’s Chinatown, perhaps a gift of the wealthy man.
Upon her return, she claims that she intends to stay with her husband and child, but the people of the neighborhood doubt her. Jinli claims to have lost her job at the jewelry store in New York, and to have no money.
Jinli’s daughter, Dandan, moves out of the home in order to avoid Jinli. This upsets Jinli. She spends a week cleaning the home which her husband, Chigan, has let get dirty. Soon, the couple are fighting. When Chigan asks why she has come home if she doesn’t like their home, she replies, “You think I came back for you?” (174). Jinli has instead come back because she misses her daughter. Chigan’s parents, however, strongly dislike Jinli. When Jinli arrives at their home asking to see her daughter, they refuse her, saying that her daughter doesn’t want to see her.
Jinli’s name no longer appears on the payroll at the Teachers College. She is surprised when she learns that she will no longer be able to teach because of her lifestyle while she was in America. The woman who purportedly spread the rumors about Jinli’s life in America is a professor named Fan Liang. Jinli claims she will sue Fan Liang for calumny.
Jinli looks for a job as an English interpreter at the Bureau of Affairs. She feels that she is well-qualified, but the bureau doesn’t hire her. Her interviewer says that he doesn’t know how she had lived while in New York City and could only hire trustworthy people. Once outside of the offices, Jinli begins to cry.
Jinli tries to convince her husband to move with her to America, but he refuses. She then tries to convince him to let her take Dandan, their daughter, to America with her. When he denies her this as well, she begins crying, asking if she can see Dandan even once. He agrees to ask his parents if she can see Dandan, and bikes to their home the next day, but they refuse his request. They ask Dandan to write a letter to her mother. She writes, “Go away, bad woman. I don’t want a mother like you!” (180).
Chigan files for divorce. Jinli fights for custody of Dandan but loses. Although the court only orders her to pay thirty-yuan per month of child support, she pays one hundred-yuan instead. A rumor goes around that Jinli is rich. She attempts to buy a new apartment at Five Continents Commons, but cannot because she is not a foreign customer. Because she tries to buy such a modern apartment, the neighborhood residents believe Jinli might be a millionaire. Jinli disappears from Muji City. Chigan remarries a widow who has a young boy. Dandan loves her new step-brother, and the step-brother likes her as well.
Story 12 Summary: “After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town”
A customer demands his money back after ordering four pieces of chicken at a restaurant called Cowboy Chicken. He claims that Cowboy Chicken is “more batter than meat” (185). A manager named Peter Jiao, and the restaurant’s owner, Mr. Shapiro, come out of the kitchen. Peter translates the customer’s demand for Mr. Shapiro, who is American. Mr. Shapiro refunds the customer half of the order. Mr. Shapiro is “an old fox, good at sweet-talking” (186). His manager, Peter Jiao, runs most of the business’s operations. As a child, Peter was a weak, unpopular boy. Later, Peter studied business at University of Iowa in America. When he returned to China, he was a stronger, more confident person.
City officials come to Cowboy Chicken’s opening ceremony to celebrate. In its first weeks, it drives away many of the local meat stands in the street. The American boss, Mr. Shapiro, begins taking some of his younger female employees on dates. The narrator asks one employee, Baisha, about the date she went on with Mr. Shapiro. Baisha says that all she did was have dinner with him and go home. The narrator and male employees guess that Mr. Shapiro only takes the girls out on dates in order to get local discounts at fancy restaurants.
Business slows after street vendors reappear, selling chicken for a cheaper price than Cowboy Chicken. Mr. Shapiro suggests they open a buffet. The employees don’t think the idea will work, but encourage it anyway because they want to eat more chicken. The day of the opening of the buffet is snowy and cold, but still many people arrive. Gradually, so many people arrive that the employees can barely cook enough food to keep up. People bring their own drinks into the restaurant, and leave with pieces of chicken in hand. The employees eat chicken themselves, knowing it will be impossible to keep track of what sells throughout the day. When Peter arrives at the end of the day, he sees that the buffet has used up three days’ worth of food. At the end of the day, they count that they have lost 700 yuan. Mr. Shapiro decides to hold the buffet a second day and loses money once more. Nevertheless, he pays his employees their wages.
