Looking for Tank Man by Ha Jin

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

October 18, 2025 (San Diego) - National award-winning author Ha Jin, who became a U.S. citizen after the Tiananmen Square uprising. explores themes of rebellion in China and the struggles of a Chinese student in America in his novel, Looking for Tank Man.

His main character, Lulu, who is a young woman from China, attends an undergraduate program at Harvard University. Her life seems full of the usual problems of a student struggling to adapt in a foreign land.

Lulu encounters an outspoken woman from whom she learns of the 1989 protest movement at Tiananmen Square and of the government’s violent response.

In four years, Lulu becomes fluent in English and offers to be an interpreter at democracy meetings. Those meetings expose her to persons sympathetic to the Chinese democracy movement in the US.

Because most Chinese students compete for IT or business majors, Lulu is granted interviews at two Ivy League fine arts graduate programs. She is offered scholarships at both schools. She accepts the one at Columbia, where she will major in history.  She takes a class that exposes her to details about the 1989 slaughter at Tiananmen Square. The class interviews witnesses and participants in the student rebellion. Not only does the event pique Lulu’s interest, she chooses it as the topic of her dissertation.

During her summer visits to her home in Beijing, Lulu is interrogated by Chinese government officials twice. The first time, she shows the Tank Man image to strangers and asks what they know and feel about the picture. During another visit, she interviews a driver of one of the 1989 tanks at Tiananmen Square. Both times that she is interrogated, she is shaken and is deeply frightened.

In another visit, Lulu learns that her parents were activists during the 1989 student strike. Her father made and installed the democracy sculpture. Her mother is taken out of the protest by her father, who tells her that her mother is critically ill. She returns home with him to find that her mother is healthy. Her parents take her student ID and keep her homebound to remove her from the conflict. This prevents her from experiencing the violence that later occurs during the protest.

While Lulu is becoming more democratic in her thinking, her fellow Chinese classmates have no interest in politics. They will have lucrative careers in China, and that is all they care about.

Lulu’s dissertation is translated and accepted for publication in Chinese. Though not yet published, when she lands in Beijing for her usual summer break, she is not allowed to stay in China. The event forces her to confront her limitations as a Chinese citizen.

At school in the US, she becomes vulnerable when her dissertation advisor pursues an amorous relationship with her. Her rejection of his interest threatens her degree. In the end, she must search for and pursue other options. What will she do?

The book brings home what it is like to live in a country that controls its citizens by using close observation and harsh punishments. It also brings home how vulnerable women are when men misuse their power.

I loved learning about Lulu’s life and about what rebellion means to the Chinese government. Ha Jin writes a spellbinding story. The book should be a must-read for all Americans.

Ha Jin is a Chinese-American author and professor at Boston University, best known for his novel Waiting, which won the National Book and PEN/Faulkner Awards. He served in the People's Liberation Army, moved to the U.S. to study in 1985, and became an American citizen after the Tiananmen Square events in 1989, which prevented him from returning to China. His work often explores themes of Chinese life, the immigrant experience, and identity.