Memory man

WHEN XUEFEI JIN first arrived in the US, he dreamt of returning to his native China after getting his PhD and working as an academic or a translator. Nineteen years later, the young American literature major is pepper-haired Ha Jin, 48, one of the most influential immigrant writers in the US. And he's never gone home.

Which means that his books, including four novels, three short story collections and three poetry collections - all of them about events in and around China - are based on increasingly distant memories and research done from afar. He can cling onto a lot from his youth. After all, Xuefei, meaning swirling snow, is a reminder of chilly winters in northeast China, where he grew up, and his pen name, Ha, was picked from Harbin, the Chinese city he likes most.

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