Sunja, the main character of the novel, lost her loving father at a young age. This shapes her story, as she is left with many duties to help her mother keep their boarding house, in Japanese ruled Korea, afloat. The loss of her father is one of the first major moments to hurt Sunja, and the beginning of the novel allows the reader to become immersed in a story which will very much be about loss of life, loss of family, and learning to grieve silently. Sunja works diligently for her mother, going to the market to pick up the food they will need to feed their boarders. It is at this market that she meets and older, rich, Korean man, who takes an immediate interest in this hardworking Korean teenager. He saves her from some Japanese boys and Sunja is awed by him, she feels indebted to him, but she also wants to know more about the world that he is able to explore freely. She misplaces her trust in him, and this leads to him taking advantage of her naivete and forcing himself on her sexually. The result is pregnancy and shame, especially when she finds out this man is already married and cannot offer her his hand (and she refuses to become his mistress). From there Sunja marries a sickly priest who is boarding with them and moves to Japan, where they are to live with his brother and sister-in-law. This shapes Sunja's whole future, this decision to reject the father of her child, trust a man she hardly knows, and move to a country that actively hates her people. However, it is in Japan that Sunja is able to connect deeply with her sister-in-law Kyunghee and where she truly beings to love her husband, Isak. She also gives birth to a healthy son Noa, and then later to his brother, Mozasu, who is Isak's son by blood. So, while Sunja leaves a life with her mother that was filled with work, but also love, she moves to a life of struggle, pain, but also love and respect. She adores her sons unconditionally, even as she is a silent mother, who hides her emotions. Sunja is a strong woman, hard working, independent, and aspires to make her sons lives better than her own. Unfortunately, even as Sunja tries to make a better life, her sons are learning what it means to be Korean in Japan. Noa works very hard to strip himself of his Korean heritage, to become a Japanese boy. While Mozasu leans in to his heritage and leaves Japanese school to become a runner at a Pachinko parlor. Noa wants to be like his father Isak, respectable, learned, have a pious life. While Mozasu wants a life of money and freedom. This book heavily focuses on the struggles of Korean immigrants in Japan. Sunja faces the harsh reality that her life in Korea was better than her life in Japan when she first moves there, in Korea she and her mother owned a boarding house and had food at hand, even in hard times they made it work, in Japan they live in a small home with very little space and worry about food constantly. The reader is constantly bombarded by the racism and hate that this Korean family must endure. Even being born in Japan does not make you a citizen if you are Korean. However, as the years pass there are more Japanese characters that begin to shift their viewpoints on Koreans. I did find the story was very jumpy at times, and would often introduce elements to the story that were dropped or glossed over or were sparsely explained. It seemed the author wanted to fit quite a bit into the novel about the Korean experience in Japan, but sometimes it felt like too much was added without explanation or without it adding any details to the story. I think leaving some items out and focusing more fully on other items would have added a bit more depth to an already deeply emotional story. Sunja was a strong character, a woman who would not give up, no matter what life threw at her. She faced adversity and continued to pursue a better life. She toiled, she failed, but she never let her life pull her down. She was continuously there for those around her, silently helping. She was only selfish when it came to her sons and caring for them. In her quiet way she showed her love, her compassion, her pride. Sunja has many hard moments in her life, but she also reveled in the small joys, in those moments when she could embrace the life she lived. Overall, this was an intense, emotional journey. At the heart of the novel you experience the life a hardworking Korean family who refuse to be placed in a box by others. CW: rape, racism, bullying, abuse, miscarriage, death of a child, death of a parent, stillbirth, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, war, poverty, homophobia, suicide, misogyny, ethnic slurs, gambling, prostitution
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