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Modern Korean Literature #11
Chinatown
Bilingual (English/Korean); part of the Modern Korean Short Stories Series. Korea was an arduous and painstaking place to live in after the nation's civil war. Incheon, one of the war's most famous backdrops, provides the setting for Chinatown, the story of life in one of the ubiquitous shantytown areas that dotted the Korean landscape at the time, and is a painfully real account of what many suffered through. It is also a grim tale of how Koreans, American soldiers and Chinese vendors failed to understand each other on any meaningful level.
Paperback
First published December 31, 2004
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About the author
Oh Jung-hee
17 books28 followersOh Jung-Hee (born November 9, 1947) (Hangul: 오정희) is a South Korean writer.
Oh has captured both the Yi Sang Literary Award and the Dongin Literary Award, Korea's most prestigious prizes for short fiction, and her works have been translated into multiple foreign languages in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe.
(from Wikipedia)
Oh has captured both the Yi Sang Literary Award and the Dongin Literary Award, Korea's most prestigious prizes for short fiction, and her works have been translated into multiple foreign languages in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 19, 2021
'Chinatown' by Oh Jung-hee was the first ever Korean story that I read. I got it many years back as a present from one of my favourite friends who worked in South Korea as a teacher at that time. I can't remember much of the story now, but I remember it didn't create much an impact then. This time around, the reading experience was very different. I loved it. I found it very fascinating.
The story told in 'Chinatown' happens just after the Korean war in the '50s. The place where the story happens is just hinted at, but it is revealed in the short essays at the end of the book as Incheon. The story is narrated by a nine year old girl whose family moves to this coastal town from the north. The experiences she has, the good times she has with her best friend, the poverty that her family and others experience, the happiness they manage to find inspite of life being hard, the bleakness of the post war years, how children growup very fast and get thrust into the adult world suddenly, the presence of American GIs and the adverse impact of that on Korean life – these and other things are explored in the book. The narrator's voice is fascinating and real.
The illustrations of Nam Joo-hyun are charming and bring alive the Korea of that time. I have shared some of the illustrations so that you can get a feel of them.
The essay at the back of the book says this about the illustrations – "The streets and rooms are often drawn out of proportion, but somehow the perspective reflects the way childhood scenes are remembered. Actual places are invariably much smaller than we remember them. Without explaining whether the reason is a slip of the memory or a false rendering of time, Nam Joo-hyun renders the curious wonders of our childhood memories in her own, personal style."
This book is classified as a short story, but it is more a long story – it is 65 pages long with 17 pages of illustrations (it is in bilingual format – so it is 65 pages of English and 65 pages of Korean) – longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella, the kind of stuff Stefan Zweig was famous for.
This book is published by an indie publisher called Hollym which has published other Korean stories in this series in book format with beautiful illustrations and has tried bringing out Korean literature to an international audience at a time when Korean literature was not famous as it is today. I want to read more books from this series, but unfortunately they seem to be hard to find.
I loved 'Chinatown'. I want to read more stories by Oh Jung-hee and more stories in the Hollym series.
I'll leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
"Dad was constantly fixing up the house. It was as if he was trying to make up for the days when we had to live in a rented room as refugees or stay up all night huddled together under a bridge or in a tent. The yard was small enough as it was, but Dad was adding rooms and putting in floors like little girls learning to sew sometimes add hidden pockets to purses and clothes. The house became riddled with narrow, tangled passageways that seemed to appear out of nowhere. There was always at least one place where you could hide and not be found."
"An almost endless toiling of a bell came from the chapel at the back of the park...It continued steadily in measured waves and intervals. A radically restrained sound, it reduced all kinds of desires and feelings into a single ring of sound. It was like waking up from a dream and hearing a distant birdcall made on a summer night or the sound of a train passing wearily in the middle of the night. There was something fearful and secretive about the sound. "A nun must have died," someone concluded. We knew that when a church bell rang continuously in that way, it meant that a nun was quietly dying."
Have you read 'Chinatown'? What do you think about it?
