IP and Law

Did Ha Jin plagiarize a Korean War memoir for War Trash?

JDM050726memoirs.jpg

A Chinese memoirist has accused Chinese-American writer Ha Jin of plagiarizing his work for scenes in the PEN-Faulkner award winning War Trash.

Zhang Zeshi, author of Notes of a POW and My Return From an American Camp, has said that certain chapters of War Trash bear a resemblance to his 2000 memoir My Korean War: the Personal Account of a Volunteer Army POW (pictured). When War Trash came out last year, Zhang's American friends mentioned the similarities, and earlier this year a journalist translated the offending passages, amounting to about 10,000 words, into Chinese for Zhang to inspect himself.

In his list of references, Ha Jin acknowledges using an essay collection that Zhang edited as a source for his meticulously researched novel. He has denied reading My Korean War, but the passages he is alleged to have plagiarized are found in an essay in that was included in both the Zhang-edited volume and the later My Korean War.

The details in question concern the "Dodd Incident," in which rioting POWs captured the camp commandant, Brig. Gen. Francis T. Dodd, and tried him for brutality. Zhang says:

In most histories, the "Dodd Incident" is given only a brief mention. All of the historical details were my own creation, and Ha Jin only changed a few words after translating my work into English. He also twisted the characters I described.

A report on Booktide gives a side-by-side comparison of a passage from the two books. The flow of the conversation between two officers is quite similar, and there are several places where the lines are identical. The several layers of translation the plagiarized portions would have gone through make it hard to tell for sure, though.

Links And Sources
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
laomo2008fpA.jpg
Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
Diamond Hill by Feng Chi-shun: Feng's memoir Diamond Hill describes an era of gambling and gangsters, Suzie Wong and squatter villages, fires and food stalls, and the Kowloon Walled City and its white powder. "A time when people were poor, but life was rich," he says. The world that he grew up in no longer exists, but his book - the first ever on the Diamond Hill refugee settlement, in either Chinese or English - offers a candid picture of what life was like for most Hong Kong residents in the 1950s.
William A. Callahan's China: The Pessoptimist Nation: China: The Pessoptimist Nation shows how the heart of Chinese foreign policy is not a security dilemma, but an identity dilemma. Through a careful analysis of how Chinese people understand their new place in the world, the book charts how Chinese identity emerges through the interplay of positive and negative feelings in a dynamic that intertwines China's domestic and international politics.
The WTO ruling: a half victory at best: In August 2009, a World Trade Organization panel ruled against China's system of monopoly control over entertainment products. Was this the victory supporters hailed as the dawn of a new day for American and global entertainment companies in the China market?
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Street hawker cries of Beijing (2006.12): Yang Changhe demonstrates hawker's cries in a video shot by Muzimei.
+ New Weekly: Do Chinese kids know anything about traditonal Chinese culture? (2004.06): Q: Do you know what China's four great inventions are? Paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder 49.3% know all four, 37.3% get one or more wrong, 13.3% don't know at all (2004.06.12)
+ Some questions about SARFT's full-stop for Red Question Mark (2007.09): SARFT axes Red Question Mark (红问号). He Dong (何东) responds.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30