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From Wonso Pond: A Korean Novel
A classic revolutionary novel of the 1930s and the first complete work written by a woman before the Korean War to be published in English. The book transforms the love triangle between the three protagonists into a revealing portrait of the living conditions that led to modern Korea, both North and South.
360 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2009
About the author
Kang Kyeong-ae
10 books10 followers강경애 (Kang Kyeong-ae) was a Korean writer, novelist and poet involved with the Feminist movement. She is also known by her penname Kang Gama.
She was a Korean writer whose stories are remarkable for their rejection of colonialism, patriarchy, and ethnic nationalism during a period when such views were truly radical and dangerous. Born in what is now North Korea, Kang wrote all her fiction in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation and witnessed the violence and daily struggles experienced by ethnic Koreans living in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Kang's riveting stories are full of sensitivity, defiance, and a deep understanding of the oppressed people she wrote about.
She was a Korean writer whose stories are remarkable for their rejection of colonialism, patriarchy, and ethnic nationalism during a period when such views were truly radical and dangerous. Born in what is now North Korea, Kang wrote all her fiction in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation and witnessed the violence and daily struggles experienced by ethnic Koreans living in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Kang's riveting stories are full of sensitivity, defiance, and a deep understanding of the oppressed people she wrote about.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 22, 2018
This novel, written in 1934, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, is an instance of proletarian literature, meaning, practically, literature whose ideological basis is Communism. Kang’s works were actually banned in South Korea until after the advent of true democracy in 1987
The story begins with a view of Yongson village, probably in Hwanghae province, the clear blue pond below it, and the surrounding fields. Three buildings stand out in the village: the township office, the police station, and a large house with modern Western style shingles. The house belongs to Chong Tokho, who owns the land around the village and, as mayor of the township, controls the local officials and the police.
Then, having mentioned the pond, it recounts the legend of how it came to be there. It seems that there was, long, long ago, an official who owned much of the land around the village and was very rich but also very miserly, to the point that even in years with very poor crops he let his surplus rice rot in his storehouse instead of sharing it with the farmers who had harvested it. At some point the crops were bad for several years in a row and the farmers and their families were reduced to a state of starvation. The farmers pleaded repeatedly with the official to give them grain but he refused and locked his gates. Facing death and seeing no other alternative, the farmers raided the storehouse during the night and took away rice and livestock. The official responded by petitioning the local authorities to arrest all the local farmers, which they did, and after tortures and executions banished those who survived from the area. The families who they left behind, now mostly children and old people, gathered before the locked gate of the official’s house and mourned their lost family members until they had submerged the house in a pond of tears. In time the pond, named Wonso Pond, became a shrine where those who were suffering could make offerings and pray for relief.
As the story develops it becomes clear that Tokho is the modern equivalent of the official in the legend. The first two thirds of the book takes place mostly in Yongson village. Tokho is the central figure, and all characters have some connection or other to him. The main ones are five young people (early-mid-twenties after a three year gap early in the book): (1) Okchom, daughter and only child of Tokho and his wife who is going to school in Seoul but comes home for vacations; (2) Ch’otchae, an impoverished tenant farmer on Tokho’s land with no father and a mother who is visited by men; (3) Sonbi, daughter of a man employed by Tokho but who loses both parents and has no other family, and is taken in by Tokho’s family; (4) Kannan, a poor girl who evidently has no father and lives with her mother, having earlier been brought into Tokho’s house as a concubine and subsequently cast out; and (5) Sinch’ol, son of a respectable family studying law in Seoul who met Okchom in Seoul and was introduced to her family when he accompanied her on a visit to her home.
By the end of the first part of the book all of the characters have seen their lives changed, mostly due to Tokho, mostly for the worst, and all except Okchom go to Seoul and then to Inchon, and enter the workforce. Sonbi and Kannan get jobs in a silk spinning factory while Ch’otchae and Sinchol (who meet for the first time) both become day laborers. All face dangerous working conditions and extremely low pay, and all become involved in labor organization come under the scrutiny of supervisors and the police. Their lives become entwined and their fates play out.
The book has been described as a factory girl novel, but this label properly applies only to the second part, which is only a third of the total book. Similarly it has been described as a feminist novel, but again the label applies only to a part of it. The book is a coherent whole, and the labels that apply to all of it are proletarian, and Communist. It is about exploitation, both of women as sex objects and of man and women together as workers. And the main point it makes is that there are problems to be solved – the human problems of the title – and that the people who will solve them are, to paraphrase a key line close to the end of the book, those who have no other choice.
The story begins with a view of Yongson village, probably in Hwanghae province, the clear blue pond below it, and the surrounding fields. Three buildings stand out in the village: the township office, the police station, and a large house with modern Western style shingles. The house belongs to Chong Tokho, who owns the land around the village and, as mayor of the township, controls the local officials and the police.
