Pachinko

Yoseb gets a job offer to work in a factory in Nagasaki where he will earn triple his pay. The rest of the family go with Kim to move to Tamaguchi’s farm. Tamaguchi is happy for their arrival once he sees how hardworking they are. Hansu arrives a few months later with Sunja’s mother, Yangjin. When Sunja, who is working in the fields, sees her mother running toward her, she runs to her and they embrace each other.

After dinner, Hansu goes to visit the Koreans, who live in the barn. He talks with the boys, asking Noa about school. He gives them two comic books, and they ask Kyunghee to read to them. When he talks to Sunja, she thanks him for bringing her mother to the farm. Hansu tells her that after the war, he can provide a home for her and the boys, and they won’t have to worry about money, especially for the boys’ schooling. Sunja rejects Hansu’s offer, saying, “I can’t explain you to my family” (213). She tells him that she will be able to work and support her family.

The war ends, “faster than [Hansu] predicted, but even he could not have imagined the final bombs” (215). Yoseb is not killed in the bombing of Nagasaki, but he is severely burned. Hansu’s men find him, and he is brought to the farm. Hansu gives Kyunghee painkillers but warns her that they are addictive. Kyunghee thanks him, and Hansu leaves.

Yoseb suffers greatly from his burns, and the painkillers run out. Tamaguchi gives him alcohol sometimes to help numb the pain but he refuses Kyunghee’s request for more because he does not want an alcoholic on his land. On Hansu’s next visit, Hansu and Yoseb talk. Yoseb asks if Hansu is Noa’s biological father. When Hansu tells him yes, Yoseb says that while he is grateful for all Hansu has done, he should leave them alone:

Though he shouldn’t, Yoseb hates this man—his expensive clothes, flashy shoes, his unchecked confidence, reeking of a devilish invulnerability. He hated him for not being in pain. He had no right to claim his brother’s child (219).

Yoseb tells Hansu that they are returning to Korea; Hansu tells Yoseb that North Korea is controlled by the Russians and South Korea is controlled by the Americans, so there is no reason to go back, as they will starve. Hansu also tells Yoseb that he will never receive the wages owed to him by the Japanese factory. Finally, Hansu tells Yoseb that his parents and Kyunghee’s parents were shot by the communists for being landowners. This is a lie—Hansu doesn’t know how they are, but he does know that Yoseb and Kyunghee will likely go back to Korea if they think their parents are alive, and Hansu “would never allow his son to go to Pyongyang” (221). Yoseb weeps.

Hansu and Sunja talk. Hansu tells her that Noa should go to a Japanese university, and he’ll pay for it. Sunja says no. Hansu tells her that it’s impossible to return to Korea now. He then asks Noa how he feels about returning to school, and Noa is eager, while Mozasu says that he hates school. When they are away from the grown-ups, Mozasu asks Noa what their father was like. Noa tells Mozasu that their father loved school and loved reading: “He was always nice to umma and me. He used to tease Uncle Yoseb and make him laugh. Appa taught me how to write my letters and remember the multiplication tables. I was the first one in school to know them by heart” (226). 

The family is able to reclaim their property because “Kyunghee had sewn their legal documents in the lining of her good coat” (231). Kim continues to live with them, and while the outside “didn’t look like much more than a shack, inside was an exceptionally clean and well-organized house” (231). One evening, Hansu and Kim get a drink. Hansu tells Kim that he knows Kim likes Kyunghee. Kim doesn’t reply but says that he has been thinking of moving to North Korea. Hansu warns him, “They’ll kill you in the North, and they’ll starve you in the South. They all hate Koreans who’ve been living in Japan” (228). Hansu wants Kim to forget about Korea, distracting him by finding a prostitute for him to sleep with.

The next day, Kyunghee talks to Kim about the arguments happening over Noa’s education, especially since Yoseb wants Noa to go to a Korean school, while Noa wants to go to Waseda University, a Japanese school.

Sunja is worried about making enough money for Noa’s tutoring fees. She gets up in the middle of the night to make candy to sell. Yangjin joins her, worried that Sunja is not getting enough sleep. As they make candy, Yangjin talks to her about the sisters, Dokhee and Bokhee. She is worried about them and feels she “shouldn’t have let them go with that smooth-talking woman from Seoul” (238). She has heard that many women who were supposed to work in factories were instead taken “to do terrible, terrible things with Japanese soldiers” (238). Sunja remembers Hansu’s warnings about Korean recruiters and assumes that the sisters must be dead by now. She thinks back to their life in Yeongdo, “impossibly fresh and sunny in her memory,” and contrasts that with the news reports she has heard about the disease and starvation that people there are suffering from (239).

As Noa studies for his college entrance exams, he also works for a local businessman as his bookkeeper and secretary. He could make more money working in the pachinko business, but Noa prefers a desk job in a Japanese office. However, Mozasu, who is now 13, struggles in school. Rather than trying to be a “good Korean” like Noa, he realizes he is “becoming one of the bad Koreans” as he gets into more and more fights. When a new student, Haruki Totoyama, joins his class, the boy is tormented as he tries to fit in at school. Mozasu can’t bear watching him try to fit in with “those assholes” so he offers to let Haruki sit with him at lunch (245).