The story told in 'Chinatown' happens just after the Korean war in the '50s. The place where the story happens is just hinted at, but it is revealed in the short essays at the end of the book as Incheon. The story is narrated by a nine year old girl whose family moves to this coastal town from the north. The experiences she has, the good times she has with her best friend, the poverty that her family and others experience, the happiness they manage to find inspite of life being hard, the bleakness of the post war years, how children growup very fast and get thrust into the adult world suddenly, the presence of American GIs and the adverse impact of that on Korean life – these and other things are explored in the book. The narrator's voice is fascinating and real.
The illustrations of Nam Joo-hyun are charming and bring alive the Korea of that time. I have shared some of the illustrations so that you can get a feel of them.
The essay at the back of the book says this about the illustrations – "The streets and rooms are often drawn out of proportion, but somehow the perspective reflects the way childhood scenes are remembered. Actual places are invariably much smaller than we remember them. Without explaining whether the reason is a slip of the memory or a false rendering of time, Nam Joo-hyun renders the curious wonders of our childhood memories in her own, personal style."
This book is classified as a short story, but it is more a long story – it is 65 pages long with 17 pages of illustrations (it is in bilingual format – so it is 65 pages of English and 65 pages of Korean) – longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella, the kind of stuff Stefan Zweig was famous for.
This book is published by an indie publisher called Hollym which has published other Korean stories in this series in book format with beautiful illustrations and has tried bringing out Korean literature to an international audience at a time when Korean literature was not famous as it is today. I want to read more books from this series, but unfortunately they seem to be hard to find.
I loved 'Chinatown'. I want to read more stories by Oh Jung-hee and more stories in the Hollym series.
I'll leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
"Dad was constantly fixing up the house. It was as if he was trying to make up for the days when we had to live in a rented room as refugees or stay up all night huddled together under a bridge or in a tent. The yard was small enough as it was, but Dad was adding rooms and putting in floors like little girls learning to sew sometimes add hidden pockets to purses and clothes. The house became riddled with narrow, tangled passageways that seemed to appear out of nowhere. There was always at least one place where you could hide and not be found."
"An almost endless toiling of a bell came from the chapel at the back of the park...It continued steadily in measured waves and intervals. A radically restrained sound, it reduced all kinds of desires and feelings into a single ring of sound. It was like waking up from a dream and hearing a distant birdcall made on a summer night or the sound of a train passing wearily in the middle of the night. There was something fearful and secretive about the sound. "A nun must have died," someone concluded. We knew that when a church bell rang continuously in that way, it meant that a nun was quietly dying."
Have you read 'Chinatown'? What do you think about it?
August 16, 2025
There was no sign of the white bird tracing an arc in the sky from the river to the pines. It took wing between five and six in the afternoon – a time when she was often seized by ambiguous feelings about life – and drifted through the infinite creep of time suffused with elusive tension, from the still sunlit river to the shade-drenched woods.
Chinatown is a translation by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (who have done so much to bring Korean literature to the English speaking world) of selected stories by 오정희 (Oh Jung-hee). The duo previously translated another selection, River of Fire (my review) as well as others in anthologies - see below.
I commented in my review of River of Fire that they were drawn from her debut collection and excluded, to avoid duplication, some stronger works anthologised elsewhere. Chinatown however for me showcases the author's work better. The translator's introduction to the stories:
Hard to improve on that, but quotes and brief notes:
Chinatown: 중국인 거리
Set (although not explicitly stated, this would be obvious to the Korean reader) in Incheon:
Since it was winter and late at night there was no one to give me a disapproving look if I climbed the statue. So I clawed my way onto the pedestal and then to the binoculars that the general held against his stomach. From there I looked down on the city with its sprinkling of lights. The cries of the previous summer, swelling like dust from a battlefield, were gone. Now it was still. As I strained to listen to the sounds flowing gently through the darkness I felt as if I were tapping an undiscovered vein of water near the core of the earth. The sea was a black plane. I drank in the wind that had been blowing all night from the East China Sea, and the seaweed smell it carried. I saw the oblong light framed by the open shutter of the two- storey house on the Chinatown hill and imagined a pale face revealed within it. I felt the soft breath of spring hiding in the chilly air.