Then, having mentioned the pond, it recounts the legend of how it came to be there. It seems that there was, long, long ago, an official who owned much of the land around the village and was very rich but also very miserly, to the point that even in years with very poor crops he let his surplus rice rot in his storehouse instead of sharing it with the farmers who had harvested it. At some point the crops were bad for several years in a row and the farmers and their families were reduced to a state of starvation. The farmers pleaded repeatedly with the official to give them grain but he refused and locked his gates. Facing death and seeing no other alternative, the farmers raided the storehouse during the night and took away rice and livestock. The official responded by petitioning the local authorities to arrest all the local farmers, which they did, and after tortures and executions banished those who survived from the area. The families who they left behind, now mostly children and old people, gathered before the locked gate of the official’s house and mourned their lost family members until they had submerged the house in a pond of tears. In time the pond, named Wonso Pond, became a shrine where those who were suffering could make offerings and pray for relief.
As the story develops it becomes clear that Tokho is the modern equivalent of the official in the legend. The first two thirds of the book takes place mostly in Yongson village. Tokho is the central figure, and all characters have some connection or other to him. The main ones are five young people (early-mid-twenties after a three year gap early in the book): (1) Okchom, daughter and only child of Tokho and his wife who is going to school in Seoul but comes home for vacations; (2) Ch’otchae, an impoverished tenant farmer on Tokho’s land with no father and a mother who is visited by men; (3) Sonbi, daughter of a man employed by Tokho but who loses both parents and has no other family, and is taken in by Tokho’s family; (4) Kannan, a poor girl who evidently has no father and lives with her mother, having earlier been brought into Tokho’s house as a concubine and subsequently cast out; and (5) Sinch’ol, son of a respectable family studying law in Seoul who met Okchom in Seoul and was introduced to her family when he accompanied her on a visit to her home.
By the end of the first part of the book all of the characters have seen their lives changed, mostly due to Tokho, mostly for the worst, and all except Okchom go to Seoul and then to Inchon, and enter the workforce. Sonbi and Kannan get jobs in a silk spinning factory while Ch’otchae and Sinchol (who meet for the first time) both become day laborers. All face dangerous working conditions and extremely low pay, and all become involved in labor organization come under the scrutiny of supervisors and the police. Their lives become entwined and their fates play out.
The book has been described as a factory girl novel, but this label properly applies only to the second part, which is only a third of the total book. Similarly it has been described as a feminist novel, but again the label applies only to a part of it. The book is a coherent whole, and the labels that apply to all of it are proletarian, and Communist. It is about exploitation, both of women as sex objects and of man and women together as workers. And the main point it makes is that there are problems to be solved – the human problems of the title – and that the people who will solve them are, to paraphrase a key line close to the end of the book, those who have no other choice.
December 15, 2009
Set during Japanese-occupied Korea and Manchuria, this book was originally serialized in the newspaper with some parts censored out. It is a story of poverty, both rural and city (factory settings with Communist Party agitation).
December 19, 2012
i think a first novel written by a woman translated to english from the colonial times of korea, the japanese occupation colonial times that is. starts out in a rural farming area (korea was still 80% farmers in 1934) and shows the brutality and ruthlessness of the rich and powerful while they blithely rip off the peasants/farmers and capriciously poke, prod, and fuck their daughters. one day the rich dude's daughter visits from her boarding highschool with a city man. so then the yokels see in flesh a person who is educated, western dressed, on vacation, 3 things they had never experienced before. the city boy falls in love with the beautiful orphan slave girl, but it's unrequited. kids go back to seoul, dad rapes orphan, farmers mildly revolt and are tortured and ripped off with even greater zeal, finally orphan girl, her hillbilly rebel lover go to seoul too, and learn about dialecticalism. so they plan the revolution and try to bring it about. rich boy goes to prison, tortured, and gives up and becomes a bougie and is let out of prison, orphan girl dies on the factory floor spinning silk for the colonizers, rebel hillbilly is pissed and continues the revolution.
thank you feminist press of city university of new york. keep it up.
thank you feminist press of city university of new york. keep it up.
April 28, 2021
An interesting story from Japanese-occupied Korea. Although without any explicit denunciation of the Japanese regime (likely due to strong censorship in Korea at the time) the accusatory tones towards the patriarchal, feudal and capitalist regimes speaks not only to the feminist and socialist themes of the novel, but also implies the imperialist structure too must be unjust. The narrative can be quite choppy at times which is likely due to it being pieced together post-war from surviving manuscripts, nonetheless a very intriguing story, from what is to me a not-well-known slice of human experience.