The son of the president of Muji Teachers College holds a wedding dinner at Cowboy Chicken. The banquet goes well. The guests enjoy the different varieties of chicken, as well as the champagne, ice cream, and cheesecake. The following morning, however, several employees, who had eaten the same food throughout the night, report that they had felt sick afterwards. Throughout the morning, several of those who had attended the wedding dinner call in and report that they became sick as well.
Peter handles the calls, telling the callers that their Chinese stomachs could not handle the dairy products. Several days later, Peter writes an article in the newspaper that argues that the traditional Chinese diet includes little dairy food, and so in the future, in addition to ice cream, Cowboy Chicken will offer non-dairy dessert options as well. The complaints are quieted and customers continue to come to Cowboy Chicken.
Mr. Shapiro quits going on dates with his employees and starts seeing a woman from North Carolina named Susanna, who teaches English at Muji Teachers College. She brings her students into Cowboy Chicken and teaches them to eat with forks and knives.
One afternoon a man comes into Cowboy Chicken and tells Peter that he’s going to sue the restaurant for 10,000 yuan. He shows the employees a fly he says he found in his chicken. Mr. Shapiro comes out of his office to speak with the man. Mr. Shapiro asks him for evidence of his claim. Another employee, Manyou, puts the fly into a bowl of water. Since the fly does not give off any grease, Manyou says it could not have come from Cowboy Chicken.
An employee named Jinglin and the narrator walk with the man to an alleyway. Jinglin threatens the man with a knife and offers him a ten-yuan note. The man accepts the payment and leaves them alone.
The employees hear Peter is building a house in the countryside. A few of them bike out one day to see it. By the appearance of the house, they assume that Peter must be rich. The house is three stories and has a view of the river. One of the workers building the house tells the employees the house is worth “at least a quarter of a million yuan” (211).
Back at Cowboy Chicken, the employees start treating Peter with suspicion. In an attempt to discover what Peter does with the leftovers, the employees follow him home one evening. They find that he burns the pieces of chicken in a fire by the waterside. At work, they tell the other employees what they have seen. The narrator confronts Peter, asking him why he burns the chicken. He replies that it’s his job. He and the employees argue over the morality of wasting the chicken. Mr. Shapiro comes out and explains that it is company policy and so they can do nothing. Ultimately the employees give up.
Due to a mix-up on payday, the employees learn that Peter’s salary is $1,683.75 per month. This is 20 times as much as the employees make. They meet after work at Baisha’s home in order to decide what they should do in response to the fact that Peter makes so much money. Baisha suggests they should demand together that Mr. Shapiro fire Peter. After talking it over, the employees agree. Baisha writes a short letter to Mr. Shapiro expressing the groups’ desire that he fire Peter. The narrator drops it off at Cowboy Chicken on his way home.
The next day, however, both Peter and Mr. Shapiro act as though nothing has happened. This makes the employees nervous. The following day is the same. After meeting again at Baisha’s home, the employees decide to go on strike. Once more they write a letter, and the narrator delivers it.
The following day, they don’t go into work until after lunchtime. When they arrive, they find police cars in front of the restaurant. A policeman waves a metal detector over them before they enter. They ask him what is happening and learn that there was a threat to blow the restaurant up. Inside the restaurant, they find Peter’s parents and two young people working in their places.
Mr. Shapiro comes over and shouts angrily at the employees. He tells them that they are “terminated” (224), and that he doesn’t want terrorists in his restaurant. The narrator is surprised Mr. Shapiro can fire him so easily. At home, he looks up the word “terminated” and finds that it means “finished” (225). He decides that the matter is anything but finished. He and the other employees plan a number of acts of revenge.
