I originally watched some episodes of the Pachinko dramatization on Apple TV. Because of the excellent acting and engaging script, I became quickly engrossed in the production. After learning the story would be released in 4 seasons, I was dismayed knowing I would be at the edge of my seat for the next four years yearning to know what happens to these characters. Wishing to spare myself this misery, I looked up the book, Pachinko, upon which the drama was based, bought my copy from Amazon Kindle and read it cover to cover in two days. Being a slow reader and being that Pachinko is not a light read, I got through that book very fast simply because almost from the first page, I could not put it down.
Generally, I’m not a fan of family sagas, but I have recently begun watching Korean dramas with subtitles. While enjoying the dramas, I have become interested in Korean history and culture, so reading this book, written by Korean American author, Min Jin Lee, was an opportunity to acquaint myself with Korean culture from the lens of someone raised in a Korean household, but who also has lived and been educated in the United States.
I was grateful that, unlike the movie, the story in this book runs along in a sequential timeline with very little time-shifting. Lee presents this story in a universal, omnipresent point of view, so one gets the story from multiple viewpoints, not only from major characters, but from some minor ones as well. The writing is so skillfully executed, the narrative runs seamlessly along. The writing is also immersive with just enough description to set the scenes. Through this evocative writing, I could feel the closeness of life in Sunja’s childhood boarding house while appreciating the freedom and beauty of the black rocks by the seashore where Sunja and her companions washed clothes and where she spent time with her lover, Koh Hansu. A week after finishing this book I can still close my eyes and feel the poverty of Osaka where Sunju and her family eked out a living, all crowded in a small, rickety dwelling, held down and oppressed for being Koreans by their Japanese overlords.
The strongest part of the story were the characters, all thoughtfully written and fleshed out. Sunja was a plain, uneducated peasant girl whose great intelligence, wisdom, loyalty, faith and well-honed instincts helped lay the foundations for her family’s survival during rough times and later for their great prosperity despite the prejudice they were forced to endure. Her two loves, Koh Hansu and Isak, different as two men could be, protected her and her family in their own way. Her son, Noa, witnessed the hardships of the World War II in his younger years, but because of his great intelligence and because of the secret presence of his wealthy, natural father, he was spared many of the dangers and deprivations other Korean children faced. Growing up and being educated alongside Japanese children, he came to be greatly conflicted between his Japanese education and his Korean heritage. His younger brother, Mozasu, lacked the patience for education, yet he was diligent and street-smart and made a success of his life running and eventually owning pachinko parlors. Koh Hansu was probably the most tragic of the characters Lee highlights. He is a gifted Korean, born into poverty who found success by selling his soul to his Japanese overlords. He has married into a wealthy Japanese family, even been adopted by his father-in-law, yet he has little respect for his Japanese family. He loved the Korean peasant girl, Sunja, but she refused to become his mistress and went on to pursue her own life. Though Sunja is only one among many lovers, he remains haunted by her throughout his life. She gave birth to his only son, but she also touched his heart in a way no other human being could. Though Koh is a much feared and corrupt Yakuza in later years, he still goes out of his way to show kindness to Sunja and her family. Also of interest are the couple Yeseb and his beautiful wife, Kyunghee. Yeseb struggles with a feeling of inferiority towards his younger brother, Isak, who he believes is too idealistic and fragile for this word. He is a protective older brother hemmed in by traditional, paternalistic ideals that prove costly in the foreign world of Imperial Japan where his family is forced to exist under difficult and almost impossible conditions. He works multiple jobs and still isn’t able to make enough to support his family, yet he refuses to let his wife work outside the home. Later he becomes disabled and is forced to become dependent upon others, including his wife, for care. The most beautiful thing about this extended family is these individuals have their share of conflict, resentments, and misunderstandings, but throughout their lives, they are completely devoted to each other. When trouble threatens from the outside or when one family member is in need, each one of them comes through for the other.
The book starts in Korea during the early part of the twentieth century during the Japanese occupation. In Korea, Sunja and her family, as well as other Koreans, are regarded with suspicion by their Japanese overlords. Not only do the Japanese exploit them and take the best land and sea can produce, but they regard and treat the native Koreans as innately inferior. The attitudes don’t change after World War II during occupied Japan or even as late as the 1980’s when the book ends. Koreans living in Japan or even born there are still regarded legally and socially as foreigners. Returning to Korea, as many of these individuals desired to do after the war, was problematic as well, and even downright deadly. Families and individuals from the north of Korea, had to return to a part of Korea run by the Communists. There were individuals in the book who returned and were never heard from again. The south of Korea was run by a dictator most of the time and beset by chaos and corruption, as well as the Korean war. Sunja and her family were trapped in Japan by these circumstances, but Japan, first Osaka and then Yokohama, became their home. Here they were able to start and run businesses and earn a living. Being Koreans, they might never be fully accepted in their community, but here they found a life. They weren’t shunned by all Japanese. Lee introduces her readers to Japanese individuals touched by this family, but all of them have one thing in common: because of circumstances or past actions or mistakes, they have been marginalized by their Japanese countrymen. There is Mozasu’s girlfriend, Etsuko, who was divorced by her husband because of infidelity. In her disgrace she had to leave her community in Hokkaido and move to another town. Mozasu’s first employer had an autistic son and was also marginalized. Noa’s first serious girlfriend, Akiko, who doesn't fit in with her Japanese peers, is a precocious Japanese girl from a wealthy family, who is fascinated by Noa’s Korean heritage. When Akiko, through her ignorance and thoughtlessness, interferes and unwittingly forces an explosive family issue, Noa freezes her totally out of his life.
I never heard the name Pachinko until I watched some of the drama on my streaming service. As the book explains, it is a popular game in Japan that is a cross between pinball and slot machines. Winners appear to win by chance and thereby have hope for a good outcome, but the owners set the machines and allow some wins so that other less fortunate people will be drawn in. Winners are those who happen to play during the time of day the pins are loose and ready to yield the winnings. I suppose life can be looked upon as a game of Pachinko. Pachinko was one of the few avenues where Korean individuals could make their fortunes in post-war Japan. It was not considered respectable enough for good Japanese people to be a part of, even though the Japanese loved to play it. Both of Sunja’s sons end up making a living running Pachinko.
This book presented a window into, what are to me, two foreign cultures, Korean and Japanese. Sunja’s extended family is made up of aristocrats from the north of Korea as well as peasants from the south. Sunja’s youth was grounded in Confucian, old world Korean ideals, but as time passed, she and her family were introduced to Christianity, the values of Imperial Japan, post-war commercialism, and globalization. The values of her Korean childhood such as loyalty, morality, revereance for family and work ethic remained in Sunja and were passed on to subsequent generations of her family. What stood out to me was the great influence of Christianity and how its message of forgiveness and loving grace impacted this family and tempered the harsher aspects of their traditional Korean ideals. Unlike many modern authors dealing with Christian characters, Lee presented the clergy in a balanced and realistic way, neither lionizing them nor demeaning them.
All of Lee’s characters were carefully nuanced and believable. Individuals like Sunja, Isak, Noa, Solomon, and Hansu came alive to me and continue to haunt me nearly a week since I finished the book. I was truly sad to come to the end of book. It was a beautiful read, one of the best books I’ve read in the past three or four years. I highly recommend it!
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She could not see his humanity, and Noa realized that this was what he wanted most of all: to be seen as human.Highlighted by 9,603 Kindle readers- “People are rotten everywhere you go. They’re no good. You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.”Highlighted by 8,911 Kindle readers
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Hard to put it down
One of the best books I’ve read in a very long time!! Very hard to put down!! So much pain and hardship and yet they all persevered but could never find where they really belonged!!
