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Pachinko
Min Jin Lee
Contributed by Zonia Jines
Content
Overview
Context
Characters
Themes
Symbols
Discussion Questions
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
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Chapter 34
Summary

It’s 1961, and Mozasu and Yumi have been dating for more than a year. They attend an English class together three nights a week. One day Mozasu is waiting outside Totoyama’s shop for Yumi when Haruki shows up. He’s been studying at the police academy, and the two haven’t seen each other in years, partly because Haruki has long had romantic feelings for Mozasu and thus tries to stay away from him.

Yumi’s and Mozasu’s English class meets in a church and is taught by John Maryman, a jovial pastor of Korean birth who was raised by American adoptive parents. Yumi looks up to him, thinking he represents a better world for Koreans. Yumi was raised by parents who were an alcoholic prostitute and a pimp, and she spent many years fending for herself and her younger sister alone. She longs to make another life in America someday.

John Maryman had enjoyed a privileged childhood with loving parents in Princeton, New Jersey, but he came to Japan because he felt sorry for the impoverished Koreans who are living there without a homeland. He enjoys teaching English to Koreans so that they can have another language that isn’t Japanese.

During class that day, John Maryman teases Mozasu in English when he notices him staring at Yumi. Mozasu replies that he can’t stop because he loves Yumi. Pastor John asks if they will get married. The class dissolves into laughter as Mozasu confidently declares that he will get Yumi to marry him. Yumi is mortified, but she can’t be angry with him.

Analysis

Haruki feels the need to hide the nature of his feelings for his old friend, knowing Mozasu won’t reciprocate them and that there isn’t a place for such feelings in his society. Meanwhile, Mozasu’s relationship with Yumi is thriving.

Yumi’s experience as a Korean growing up in Japan was even more filled with deprivation and struggle than Mozasu’s. She looks to the example of John Maryman, a Korean-American, for hope that she can escape her environment and have a happier life somewhere else.

As an outsider, Maryman sees the tenuous position Koreans occupy in Japan and the toll it takes on their sense of identity—they don’t belong either to Korea or to Japan. He hopes that speaking English can give his Korean pupils a way to distinguish themselves and achieve something on their own terms.

Mozasu’s and Yumi’s relationship develops very differently than previous romantic relationships in the novel. Where Yangjin’s and Sunja’s marriages took place in contexts of dire need, Mozasu and Yumi have the freedom to date and fall in love gradually. It’s also noteworthy that this takes place while they’re studying English together—something Sunja never had the leisure to do. It also shows that their ambitions, unlike the previous generation’s, are not oriented back toward Korea.

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