Running Man 주자
At times I felt compelled to tell her I loved her, especially when we transitioned to drinking late into the night. I would draw close from across the table, my gaze coming to rest on the hand holding the glass at which she sipped, so studious and silent, but then the spectral illusion returned and my mind would whirl and my head would fall to the table. Because her hand resembled his in its pallor and frigidity, a hand so frail but absolutely substantial in its own way, a hand that had yielded the pair of keys in my pocket that obsessed me, a pale white hand that was sucking me into its palm.
Mermaid 인어
Dare I expect our relationship will be the same once she finds out I’m not her birth mother, given the occasional feelings of dislike and betrayal between us until now? Affection, hatred and hostility tend to permeate family affairs, and I fear there will be discord among the four of us, and that Sunyŏng and I will have difficulty accepting the existential scepticism she would experience at much too early an age. Even so, my husband and I agree that she needs to know the truth before she gets older and finds out from someone else. No secret is sealed forever, but we want to at least prevent her from experiencing humiliation and shame from a second- hand source.
The Garden Party 야회
This for me was the strongest piece, indeed would merit five stars on its own.
It's told from the perspective of a writer ('the writer tag had been applied a few years back by acquaintances after she received a commendation award in the fiction category of a writing contest sponsored by a daily newspaper'), but one who is struggling to follow that up.
Until late each night she sat at her lamp-lit desk sifting through impressions and tracing the tangled chain of her past and future with the present of others, hoping the vitality evoked thereby would come to nuanced life, and she would ultimately commit a few words to paper. But the life that appeared on the blank pages was a succession of trivial days and a stream of convention. Every story was utterly childish and ordinary. But she didn’t give up the nightly session at her desk. She suffered terrible eyestrain and was forever exchanging the light in the lamp for a brighter one. But her eyesight remained dim and her eyes, vulnerable to the incandescent bulb, continued to ooze tears.
But the meta-fictional nature of the story is that the narrator succeeds where her character fails, in a story reminiscent of, and in the same league as, Mansfield or Woolf.
Stories by the author translated into English, courtesy of ChatGPT although it has drawn heavily on Philip Gowman's work at London Korean Links
A Portrait of Magnolias — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP, 2014; US release), tr. Bruce & Ju-Chan Fulton.
The Bronze Mirror — in Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction (M.E. Sharpe, rev. ed. 2007), tr. Fulton & Fulton. Also included in the single-author volume Chinatown (Hollym, 2004).
Chinatown — in Words of Farewell: Stories by Three Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989); in Chinatown (Jimoondang, 2003/2006); bilingual pocket edition Chinatown (Asia Publishers, 2012); and in Chinatown (Penguin Modern Classics, 2025).
Evening Game — in Words of Farewell: Stories by Three Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989).
Fireworks — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Lake P’aro — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Morning Star — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
One Spring Day — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
River of Fire — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Spirit on the Wind — in The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2009), tr. Fulton & Fulton.
The Face — in A Moment’s Grace: Stories from Korea in Transition (Hollym, 1998).
The Garden Party — in Chinatown (Penguin Modern Classics, 2025).
The Monument Intersection — in The Golden Phoenix: Seven Contemporary Korean Short Stories (Lynne Rienner, 1991).
The Old Well — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
The Release — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP); also in Chinatown (Jimoondang, 2003/2006).
The Toy Shop Woman — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Traditional Solo (Sanjo) — in A Century of Queer Korean Fiction (Columbia UP/MLA, 2023), tr. Sora Kim-Russell.
Wayfarer — in Chinatown (Jimoondang, 2003/2006); Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology (Columbia UP, 2005); The Future of Silence: Fiction by Korean Women (Zephyr, 2016 ed.); and The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories (Penguin Classics, 2023).