Stories 10-12 Analysis
“An Official Reply” traces the professional rises and falls of a Chinese academic specializing in English literature, as judged by a former student and current colleague of his. Like many of the other stories in The Bridegroom, (including the final two stories), “An Official Reply” portrays an individual or group of individuals contending with the cultural differences between the United States and China.
One of the first challenges represented in the merging of American and Chinese cultures comes in “An Official Reply,” when Zhao says, “I overused my throat so much in practicing English pronunciation that I had to swallow painkillers every day” (155). This suggests the degree of dedication required for many students during Zhao’s generation to acquire English language proficiency. Also in “An Official Reply,” during a trip to America, Mr. Fang acts as though he expects whoever he is with to pay for his meals and drinks. Zhao reflects, “Probably he acted that way because he had misunderstood the capitalist culture and the so-called American spirit, having confused selfhood with selfishness” (166).
Though he is a gifted teacher, writer, and scholar of American literature, Mr. Fang is still capable of committing social blunders that stem from misunderstandings about American culture. Perhaps the worst of these social blunders arises during an academic conference, in which Mr. Fang speaks aggressively and at length about outdated literary practices, embarrassing both himself and the colleagues his is with. Mr. Fang likely acted this way after hearing an American professor declare that “in America the self was absolutely essential, that one had to make every effort to assert one’s own selfhood” (166). In his attempts to assert his own selfhood at the academic conference, and in other challenges and failures he comes up against, Mr. Fang acts as a figurative representation of the complicated ways that Chinese and American cultural expectations intersect.
“The Woman from New York” deals with conflicts that arise when a woman named Jinli tries to move back to China after spending four years in New York City. Not only does she face professional challenges upon her return, but personal ones as well. The professional challenges stem from assumptions and gossip about what her life had been like while living in New York. Since Jinli wears heels and makeup, for example, people assume that “she had become the fifteenth concubine of a wealthy Chinese man in New York City” (172). These assumptions ultimately block her from gaining employment at both the Teachers’ College and at the Bureau of Affairs. In her private life, her disappearance to America gives her parents-in-law a pretext to keep her from seeing her daughter, Dandan. For these reasons, her return to China—and her desire to return to the United States with her daughter—is ultimately a failure.
“After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town” is the longest story in the “The Bridegroom.” In large part, it offers a comparison of American and Chinese business practices, cultures, and economic systems.
One of the first comparisons made between American and Chinese customs comes when the man at the beginning of the story demands his money back. Mr. Shapiro gives the man a partial refund, demonstrating “the American way of doing business” (185) in which “the customer is always right” (185). The Chinese employees, however, believe that this way of treating people is naïve. They claim “he had no idea who he was dealing with. You let a devil into your house, he’ll get into your bed” (185). This conflict surfaces again later when a man claims that there had been a fly in his chicken and Mr. Shapiro asks the man for evidence of his claim. The narrator says of this incident, “We were angry at Mr. Shapiro, who again was acting like a number-one Buddha. If you run into an evil man, you have to adopt uncivil measures” (208). In contrast to Mr. Shapiro’s “American” approach of indulging the customer, Jinglin and the narrator take the man to an alley and threaten him with a knife.
Other differences surface between Cowboy Chicken’s capitalist business practices and the socialist practices of China. The narrator’s wages at Cowboy Chicken, for example, are higher than his father’s wages working for the Communist Party. This leads his father to say,
I’ve joined the Revolution for almost forty years, and I earn only three hundred yuan a month. But you just started working and you draw a larger salary. This makes me feel duped, duped by the Communist Party I’ve served (197).
The narrator’s father’s concerns point to tensions inherent in the clash between capitalism and socialism.
When the employees confront Peter about his practice of burning the leftover chicken, Baisha tells him, “Peter Jiao, remember you’re a Chinese. There are people here who don’t have enough corn flour to eat while you burn chicken every night. You’ve forgotten your ancestors and who you are” (217). Such a line points to the way that nationality, work, and salary intersect in a complicated way to form an identity, whether of an individual or a business.
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