Ha Jin's plan was to finish his PhD and return to Shandong to teach. A doctoral dissertation on Anglo-American poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, and William Butler Yeats carried weight in the Chinese market, even if it wasn't worth much in the US.
哈金這樣計畫人生：取得學位後即回山東大學教書──以龐德（Ezra Pound）、艾略特（T.S. Eliot）、奧登（W.H. Auden）、葉慈（W.B. Yeats）等英美詩人為研究對象的博士論文在中國有市場，在美國則無用武之地。