January 15, 2015
Factory Girls and Communism. What more to say? #freelove
October 31, 2017
Interesting as historical document. Too directly didactic for my tastes.
February 12, 2018
Powerful and very didactic writing.
November 29, 2025
This novel first appeared as a serial in the Korean-language newspaper Tonga ilbo from August 1 to December 22, 1934, “with each of its 120 episodes illustrated with a black-and-white picture of the main characters or setting.” Given it appeared during the Japanese colonial period, there are sections that were overtly censored (e.g., no reference to the Communist party). There may also have been self-editing as well.
Given the author was from North Korea and lived much of her life there or in Manchuria, she was not widely read or known in the post Korean-war south. After her early death (age 38, in 1944), her husband, living in the DPRK, managed to get a version published, which was also re-edited.
The four major characters in the book are
• Sonbi, a servant in a rich landowner’s home in the farming community, Yongyon village, who has an acknowledged beauty.
• Ch’otchae, a poor, mischievous boy, about Sonbi’s age. Early in the book, there is a scene that sets up a romantic tension between the younger version of Sonbi and Ch’otchae.
• Kannan, a former friend of Sonbi, who is taken as a concubine for the rich landowner in the story.
• Sinch’ol, a student from Seoul planning on a law degree, befriends the daughter of the rich landlord and becomes smitten with Sonbi’s beauty.
Two other characters drive the plot forward
• Tokho, the landowner and later mayor of the small town.
• Okchom, Tokho’s daughter.
The author’s themes of class and exploitation run throughout the story. Tokho is able to manipulate the tenant farmers that use his land, extract the most for the money or seeds he lends, and drive off others. He also exploits the young women in his household.
Sinch’ol meets Okchom in Seoul and with her travels to her home, where he first spots Sonbi. He is smitten with her looks and fantasizes about being with her. Okchom observes an exchange between Sinch’ol and Sonbi (simply fetching water to Sinch’ol, a guest in the house), and becomes jealous.
As the story progresses, Ch’otchae is refused the right to farm and migrates to Seoul to find work. At this point, Sinch’ol has refused his father’s request to marry Okchom, whom he does not love, and attempts to make his way as a laborer. He realizes he is not fit for physical labor and finally understands the exploitation of other classes. He meets Ch’otchae, whom he educates and brings into a resistance in the class struggle Sinch’on is involved in.
After being raped by Tokho, Sonbi realizes she must leave. She seeks Kannan in Seoul, and with Kannan’s help finds a job at Incheon’s silk factory. Though the thought of independence and wages was appealing, the factory management forced the women to sign three-year contracts, had women work six to seven days a week, live in company supplied dormitories from which the women could not leave, and buy necessities at company run stores. Thus, Sonbi and Kannan traded feudal exploitation for company exploitation.
As the reader accelerates to the end of the book, the author again contrasts the life options of richer and well-connected Sinch’on with those of poor Sonbi, Kannan, and Ch’otchae.
I read this book to experience life in Korea in the 1930s. As noted above, it captures the class differences, the exploitation of the poor, and the rapid social transformation of Korea from agriculture to industry. For that, the book is invaluable and worth reading.
The storyline viewed from the vantage of the year 2025 is less compelling, with characters seeming to sleepwalk through their lives.
Given the author was from North Korea and lived much of her life there or in Manchuria, she was not widely read or known in the post Korean-war south. After her early death (age 38, in 1944), her husband, living in the DPRK, managed to get a version published, which was also re-edited.
The four major characters in the book are
• Sonbi, a servant in a rich landowner’s home in the farming community, Yongyon village, who has an acknowledged beauty.
• Ch’otchae, a poor, mischievous boy, about Sonbi’s age. Early in the book, there is a scene that sets up a romantic tension between the younger version of Sonbi and Ch’otchae.
• Kannan, a former friend of Sonbi, who is taken as a concubine for the rich landowner in the story.
• Sinch’ol, a student from Seoul planning on a law degree, befriends the daughter of the rich landlord and becomes smitten with Sonbi’s beauty.
Two other characters drive the plot forward
• Tokho, the landowner and later mayor of the small town.
• Okchom, Tokho’s daughter.
The author’s themes of class and exploitation run throughout the story. Tokho is able to manipulate the tenant farmers that use his land, extract the most for the money or seeds he lends, and drive off others. He also exploits the young women in his household.
Sinch’ol meets Okchom in Seoul and with her travels to her home, where he first spots Sonbi. He is smitten with her looks and fantasizes about being with her. Okchom observes an exchange between Sinch’ol and Sonbi (simply fetching water to Sinch’ol, a guest in the house), and becomes jealous.
