My take from the historical novel “Pachinko”

The US bombs liberated Korea, but it couldn’t liberate the Koreans living in Japan.

It was shocking for me to know that Japan invaded Korea 714 times prior to its final occupation from 1910 – 1945. The U.S., by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, indirectly freed Korea. However, Koreans in Japan couldn’t be free geopolitically, socially, and psychologically, and “Pachinko” answers why.

In its last chapter, Solomon, a third generation Korean in Japan, who received American education all throughout his life, both in Japan and in the U.S., realizes that he cannot marry his Korean-American fiancé because she is too Americanized for her to be living in Japan with him. Although discrimination against Koreans is severe in Japan, neither does he grabs the opportunity of running away, being an American by marrying his American fiancé, as he is more at home in Japan than in the States.

“In a way, Solomon was Japanese, too, even if the Japanese didn’t think so. Phoebe couldn’t see this. There was more to being something than just blood. The space between Phoebe and him could not close, and if he was decent, he had to let her go home (p471).”

This quote is relevant to people like me who grew up in the U.S. I feel that I am an American even though I am not seen as an American by the majority. I know very little about Korea, and know much more about the U.S., but people still ask me about Korea which I can’t answer intelligently. My heart pounds about the crises in the U.S., but it doesn’t about the crises in Korea because I don’t understand their issues by heart.

My only consolation is that there are plenty like me everywhere, people in the peripheries, the cultural hybrids. We gravitate towards tolerations and inclusions, the qualities of which tend to mend more than break.