Weaver Woman — in Waxen Wings: The ACTA Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea (Koryo Press, 2011).
Words of Farewell — in Words of Farewell: Stories by Three Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989)
Chinatown is a translation by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (who have done so much to bring Korean literature to the English speaking world) of selected stories by 오정희 (Oh Jung-hee). The duo previously translated another selection, River of Fire (my review) as well as others in anthologies - see below.
I commented in my review of River of Fire that they were drawn from her debut collection and excluded, to avoid duplication, some stronger works anthologised elsewhere. Chinatown however for me showcases the author's work better. The translator's introduction to the stories:
The stories in this volume are centred in perhaps her most productive period – the late 1970s and early 1980s. ‘Chinatown’ is one of the most accomplished coming-of-age stories in contemporary Korea. ‘Running Man’, an early story built on her debut story, ‘The Toyshop Woman’, focuses on the complications engendered by same-sex desire in a society still weighed down by strict neo-Confucian gender-role expectations. ‘Mermaid’ describes the psychological turmoil of a mother about to confide in her daughter that the girl was abandoned as a baby by her birth mother. ‘The Garden Party’ is a brilliant combination of manners, family dynamics and metafiction contextualized within a dinner party involving several prominent local families.
Hard to improve on that, but quotes and brief notes:
Chinatown: 중국인 거리
Set (although not explicitly stated, this would be obvious to the Korean reader) in Incheon:
Since it was winter and late at night there was no one to give me a disapproving look if I climbed the statue. So I clawed my way onto the pedestal and then to the binoculars that the general held against his stomach. From there I looked down on the city with its sprinkling of lights. The cries of the previous summer, swelling like dust from a battlefield, were gone. Now it was still. As I strained to listen to the sounds flowing gently through the darkness I felt as if I were tapping an undiscovered vein of water near the core of the earth. The sea was a black plane. I drank in the wind that had been blowing all night from the East China Sea, and the seaweed smell it carried. I saw the oblong light framed by the open shutter of the two- storey house on the Chinatown hill and imagined a pale face revealed within it. I felt the soft breath of spring hiding in the chilly air.
Running Man 주자
At times I felt compelled to tell her I loved her, especially when we transitioned to drinking late into the night. I would draw close from across the table, my gaze coming to rest on the hand holding the glass at which she sipped, so studious and silent, but then the spectral illusion returned and my mind would whirl and my head would fall to the table. Because her hand resembled his in its pallor and frigidity, a hand so frail but absolutely substantial in its own way, a hand that had yielded the pair of keys in my pocket that obsessed me, a pale white hand that was sucking me into its palm.
Mermaid 인어
Dare I expect our relationship will be the same once she finds out I’m not her birth mother, given the occasional feelings of dislike and betrayal between us until now? Affection, hatred and hostility tend to permeate family affairs, and I fear there will be discord among the four of us, and that Sunyŏng and I will have difficulty accepting the existential scepticism she would experience at much too early an age. Even so, my husband and I agree that she needs to know the truth before she gets older and finds out from someone else. No secret is sealed forever, but we want to at least prevent her from experiencing humiliation and shame from a second- hand source.
The Garden Party 야회
This for me was the strongest piece, indeed would merit five stars on its own.
It's told from the perspective of a writer ('the writer tag had been applied a few years back by acquaintances after she received a commendation award in the fiction category of a writing contest sponsored by a daily newspaper'), but one who is struggling to follow that up.
Until late each night she sat at her lamp-lit desk sifting through impressions and tracing the tangled chain of her past and future with the present of others, hoping the vitality evoked thereby would come to nuanced life, and she would ultimately commit a few words to paper. But the life that appeared on the blank pages was a succession of trivial days and a stream of convention. Every story was utterly childish and ordinary. But she didn’t give up the nightly session at her desk. She suffered terrible eyestrain and was forever exchanging the light in the lamp for a brighter one. But her eyesight remained dim and her eyes, vulnerable to the incandescent bulb, continued to ooze tears.