As the story progresses, Ch’otchae is refused the right to farm and migrates to Seoul to find work. At this point, Sinch’ol has refused his father’s request to marry Okchom, whom he does not love, and attempts to make his way as a laborer. He realizes he is not fit for physical labor and finally understands the exploitation of other classes. He meets Ch’otchae, whom he educates and brings into a resistance in the class struggle Sinch’on is involved in.
After being raped by Tokho, Sonbi realizes she must leave. She seeks Kannan in Seoul, and with Kannan’s help finds a job at Incheon’s silk factory. Though the thought of independence and wages was appealing, the factory management forced the women to sign three-year contracts, had women work six to seven days a week, live in company supplied dormitories from which the women could not leave, and buy necessities at company run stores. Thus, Sonbi and Kannan traded feudal exploitation for company exploitation.
As the reader accelerates to the end of the book, the author again contrasts the life options of richer and well-connected Sinch’on with those of poor Sonbi, Kannan, and Ch’otchae.
I read this book to experience life in Korea in the 1930s. As noted above, it captures the class differences, the exploitation of the poor, and the rapid social transformation of Korea from agriculture to industry. For that, the book is invaluable and worth reading.
The storyline viewed from the vantage of the year 2025 is less compelling, with characters seeming to sleepwalk through their lives.
October 31, 2026
Apparently this is a classic book from the 1930s. I did not find it to be particularly dated and very enjoyable to read. I found the endong to be a little disappointing but I think this was mainly becaise I read this on a kindle and you never know when the book ends until it ends. This may sound silly but with a print book you know when the last page is coming but on a kindle you do not and I was expecting something more to happen as it said I had 2 % of the book remaining but I turned the page and it was the last line of the book. The story was about Young people growing up in occupied Korea in the early decades of the twentieth-century. The characters were quite identifiable with and I found myself becoming happily engaged. The main male characetr loves trhe main female character from afar and the story is about the terrible conditions they live under working as almost slaves in a factory and in very harsh conditions. I was reminded of Natsume Soseki, who is of a similar era but Japanese and who I really like. I do not know what else Kang Kyong-ae has written, but I will look for this.
July 21, 2025
honestly i’m quite disappointed this book didn’t quite work for me. the beginning few pages at the start exploring the myth around wonso pond is so compelling and well written - and yet the rest of the book just didn’t hit the mark. i found the writing style quite underwhelming and the pace of the book slow. i was only reading this book for a week, but it felt like it dragged on for a lot longer.
i think this book gives an interesting insight into the challenges and injustices in korean society at the time - the abuse and precarity faced by women, particularly domestic workers, the back breaking nature of manual labour, poverty and hunger in the korean countryside, and the brutal conditions faced by factory workers. even though it completely makes sense why the characters all choose to organise politically given how brutal the social context was, we don’t get much insight into their thought processes, and how their consciousness of their own injustice was being shaped. it just feels thrown into the end of the book quite sporadically.
i felt quite distant from the characters & i think a focus on a smaller set of characters would have been better. all the time spent on okchǒm’s and sinch’ǒl’s agonising will-they-won’t-they could have been spent building a stronger emotional foundation for this book.
i think this book gives an interesting insight into the challenges and injustices in korean society at the time - the abuse and precarity faced by women, particularly domestic workers, the back breaking nature of manual labour, poverty and hunger in the korean countryside, and the brutal conditions faced by factory workers. even though it completely makes sense why the characters all choose to organise politically given how brutal the social context was, we don’t get much insight into their thought processes, and how their consciousness of their own injustice was being shaped. it just feels thrown into the end of the book quite sporadically.
i felt quite distant from the characters & i think a focus on a smaller set of characters would have been better. all the time spent on okchǒm’s and sinch’ǒl’s agonising will-they-won’t-they could have been spent building a stronger emotional foundation for this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2025
As a historical document, that gives insight into the people of it's time, I think it's a worthwhile read. I enjoyed reading about developing a class consciousness. I think the characters seem pretty consistent to the way people act in real life.
I've read complaints that it's not, "of literary value" and I really couldn't disagree more. This is not written in a complicated style, it's written to be accessible and relatable, it's written to move hearts and change minds. I think it's definitely compelling in that regard. I think she wrote to her purpose and succeeded.
I've read complaints that it's not, "of literary value" and I really couldn't disagree more. This is not written in a complicated style, it's written to be accessible and relatable, it's written to move hearts and change minds. I think it's definitely compelling in that regard. I think she wrote to her purpose and succeeded.
September 2, 2025
got rushed at the end but still really moving
February 14, 2023
Engaged literature!! Genuinely enjoyed this read, and grateful to have discussed it in class, which I believed enhanced my understanding of the novel.The writing is evocative, and successfully critiques the violence of colonialism and capitalism through the development of diverse, nuanced characters. I have many many thoughts on the symbolism, scenes, and characters!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews