Flame by Ha Jin is story of a past love, from the military writing to the main character Nimei, to just reacquaint and see how she’s doing. Nimei, dumbstruck, agreed to their meeting and looked forward to seeing her old friend. Except Nimei, as well as the old lover, currently have families and have seemingly moved on with their lives. Nimei’s actual husband in the story is somewhat of a servant to Nimei and doesn’t seem to mind the absence of romance between the two.
But, as the story continues, we find Nimei trying to impress and create a more show worthy appearance for when they meet. In the end, it turns out the ex-lover doesn’t show but instead sends one of his men to drop off the gifts. Nimei becomes heartbroken at the fact she thought he’d show up, but didn’t, and in the end plays it off as if the man being sent and her new attitude were for nothing.
This story talks about the cultural challenges in some of Chinese culture and focus’ on the meaning of love and happiness. In the story it highlights how an arranged marriage is not often based on feeling or good of a partner may be, but instead based on how good of a fit they are given their financial or vocational status. Nimei is obviously not as involved with own husband as she is with the ex-military lover, which is telling about how emotional involved she is with her husband.
Reading about how Nimei is not as happy as she could be in her relationship reminds me of the Outkast song Hey ya talking about why stay in a relationship you aren’t happy, why is love sometimes the exception when it comes to happiness.