To go to a
website with some information and about the current status of Pachinko in Japan,
click here. If you want to know more about Pachinko,
there’s plenty online!
Geographically,
after Japan annexed Korea in 1910, the main characters of Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee, traveled a long distance
from Yeongdo, Korea to Osaka, Japan in an attempt to escape extreme poverty. Yeongdo
is a long trip across South Korea from Seoul, the main city in South Korea. After
the annexation, the Japanese discriminated against their Korean neighbors on a
personal as well as a political basis, and the Koreans had little ability to
raise money or upgrade their lifestyles from poverty. Korea and Japan are both
relatively small countries, but travel between them was daunting, especially
for those without much wealth. In the next generation of the story, Noa moves
from Osaka to Waseda University (near Tokyo) in Japan and then hides in Nagano, Japan, a different but nearby city. Noa’s brother, Mosazu, becomes
wealthy working in the Pachinko business, and his son, Solomon, goes to school in
New York and then moves to independent South Korea after World War II. There is
a full-circle feeling to the travels and moves among this extended family.
We discussed
the poverty of the Koreans at the beginning of the book and the problems caused
by the Japanese takeover of Korea. Dennis found the treatment of the Koreans “appalling”
and somewhat depressing. Heather was surprised at how impoverished the Koreans
were. She was reminded of a Japanese woman she had hired to help her when she
was a young mother, and that the Japanese woman had spoken badly of the Koreans. Joanne said that when groups fight, culture
is the first aspect of the opposing society that people tend to attack.
Because of
the fighting, there were suicides and tragedies in the story. Cindy T. noted there
were abrupt deaths, and Marcia noted the suicide by Noa, which seemed to happen
because Noa was successfully living in Japanese society and was “passing” as
Japanese, when his clearly Korean mother visited him. Noa didn’t want his
children, and possibly his brother, to suffer because of Japanese people learning
they were of Korean descent. Clearly, he was also concerned about his own welfare if his origins became known.
There was
some discussion about the treatment of women in both the Korean and Japanese
cultures. Heather noted that everyone, including the women, expected women to
suffer. Joanne told us about the “Comfort Women,” more than 100,000 Korean and
other (Chinese) subjugated women who were captured to be given to men in the Japanese army
during the years surrounding World War II.
Everyone
enjoyed reading Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee! Fascinating, if sad, story and
characters! There was some history and exotic information about Korea and Koreans,
as well as Japan and Japanese history and social commentary, too.
