Quick Summary:
A visiting professor is arrested by the police in China and accused of sabotage. The story explores abuses of police power and mistrust of intellectuals. 

About Ha Jin:
Jin Xuefei (simplified Chinese: 金雪飞; traditional Chinese: 金雪飛; pinyin: Jīn Xuěfēi; born February 21, 1956) is a Chinese-American poet and novelist using the pen name Ha Jin (哈金). Ha comes from his favorite city, Harbin. His poetry is associated with the Misty Poetry movement.

Jin sets many of his stories and novels in China, in the fictional Muji City. He has won the National Book Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel, Waiting (1999). He has received three Pushcart Prizes for fiction and a Kenyon Review Prize. Many of his short stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories anthologies. His collection Under The Red Flag (1997) won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, while Ocean of Words (1996) has been awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award. The novel War Trash (2004), set during the Korean War, won a second PEN/Faulkner Award for Jin, thus ranking him with Philip Roth, John Edgar Wideman and E. L. Doctorow who are the only other authors to have won the prize more than once. 

War Trash was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Jin currently teaches at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Link to Story: english101490.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/saboteur-ha-jin.pdf

Prompt:

In “Saboteur,” a visiting university lecturer is arrested and accused of sabotage in the aftermath of China’s Cultural Revolution. The story explores the history of China’s propaganda machine and the role of intellectuals in a totalitarian society. Even though the protagonist of the story initially is not guilty of the crime of which he is accused, the ending of the story makes a sharp U-turn, prompting us to think about the effect of the totalitarian system on an individual’s growth and development. 

Read the story carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze Ha Jin’s use of irony and other rhetorical choices in exposing the excesses of the system of totalitarian control. 

Prompt:

“Saboteur” explores the history of totalitarianism in China during and in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Lately, the Chinese government has renewed its attempts to crack down dissent among intellectuals and activists. 

Carefully read the six sources. Then write an essay that synthesizes material from at least 3 of the sources and develops your position on a totalitarian system of government and its relationship with members of the academic community, intellectuals, dissidents, and activists.    

Synthesis Materials:

Source Packet

Individual Materials Found in Packet:

• Source A: China’s crackdown on professors reminds many of the Mao era - Los Angeles Times.pdf 

• Source B: China’s cultural crackdown_ few areas untouched as Xi reshapes society _ China _ The Guardian.pdf 

• Source C: China's intellectuals feel 'chilling' effect of speech controls under Xi Jinping — Radio Free Asia.pdf 

• Source D: Opinion _ The Decade That Cannot Be Deleted - The New York Times.pdf 

• Source E: Seeing Red_ The Design of Mao-Era China Propaganda – StMU Research Scholars.pdf 
  
  

Prompt: 

In the short story “Saboteur", Mr. Chiu, the protagonist, starts out as a morally upright, responsible individual, before committing a morally dubious act that puts the lives of thousands of people in danger. We are used to thinking about goodness and evil as contradictory, antithetical ideas. However, are all of us capable of great acts of kindness -- as well as of morally repulsive, dark deeds? 

Consider this quote by Mikhail Bulgakov, a famous Russian novelist: “What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?” Then write an essay in which you explore the interconnectedness of good and evil. 

Support your argument with appropriate evidence and examples.