The RAS Korean Literature Club discussion

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The group will discuss the 2017 novel Pachinko for the July 2025 session. (That's Thursday, July 10, 6:30pm--9:00pm, discussion starts at 7:30pm; for those planning ahead.)

Pachinko was a suggestion by a thoughtful attendee at the previous gathering. Later discussion among regulars showed consensus for it.

The novel is historical fiction. It is the story of a multi-generational group of Koreans in Japan. It takes place between the 1910s and the 1980s.

Pachinko became quite a sensation starting in the spring of 2017; and the momentum carried forward. Look at the huge number of ratings it's received in GoodReads: a 4.34 average rating from 569,000 ratings! That'll mean many millions of readers. Truly it is one of the first big-commercial-success "Korean novels" in the West (or the USA specifically, where it took off).

One reason why the Korean Literature Club never got around to reading Pachinko back in the the late 2010s, when it was such a sensation: it was not written in Korean. It was written in English. (The idea long prevailed to read "translated literature from Korean." Though this has shifted now to "Korean literature.") The subject-matter of Pachinko is very much Korean-oriented (Koreans in Japan); and the author is of Korean origin (of the "1.5 generation" type).

(The author is Min Jin Lee, born 1968 in Seoul, emigrated to New York in 1976 with her family. She arrived in the USA at such an age as to be, I expect, a functional "code-switcher" with relatively minimal effort. That may explain how her book was such a hit in the U.S., the timing also fortuitous for her during the rise of the K-Culture wave of the late 2010s.)

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Many will already have read Pachinko. Most will have at least heard of it. And so, I ask...

QUESTION. What do you know (have heard, remember, anything) about Pachinko? Do you think, or expect, that something like Pachinko is "more useful for understanding Korea(ns)" (if that be a goal) than books by our recent authors Han Kang (who also deals in histories, of a sort), or Bora Chung (who has other goals), or the healing-fiction authors? If you haven't read it yet, it may be hard to judge. But I ask anyway.

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What of the Pachinko "Apple TV" series? I don't know anything about it.

(Season 1 released: March 2022; Season 2 released: August 2024.)

There was some talk, at our June 12 gathering, by Korean members, that there are two Pachinko novels, a "Pachinko 1" and a "Pachinko 2." This puzzled me as it was the first I'd heard of it.

Was this novel, originally published as one long novel in English in February 2017, divided into two novels sold separately in Korea? Is this related to the Apple-TV series being made into two "seasons"?

I'd like to watch the series which is now on TVing which picked up some of AppleTVs content. But unfortunately they don't provide English subtitles on TVing.

I have finished listening to the audiobook. It took me just 3 days since the content was so easy to understand. I like the first part but the story ended too abruptly for some characters to me. And the ending wasn't as interesting to me as the beginning.

It didn't seem to help me understand Korea as much as some of Han Kang's work. And the sentences weren't as poetic. On the other hand it was much less depressing than We Do Not Part. I was happier to see some strong characters prevail in spite of their hardships.

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It looks like:

-- "Pachinko" Season 1, on AppleTV, is 438 minutes' total run-time (7hours, 16mins).

-- "Pachinko" Season 2, on AppleTV, is 417 minutes' total run-time (6 hours, 57mins).

Total to watch the whole thing: 14 hours of your life, and that's with no breaks, interruptions, or "rewinds."

It may be possible to read the book in less time, even at its hefty 496 pages.

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Craig: What is "TVing"?

I don't see a practical way to watch this Pachinko tv miniseries with the original English subtitles which were made specifically for it, without subscribing to AppleTV for x dollars a month.

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The Pachinko tv-series (2022-2024) is NOT something made by and for Koreans for which Eng-subtitles were tacked on at some later time. The subtitles and American-audience-orientation (whatever there may be of that) are "original."

The series made entirely by a U.S. production-team, some of whom were Korean-American, most not. It was not a Korean production in the sense that no ROK South-Korean money or talent was behind it. It is American production, although dealing with Korean themes.

The author brings a variety of her own biases but is also more the product of the USA in some ways than of her native South Korea. A complicated thing to untangle.

I would guess the English subtitles were part of the original production since the dialog is mostly in Korean and Japanese. TVing is a popular Korean streaming service like Netflix. They have many Korean dramas. And have just recently added some AppleTV stuff to their site.

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Based on conversation elsewhere with you, Craig, let me tack this on:

From what we understand, those who want to legally see the Pachinko series can:

- (Option 1.) pay for one month of the app called "TVing," potentially as little as 5000 KRW/month (not much above $3.50 USD these days; not much!) --- BUT that gets you only a version of the series without English-subtitles. (Which is unfair to the original text! It is originally in English!).

OR

- (Option 2.) pay for one month of the app called "AppleTV+," which costs $10 USD/month (14,000 KRW these days).

These are not high prices given that the series is 14 hours of content. (The problem is, if you're like me, you object morally to joining these services.)

OR

- (Option 3??): Is anyone selling hard-copies of this thing? Remember how there were once things called "DVDs"? --- Hey, wait, come to think of it, I do know a hard-copy of Pachinko, and it's available in most bookstores...
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(Comment edited after criticisms; see UPDATED note at bottom)

I recently heard someone -- a white-American male, age around 50s -- remark that he was glad to have read Pachinko because it gave him an understanding of, quote, "the colonial period in Korea."

Hearing this phrasing -- "the colonial period in Korea" -- from such a person, in casual commentary, shook me. It almost made me wary of the book and its objectives. Granted that the English term "colonial period" is nothing far out of the ordinary for English-language commentary on the 1905-1945 period in Korea. It is a Don Quixote fight against the windmills situation of mine, but let me write a few words.

This talk of a "colony," although frequently heard in English in Korea to refer to the 1905-1945 period, is a aloded term and I feel is not accurate. Korea/Chosun/Chosen was not a colony legally or technically. It legally was a protectorate, 1905-10; and, after annexation in 1910, was a province of the Empire of Japan, nominally equal to the home islands (although not practically equal). What happened was rooted in differences that soaked through the cultures between the 1860s and 1900s.

Looking at the copy of Pachinko I secured, I see that the words "colony" and "colonial" are used liberally.

Imperial Japan did have colonies. Legally, Korea was not one of them. It was "annexed" and made a nominally equal part of the Empire.

The basis of the use of this term rests in analogy or metaphor. It comes from something like Marxist analysis, to the effect that rich areas supposedly exploit less-rich ones. Japan, relatively rich; Korea, relatively poor; Japan achieved economic penetration and eventually seized political control; but that doesn't make Korea a colony, legally. It not a value-neutral term.

This use of "colony" that we often hear in English in the Korea context to refer to pre-1945 period, would be like a text in the U.S. South saying that between 1865 and 19xx, the U.S. Southern states were a "Yankee colony." If we were to encounter such wording in U.S. usage, we'd be wary. Or, at least, we'd get an important signal about what an speaker or author's agenda is. With Korea, however, lacking nuanced awareness, well-meaning people will generally give the whole thing a pass. I assume that most Westerners encountering this term may indeed simply believe that Korea legally was a colony. Maybe one from which resources were purely extracted, the people cruelly repressed, and so forth, that that that's "the end of the story." This is nationalist mythology of the Korean-Left; interesting as a perspective, but not value-neutral.

For me, this "colony" talk is an emotionally-loaded, agenda-setting term.

I have discussed this before with Westerners who have sometimes pushed back. I'll hear: Well, your points may be right but it's just a word. There were mistreatments, people are emotional, give them a pass. I say I'm not necessarily against this, but I have countered by saying: Hey, words have meanings! We ought not willfully misuse words. I have only seldom encountered anyone who agrees with me on this matter, on principle. The colony vs province-of-empire distinction.

The man from whose mouth those words came -- "the colonial period" -- said he was glad to have read Pachinko because it let him understand the history of the period. I think he said specifically it gave him the "feel" of the period. But the book is fiction, and written many decades after the period(s) in question. The earliest events in Pachinko were a century earlier than the time-of-writing! The author says she got a lot of primary-material to build up her fictional characters from interviews with ethnic-Koreans in Japan in the late 2000s.

It would've been more correct had the man, rather than, "Pachinko gave a me a good feel for the 'Japanese colonial period'," that it had given him a better understanding of a set of current South Korean self-representations of the early-mid 20th century. Especially vis-a-vis Koreans "and" Japan; and Koreans "in" Japan. And maybe broadly of other parts of the Korean Diaspora, as some of the author's comments suggest. (The author herself is a Korean-American who is not some chiseller of stone-tablets on Mount Sinai as given by God, but a woman who, like everybody, has some sort of agenda, be it conscious or not.)

UPDATE, June 24: I apologize for writing this hastily and without sufficient nuance or tact. Those who were offended by my comments were not wrong. Much of it may have been smoothed-over had I edited it more carefully.

I have edited this comment but only modestly and the points of the original are preserved. A more-complete explanation would take more time. I have given such an explanation to one of the members of this group through a private-message. Maybe that could be adapted further for public posting...
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In regards to the middle age American male's comments, it seems like he gave a standard bland answer using the word colony the way I hear every single person except one use it. If he got the idea that Korea were a colony specifically from the book Pachinko and if that were a heterodox idea not widely shared by other people then his statement might indicate something about the book. But it sounds like he was just using language as others use it. Whatever one want to call that time period, he thinks he got a better understanding of it.

I don't think imprecise usage of a term is the same as misusage, nor is non-technical use of a technical term necessarily a bad thing to do. One can say the sun rises at 5:55 AM without being a denier of the heliocentric solar system. The literal meaning of a particular word or phrase does not necessarily convey the beliefs of the speaker.

Also, when I read I'm perfectly happy to encounter authors that have agendas as long as their ideas are thought-stimulating and the defense of the ideas is rational. I don't see why I would waste my time reading books that contain thoughts I already know and arguments I already agree with. A really strange and radical agenda I had never encountered might be great fun to read.

And as far as fiction goes, it just has to be entertaining. If people want to read academic papers on the Japanese occupation of Korea and debate the historical details, they can do that but when I read a novel I want to have fun.

Finally, I don't find the argument the Korea was never legally a colony particularly relevant. There are entities known as common law marriages whereas people are considered married even though they never legally signed the paper due to the functional structure of their relationship. I don't see why a colony couldn't be interpreted in the same manner. It is a relationship of exploitation and subordination, not merely a piece of paper.

Anyway, I could care less about the political views of the author of this book and I just hope it's a relatively quick and fun read given how long it is.

Hannah, I agree with you. I don't think this book has any intent or effect of being political.
Terms are important but so is the general consensus. Wasn't Korea in effect a colony since its people ethnically were singled out and treated differently, exploited and resources taken from? I don't get the Southern states comparison as these people were on nation before the Civil War.
Anyway, I don't see Pachinko as having any political slant.

Craig, that's good to know! Not having any political slant sounds like a good thing. It is interesting to consider what the word colony really means, as I've never quite thought about it before. I know the Korean word I hear most commonly is 강점기 which means occupation rather than 식민지 colony.

Another question I'm now entertaining is how Pachinko falls within the field of Literature.

Chatgpt mentions that Pachinko might be studied in post "colonial" studies.

How They Might Rank in University Contexts

Department Most Likely to Teach

Korean Literature (in Korea) Human Acts
Comparative Literature Both, but Human Acts more likely
Asian-American Studies Pachinko
Postcolonial Studies Both, depending on focus
World Literature in Translation Human Acts
Historical Fiction Pachinko

In Korea: Human Acts ranks more highly within Korean literature proper due to its language, subject matter, and literary experimentation.

In the U.S./Global West: Pachinko has made broader popular impact, especially in terms of Korean diaspora representation and readability.

Both are crucial, but their value lies in different spheres:

Human Acts = deep national introspection

Pachinko = diasporic narrative bridge