But the meta-fictional nature of the story is that the narrator succeeds where her character fails, in a story reminiscent of, and in the same league as, Mansfield or Woolf.
Stories by the author translated into English, courtesy of ChatGPT although it has drawn heavily on Philip Gowman's work at London Korean Links
A Portrait of Magnolias — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP, 2014; US release), tr. Bruce & Ju-Chan Fulton.
The Bronze Mirror — in Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction (M.E. Sharpe, rev. ed. 2007), tr. Fulton & Fulton. Also included in the single-author volume Chinatown (Hollym, 2004).
Chinatown — in Words of Farewell: Stories by Three Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989); in Chinatown (Jimoondang, 2003/2006); bilingual pocket edition Chinatown (Asia Publishers, 2012); and in Chinatown (Penguin Modern Classics, 2025).
Evening Game — in Words of Farewell: Stories by Three Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989).
Fireworks — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Lake P’aro — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Morning Star — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
One Spring Day — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
River of Fire — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Spirit on the Wind — in The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2009), tr. Fulton & Fulton.
The Face — in A Moment’s Grace: Stories from Korea in Transition (Hollym, 1998).
The Garden Party — in Chinatown (Penguin Modern Classics, 2025).
The Monument Intersection — in The Golden Phoenix: Seven Contemporary Korean Short Stories (Lynne Rienner, 1991).
The Old Well — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
The Release — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP); also in Chinatown (Jimoondang, 2003/2006).
The Toy Shop Woman — in River of Fire and Other Stories (Columbia UP).
Traditional Solo (Sanjo) — in A Century of Queer Korean Fiction (Columbia UP/MLA, 2023), tr. Sora Kim-Russell.
Wayfarer — in Chinatown (Jimoondang, 2003/2006); Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology (Columbia UP, 2005); The Future of Silence: Fiction by Korean Women (Zephyr, 2016 ed.); and The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories (Penguin Classics, 2023).
Weaver Woman — in Waxen Wings: The ACTA Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea (Koryo Press, 2011).
Words of Farewell — in Words of Farewell: Stories by Three Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989)
April 29, 2022
Read for my Intro to Modern Korean Literature class. Another favorite of mine! Just one of those that you have to read for yourself. A decidedly feminist story that focuses heavily on the female characters and takes place in the 1950s, we get to see the beginnings of American influence on the general Korean population with the character Maggie and her daughter Jennie. Again, I can't even begin to describe how much I love this story. The ending is really a gut-punch, loved it.
January 22, 2025
Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlyTU...
November 14, 2020
Membaca cerita ini membutuhkan banyak kesabaran dan penalaran yang mendalam. Oh Jung-hee dalam Chinatown mengajak pembaca untuk melihat keadaan masyarakat Korea yang hidup selama masa/pascaperang, bagaimana mereka tetap bertahan dalam setiap keterpurukan dan kekurangan dengan jumlah tanggungan jiwa di tiap keluarga yang terbilang cukup besar.
June 18, 2021
A very dear friend read and reviewed this book recently. I was so enchanted by his review that I went to great lengths to obtain a copy too.
After starting it I realized that I had read it! When I bought one copy for a gift years ago, I also purchased one for the library that I worked in at that time. There were only two copies on display so I thought I would just get a copy for myself at a later time. That Korean bookstore never carried the book again. I was disappointed, but felt that at some point I would find another copy. Meanwhile, I read the library copy.
I'm happy that I have my own copy now. The illustrations in this Korean/English version are lovely and the book itself is just the right size to hold in ones hands. It also has one of those sweet little bookmarks attached to the book.
The story itself is pretty sad and stark, set after WWII in Korea. It's straightforward and honest style is very empathetic and informative at the same time.
If you are able to obtain a copy I think it would be well worth the effort.
After starting it I realized that I had read it! When I bought one copy for a gift years ago, I also purchased one for the library that I worked in at that time. There were only two copies on display so I thought I would just get a copy for myself at a later time. That Korean bookstore never carried the book again. I was disappointed, but felt that at some point I would find another copy. Meanwhile, I read the library copy.
I'm happy that I have my own copy now. The illustrations in this Korean/English version are lovely and the book itself is just the right size to hold in ones hands. It also has one of those sweet little bookmarks attached to the book.
The story itself is pretty sad and stark, set after WWII in Korea. It's straightforward and honest style is very empathetic and informative at the same time.
If you are able to obtain a copy I think it would be well worth the effort.
November 9, 2023
loved all three stories! amazing how the author can create such vivid characters in such a short amount of pages
October 22, 2024
changed my life.
August 25, 2025
as the introduction put, this author truly has a mastery of words and language, it was incredibly symbolic and poetic - while having such devastating themes. The first story particularly being expressed in an introspective childlike way contrasted to the last almost ignorant adult. such a good find and I hope to read more of this authors work. loved the inclusion of feminist and colonial narrative throughout - i also think i’ll be reflecting on the colour yellow for a while.
February 18, 2024
Some interesting stories. The first one, Chinatown, is depressing in a way, but also different and unique to its time. Also it felt a bit open ended.
Wayfarer was probably my favorite. Without giving too many spoilers, it had to do with a woman who went through a breaking and entering and, due to its being a male-centered society, was blamed for it.
The Release was very short, but also a good story about dealing with grief as a woman.
Wayfarer was probably my favorite. Without giving too many spoilers, it had to do with a woman who went through a breaking and entering and, due to its being a male-centered society, was blamed for it.
The Release was very short, but also a good story about dealing with grief as a woman.
March 11, 2014
I found the story to be inconclusive and rather boring, but I enjoyed the billingual format which allowed me to learn fun words about prostitutes in Korean.
December 21, 2025
O abordare interesantă a unei teme actuale: xenofobia.
Autoarea face o treabă excelentă în ceea ce privește prezentarea în paralel a două popoare străine care trăiesc în Coreea de Sud (post-Războiul Coreean): americanii (în principiu soldați) și imigranții chinezi. De-a lungul povestirii naratoarea ne menționează în nenumărate rânduri cât de răi sunt chinezii și cât de barbari sunt. Totodată, aceeași naratoare (care este o fetiță aflată la prepubertate) descrie un episod în care americanii dau dovadă de barbarie ieșită din comun, omorând o pisică pentru propriul amuzament.
Un personaj care m-a impresionat și a cărui valoare în economia povestirii inițial l-am subevaluat este bunica. Personajul ei mi s-a părut foarte interesant datorită simbolismului pe care îl are. Bunica (pentru mine, cel puțin) reprezintă dovada istoriei recente - războaiele prin care tocmai a trecut (Al Doilea Război Mondial - perioada colonială și Războiul Coreean). Cufărul bunicii este motivul literar care m-a impresionat cel mai mult deoarece acest obiect mi-a dat cele mai mari bătăi de cap până să realizez că încorporează perfect istoria femeilor: o istorie a obiectelor, dat fiind faptul că femeile adesea nu apăreau în documente oficiale sau în sfera publică. Singura dovadă a existenței sale pe acest pământ, singurul testament al greutăților vieții pe care a dus-o era acel cufăr cu haine din diferitele perioade ale vieții ei.
Alte teme pe care le mai abordează povestirea sunt: feminitatea și devenirea-femeie, sărăcia, supraviețuirea și prostituția ca metodă de supraviețuire, statutul imigranților, moartea și familiile disfuncționale.
O lectură care necesită câteva cunoștințe despre contextul în care se afla Coreea de Sud după Războiul Coreean.
I-am acordat 4 din 5 steluțe pentru că deși mi-a plăcut, nu pot spune că m-a marcat această povestire.
