A Ricepaper Airplane: A Novel (Intersections: Asian and Pacific American

Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies

by Gary Pak

From a hospital bed a dying man unfolds the tale of an arduous life on the fringes of a Hawai'i sugar plantation in the 1920s. There Kim Sung Wha--laborer, patriot, revolutionary, aviator--envisioned building an airplane from ricepaper, bamboo, and the scrap parts of a broken-down bicycle, an airplane that would carry him back to his Korean homeland and to his wife and children. From the start Sung Wha's dream is destined to fail, but this moving and passionate work is the story of a man who dares to life past the wreckage of shattered visions. His is a heroic story of loss, of deep love, and of rebirth.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Asian American

266 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[shreya · Rating 5 out of 5]

i had to read this book for a class - and honest to god, i think about this book almost every other day. i cried so much, even now my heart aches just thinking about his uncle and his dreams of the ricepaper airplane.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my random TBR pick for the month of August, and I'm so glad because I really enjoyed it!

As Sung Wha lays dying in the hospital, Yong Gil listens as his uncle recounts stories of his life: his years as a Korean immigrant working on Hawaiian sugar plantations in the 1920s and 30s; his time as a teenager in Korea, wanting to fight back against the Japanese occupiers; his dream to build an airplane to return to his wife and children in Manchuria.

I especially loved the middle section of the book, which recounts Sung Wha fleeing from his village and making his way north through the forests and mountains of Korea, into Manchuria. There are elements of mysticism and Korean folklore woven into this section, which made for a really vivid, immersive reading experience.

Sung Wha is a revolutionary at heart...or better said, due to circumstance. He is excited by rumors of a worker's movement in China and is intrigued by ideas of Communism. My familiarity with the history of Communism is mostly with US and European history, so it's interesting to link the movement of ideas and ideologies between East and West. It just makes me want to better understand all of world history!

I did find that the structure made it a bit difficult for me, at first, to get into the book. There are frequent, sudden shifts between Sung Wha and Yong Gil's POVs, between past and present, between dialect and standard English. There are some passages that seem to be quoting poetry but are broken off mid-phrase. It required some effort for me to figure out what was going on, but once I did, I really enjoyed the story. In fact, I think this slightly more complicated structure added to the book; it wouldn't have been the same had everything been told in a straightforward, linear narrative.

I'm always looking for stories that give me insight into other cultures and other periods in history, and this book did just that.

[Jon Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story moved me more than I was expecting. How he transitions between time and storytelling had me at the verge of tears. How time is both non-existent and repetitive, how revolutionaries have existed during the time of kings to present, this story gives the reader a lot to think about.

나는 금강산에 가고 싶어요.

[JoAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike my usual reviews, this is an older book, published in 1998. I found it on sale from the University of Hawai’i Press and since I enjoyed Pak’s other novel, Children of a Fireland by Gary Pak I had to read it. Like Pak’s other works, A Rice Paper Airplane is set in Hawai’i and revolves around one of its communities. In this case, the story centers of Koreans who migrated to the islands to seek better employment or escape from Japanese persecution during the period of the latter’s occupation of the former’s country.

The novel unfolds like origami, turning backwards and forward in time according to the scattered memories of an old man, Uncle, as he recounts his life for his nephew. Threaded through his memories are histories of Hawai’i and its many residents, Korean, Japanese, White, Indigenous. The novel also folds across geography, taking place in both Hawai’i and Korea. This is a novel about conflict, both cultural and political; desires, both of the individual kind and the ambitions of states; resistance and fighting spirit, in body and mind, through success and failure.

This is an emotional novel. Readers should expect to feel grief and sorrow. But also the hope and resilience of Korean migrants in cultures, circumstances, and places not of their own making and wholly according to history and fate.

For these reasons alone, this is a very worthwhile read. It is little known, but ought to rank with the best sellers of today in the vein of intergenerational, multi-generational historical fiction: Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing for example.

But that is not the only reason to read A Ricepaper Airplane: Pak’s prose is also an appeal. The novel’s dialogue is written in Hawai’ian pidgin, a creole language that is unique to the islands, lending authentic voice and substance to the characters and the story itself. The exposition is unfussy, straightforward, yet also flowing. Pak leaves the reader with poetic silences that fill with organic emotion.

This is an incredible novel, one which deserves greater recognition.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gary Pak writes a elder Korean's life story with complex Asian politics threading the writing needle. His stories within the main story covered much I knew nothing about from a perspective that is new to me, Korean.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This turned out to be quite good. Different, but good. Lots of shifting perspectives...from first person to third, from Sang Wah's character to Yong Gil's character to the Tiger...a lot of stuff intertwined in there, but it did hold together as a story.

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

back when i still read fiction - loved it! read it in college