In Ha Jin’s short story, “Saboteur,” Mr. Chiu, a university professor, and his wife are finishing up their honeymoon. Afterward, their plan is to return to home and because Mr. Chiu is afraid of relapse of acute hepatitis, he looks forward to going home. When a police officer throws tea on Mr. Chiu during their and having lunch, he is arrested for being “a saboteur” and is put in jail. When he is later questioned, the chief of the bureau wants him to write and sign a confession to his crime, but Mr. Chiu refuses. Because of this, he is thrown back in jail. The longer he stays in his cell, the more he begins to feel sick. When he sees a former student outside, he assumes he is there to help him get out of jail. However, his former student is actually is being held and tortured. Once again, Mr. Chiu is questioned and because of his declining health and his former student being tortured, he makes the decision to sign the written confession. They are both released and in order to seek revenge on the policemen for the injustice he faced, they walk around, eating and drinking, which spreads Mr. Chiu’s disease everywhere and causes an epidemic that impacts many. This story had a very clear tone of anger, frustration, and injustice, as Mr. Chiu is clearly arrested for no reason and his student, Fenjin is tortured for no reason. I also thought is was ironic how in the beginning, Mr. Chiu believed in fairness, however, after his time in jail, he only looks out for revenge and now becomes like the policemen who imprisoned him unjustly and used their power to hurt people. A second short story by Ha Jin, “Bad Joke,” tells the story of two peasants in Communist China and how a seemingly innocent joke has severe consequences for them. While the joke is innocent at first, it eventually ends up getting misinterpreted. Because political figures are to be respected and this comment was viewed as negative, the joke gets him into serious trouble. Overall, this story demonstrates the lack of freedom of speech and censorship that goes on in Chinese society and the consequences that occur as a result.