Autoarea face o treabă excelentă în ceea ce privește prezentarea în paralel a două popoare străine care trăiesc în Coreea de Sud (post-Războiul Coreean): americanii (în principiu soldați) și imigranții chinezi. De-a lungul povestirii naratoarea ne menționează în nenumărate rânduri cât de răi sunt chinezii și cât de barbari sunt. Totodată, aceeași naratoare (care este o fetiță aflată la prepubertate) descrie un episod în care americanii dau dovadă de barbarie ieșită din comun, omorând o pisică pentru propriul amuzament.
Un personaj care m-a impresionat și a cărui valoare în economia povestirii inițial l-am subevaluat este bunica. Personajul ei mi s-a părut foarte interesant datorită simbolismului pe care îl are. Bunica (pentru mine, cel puțin) reprezintă dovada istoriei recente - războaiele prin care tocmai a trecut (Al Doilea Război Mondial - perioada colonială și Războiul Coreean). Cufărul bunicii este motivul literar care m-a impresionat cel mai mult deoarece acest obiect mi-a dat cele mai mari bătăi de cap până să realizez că încorporează perfect istoria femeilor: o istorie a obiectelor, dat fiind faptul că femeile adesea nu apăreau în documente oficiale sau în sfera publică. Singura dovadă a existenței sale pe acest pământ, singurul testament al greutăților vieții pe care a dus-o era acel cufăr cu haine din diferitele perioade ale vieții ei.
Alte teme pe care le mai abordează povestirea sunt: feminitatea și devenirea-femeie, sărăcia, supraviețuirea și prostituția ca metodă de supraviețuire, statutul imigranților, moartea și familiile disfuncționale.
O lectură care necesită câteva cunoștințe despre contextul în care se afla Coreea de Sud după Războiul Coreean.
I-am acordat 4 din 5 steluțe pentru că deși mi-a plăcut, nu pot spune că m-a marcat această povestire.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 20, 2025
Oh Jung-hee’s narrative style is defined by its psychological subtlety and emotional restraint, portraying characters—often women—who navigate trauma, alienation, and the quiet violence of everyday life. Her protagonists are not shaped by dramatic arcs but by internal dissonance and muted suffering, rendered through sparse, poetic prose that privileges atmosphere over exposition. Whether it’s the observant child in Chinatown, the emotionally detached Hye-Ja in Wayfarer, or the unnamed figures in The Release, each character is sketched with minimal detail yet profound emotional depth, allowing readers to inhabit their fragmented inner worlds. Oh’s writing resists resolution, embracing ambiguity and silence as expressive tools, and in doing so, she crafts a literary space where the psychological weight of repression and marginalization becomes quietly devastating.
October 28, 2025
I struggle with short fiction in general, unless it's to the left of Kafka. I understand that being likened to Alice Munro is high praise. I picked this up because that was paired by a likening to Woolf. I judiciously ignored the likening to Joyce Carol Oates. Also, four short stories is about right. Can we stop with 300 page long collections of short fiction? It's short for a reason.
This was all very competent, and often moving. I suspect that if you do like Alice Munro, you will like this, and I mean that as high praise. Woolf... I mean, less.
This was all very competent, and often moving. I suspect that if you do like Alice Munro, you will like this, and I mean that as high praise. Woolf... I mean, less.
December 31, 2025
Korealaisen Oh Jung-heen 1970-luvulla kirjoittamat neljä novellia kertovat perhe-elämästä sodanjälkeisessä Koreassa. Teemoina lapsuuden kokemukset, adoptio, suhde samaa sukupuolta olevan kanssa, naisen asema. Oh Jung-hee on palkittu monta kertaa ja erityisesti hänen ihmiskuvauksiaan on kehuttu. Suosittelen!
September 14, 2025
Very straight to the point insights into women's lives and the impact of America after the 50's in Korea. The descriptions of the women's positions are vivid and told in vignettes and are gut-punches in their starkness. Would highly recommend!
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November 19, 2022drowning in all these assigned readings smh
August 14, 2025
3.5. two stories I liked and really enjoyed, two I simply didnt care for.
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October 18, 2025[read in English]
January 4, 2026
2.75
eh...nothing I haven't read before
eh...nothing I haven't read before
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews