John Updike reviews Free Life, the new novel from Ha Jin, which earned a starred review from Booklist.

Ha Jin’s description of American life—laborious, money-mad, philistine, and cheesy (there is apparently no cheese in China)—is not apt to trigger a wave of immigration. Asked the difference between China and America, Nan says, “In China every day I wanted to jump up and fight wiz someone. . . . Zere you have to fight to survive, but here I don’t want to fight wiz anyone, as eef I lost my spirit.” To himself, he thinks, “The louder I shout, the bigger a fool I’ll make of myself. I feel like a crippled man here.” Nevertheless, he elects to stay, in this “lonesome, unfathomable, overwhelming land.” The Wus strive less to let America in than to squeeze China out—“squeeze every bit of it out of themselves!” Nan tells Danning, “I spit at China, because it treats its citizens like gullible children and always prevents them from growing up into real individuals. It demands nothing but obedience.”

I wonder how SAP is doing in China. Well, just ask:

The world's largest enterprise software developer SAP's revenue in China is to rise 30% up annually by 2010 and it would also expand its research staff in the country, said Lee Boon Lee, SAP China’s CEO and president. The Germany-based firm hopes its output revenue in China will be quadrupled by the end of 2010, compared with the revenue generated in 2005.

Also:

German software giant SAP brings its toughest jobs to this port city in China's rustbelt northeast.

In a sunny, spacious office at a leafy business park, 200 technicians help run software that manages bank transactions in Switzerland and auto manufacturing in Michigan.

"Nighttime support for a Swiss bank is one of the most difficult things you can do, and we do it in China," said Andreas Reuther, SAP's vice president for global support.

After reading ubernoir's recent observation that "Asian in UK English usually means of Indian or Pakistani descent", I wondered whether the British Asians, like Jin and his characters, are trying to "squeeze the Pakistan out" of themselves.