Tribhuvan University

Identity crisis of Korean Immigrants in Lee’s Pachinko

A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social

Sciences, Ratna Rajyalaxmi Campus, Tribhuvan University in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English.

By

Jiwan Choudhary

Symbol No. 400835/ 78

T.U Regd. No. 6-2-278-179-2009

May, 2023

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 Tribhuvan University

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Letter of Approval

This thesis entitled “Identity Crisis of Korean Immigrants in Lee’s Pachinko”

Submitted to the Department of English, Ratna Rajyalaxmi Campus, Tribuvan

University by Jiwan Choudhary has been approved by the undersigned members of

the Research Committee.

…………………....

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Raj Kumar Gurung

Supervisor

…………………...

External Examiner

…………………...

Assoc. Prof. Motikala Subba Dewan

Head, Department of English

Date-

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 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank to my respected supervisor, Dr. Raj Kumar Gurung

Associate Professor of the Department of English, Ratna Rajyalaxmi Campus, who

helped me shaping my scattered ideas with his intellectual guidance. I am very

grateful to him. It would have been more difficult for me to complete this task in due

time without his earnest assistance, kind cooperation, and continuous supervision.

I am also sincerely thankful to the honorable Head of the Department Moti

Kala Dewan Subba for granting me a chance to carry out this research work, and for

her assistance, motivation, and cooperation.

My sincere thanks goes out to all my respected teachers at Ratna Rajya Laxmi

campus, who have directly or indirectly attributed their praiseworthy effort to help me

accomplish my study.

I am grateful to my family members for their constant motivation,

cooperation, and support.

Jiwan Choudhary

May, 2023

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 Abstract

This thesis entitled “Identity Crisis of Korean Immigrants in Lee’s Pachinko”

aims to analyze identity crisis of Korean immigrants in the novel Pachinko. Identity

crisis is a theme which has been discussed by various writers across different

timelines in English literature. It is a major subject matter in this paper found in Min

Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko (2017). Lee writes the novel in the context of diaspora

community addressing this issue. The significance of the study of this novel is the

pathetic condition of Korean in Japanese land after their forceful migration during

WWII. In Lee’s novel, some of the writers and critics forwarded the ideas about

Korean immigrants’ struggle, hardship and their exclusion in Japan during twentieth

century. This paper departs from them as a main theme and will profoundly discussed

with the issue of identity crisis that the novelist has dominantly crafted it in the novel.

This paper studies what elements exist in the novel that causes Koreans to

encounter with their past memory and go in nostalgia. It analyzes how the identity

crisis and hybridity effect in the life of immigrants in different generations. Japanese

colonizers exclude Korean from their society because they do not regard Korean as

their clan, in terms of sharing social values, public spheres and rights. The thesis

employs diasporic theory as the theoretical tool to analyze how Zainichi/ Korean

immigrants suffer in a foreign land how they try to adjust in colonial soil with their

hybrid/ mixed identity culture. Diasporic Koreans are in search of justice for equal

rights. Koreans dream to take a breath of peace, equality, and harmony with Japanese

but colonial prejudice accepts them as equal human beings.

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 Table of Contents

Page No.

Letter of Approval ii

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

Introduction: Korean immigrants’ struggle in foreign land 1

Reading of Previous Critics’ Works 8

Exploring Identity Crisis in Pachinko 14

Japanese suppression upon Korean immigrants 33

Works Cited

v
 Choudhary 1

Introduction: Korean immigrants’ struggle in foreign land

This thesis explores identity crisis of Korean Zainichi as a major issue in Lee’s

Pachinko. Lee, in her novel, details the Korean people’s forceful migration to Japan

and their miserable condition everywhere in there as a diasporic people who struggle

for better life and equality that is to get back their lost identity. The researcher

exposes this issue with reference to the Asian diaspora, the eastern colonial history

and immigrants' sufferings.

This research aims to show the existing elements that cause Koreans to

encounter with their past memory and go in nostalgia. And it analyzes how the

identity crisis and hybridity effect in the life of immigrants in different generations.

Lee’s Pachinko follows a four-generation of a Korean family who has migrated to

Japan with the issues of identity crisis and its physical and psychological effects to the

characters. It depicts the hardships and sufferings of Korean immigrants in Japan.

Pachinko is set in Japan of twentieth century. The plot revolves around

different places/states in Korea and Japan like Yeongdo village, Busan, Ikaino, Osaka,

Tokyo city, and so on. The plot moves forward with the childhood actions of Sunja

and ends up with the struggle of her grandson Solomon who lost his job and visa to

the United States. The novel unfolds a historical incident and the anecdotes of

common people in a characters driven narrative form that Sunja’s family members are

the example of the true events.

The novel begins in the early 20th century and ends in the late 20th century. It

includes eight decades and four generations of Korean families who has immigrated

to Japan during the era of colonial rule and suppression over native in terms of

culture, social norms, and social values. Colonizer’s atrocities are apparent in the

novel that has resulted the great economic depression brought by World War II,
 Choudhary 2

division of mother land, struggle of immigrants from poverty, language, ethnic values,

culture and religion etc. The major character, Sunja goes to suffer from the traumatic

experience as she loses her parents, homeland and faces extreme discriminations in

public spheres, market, streets, administrative institutions and so on in foreign land.

“When Isak had tried to explain heaven, she had imagined her hometown as

paradise—a clear, shimmering beauty. Even the memory of the moon and stars in

Korea seemed different than the cold moon here; no matter how much people

complained about how bad things were back home” (Lee, 264) It is Sunja’

imagination while Isak’s perception about heaven has been explained before Sunja in

their conjugal conversation. Here, Sunja regards her hometown as equals to heaven

that Isak revels. The beauty of her hometown stocks in her mind even though some

sort of bad incidents took place there at back to her hometown. It is the critical

junction for Sunja where she realizes that her identity is in crisis.

Min Jin Lee describes the deviation of Sunja’s family from their ancestral

belongings due to the colonial advent and forceful migrations. Most of the characters

in the novel move from Korea to Japan and few of them move from Japan to the first

world in search of better life. It is something like ignoring others' existence because

Japanese questioned and problematized Koreans' identity in Japan. Lee very seriously

advocates on Japanese prejudices for their aggression and cruel behavior to Koreans,

as a savage and outsider without valuing the humanity and their identity. Lee presents

the suppressing attitude of Japanese, that produces fear to Korean of losing their real

identity and privileges of possession as second-class citizenship. The possession of

job, Korean Japanese familial relationship, and the political benefits and rights has

been granted to those only who are enough smart to hide their Korean identity. They
 Choudhary 3

are compelled to hide it otherwise; their opportunities and infrastructure will be

snatched away by colonizers/ Japanese.

The colonial system is designed completely against immigrants so the Korean

people in Japan cannot reach to their anticipation and they do not any hope for better

life. Lee introduces the strategies of pachinko, video games that people play to earn

money by using a substantial amount of money, time, and energy on it, yet they never

win a good amount of cash. Similarly, the colonial ruling system upon immigrants

never ever for a good purpose of native rather the benefit for the colonizer. This

proposition is compared to the fate of Koreans in Japan. Similar to a Pachinko

machine, where the input has already been entered, and the result is demonstrated in a

fixed order, the Koreans in Japan cannot improve their ‘predestined’ lives regardless

of how hard they try. Japanese regard both video games owner and players are low

profile people because this game is popular to Koreans, and they engage in it.

Japanese underestimates Koreans for their craze in Pachinko at the same time, the

colonizer’s interfere with Korean properties, cultural and social values:

The government and good companies wouldn’t hire Koreans, even educated

ones. All these men had to work, and there were many of them who live in

their neighborhood who were far kinder and more respectful than the men who

didn’t work at all. She couldn’t say this to her son, however, because Noa was

someone who studied, labored and tried to lift himself out of their street, and

he thought all the men who hadn’t done so weren’t very bright, either. (346)

Koreans are oppressed in the public spheres, working places, schools everywhere

from the government level. Japanese government offices, private companies and high

profile jobs were not made for Koreans though they were capable of being hired in

those offices and companies. Noa, one of the educated, innocent and nice character of
 Choudhary 4

the novel is compelled to work in pachinko parlor at the end of the day. In spite of the

capability of the Koreans their predestined work is only low profile job like they must

joined on the pachinko parlor.

In Lee’s novel, Sunja is only a daughter of Hoonie and Yangjin, a fisherman

family. It is a story of a physically disabled fisherman Hoonie and his wife. In 1910,

when Hoonie was twenty-seven years old, Japan annexed Korea. The fisherman and

his wife, economically poor and enduring peasants, refused to be diverted by the

country’s incompetent aristocrats and corrupt rulers, who had lost their nation to the

invaders. The couple struggled hard for lodging and eating, they lived in a rental

house. Struggle for survival continues with the childhood activities of Sunja and ends

up with the struggle of her grandson Solomon who lost his job in the Tokyo branch of

a British investment bank. Before illustrating the events, Lee initiates the novel with

worthy statements that “History has failed us, but no matter.” (3) This phrase clearly

denotes that the History is usually written for the rulers, invaders, colonizers but this

one sided history never give justice to the colonized/ ruled. Lee starts up with this

statement in the novel Pachinko which mainly tells the history of marginalized

Koreans.

In 1910, when Hoonie was twenty-seven years old, Japan annexed Korea. The

fisherman and his wife, thrifty and hardy peasants, refused to be distracted by

the country’s incompetent aristocrats and corrupt rulers, who had lost their

nation to thieves. When the rent for their house was raised again, the couple

moved out of their bedroom and slept in the anteroom near the kitchen to

increase the number of lodgers. (4)

These lines capture the colonial advent and their prejudices upon the working class

Koreans. It is the voice and survival of poor people while nation is suffering and
 Choudhary 5

under the rule of adversary. Although the annexation was political, it was happened

because of the incompetency of corrupted so called Korean rulers but it mainly affects

the poor Korean peasants, workers who were marginalized in early period. This event

shows the double oppression, working class used to be oppressed by the aristocrats,

bourgeois before the annexation of neighboring powerful invaders Japanese and after

annexation also again the marginalized working class were highly effected by the

troublesome colonizing process. These suffering never come to an end but it expands

more like an epidemics plague.

The author of this novel, clearly communicates the expectation versus reality

of the immigrants:

Sunja-ya, a woman’s life is endless work and suffering. There is suffering and

then more suffering. It’s better to expect it, you know. You’re becoming a

woman now, so you should be told this. For a woman, the man you marry will

determine the quality of your life completely. A good man is a decent life, and

a bad man is a cursed life—but no matter what, always expect suffering, and

just keep working hard. No one will take care of a poor woman—just

ourselves. (30)

This quotation comes from Mrs. Jun, a market Ajumma who talks about the women's

sufferings in patriarchal system and in migrated land with Sunja, newly married

woman. Yet she is bold enough to encourage Sunja that women must tackle the

problems by ourselves. As the immigrants, whether the male or female, they both go

at the same level to bear pain and sufferings. So, the difference is that the women

tolerate it, but men try to defend themselves and other. So, Isak admits himself as a

freedom fighter for the rights of immigrants in Korea that this brother reveals the

frightening situation in Japan to warn his revolutionary actions against ruler that “The
 Choudhary 6

military police will harass you until you give up or die, Yoseb said. And your health,

Isak. You have to be careful not to get sick again. I’ve seen men arrested here. It’s not

like back home. The judges here are Japanese. The police are Japanese. The laws

aren’t clear.” (118). This is Yoseb’s warning to Isak that he must quit his defensive

actions against ruler. It is the words of elder brother to protect his younger brother

from Japanese authority. But he could not avoid Isak’s arrestment. This event even

leads to deteriorate economic condition in his family. So, Sunja involves in a work of

selling Kimchi which can support their basic needs and solve the economic problem

of her family:

Sunja cried out, Kimchi! Delicious Kimchi! Kimchi! Delicious kimchi! Oishi

desu! Oishi kimchi! This sound, the sound of her own voice, felt familiar, not

because it was her own voice but because it reminded her of all the times

she’d gone to the market as a girl—first with her father, later by herself as a

young woman, then as a lover yearning for the gaze of her beloved. (178)

This is part and partials of sufferings of immigrants in terms of their job and earning

money. Sunja empowers herself to take the role of her husband when only the bread

winner of her family is arrested by the Japanese emperor.

Moreover, due to the innate Korean identity, they face extreme discrimination

and othering wherever they go. The extremity of discriminations is beyond human

bearing capacity. Therefore, they have no choice to become good human and turn

themselves as a bad people. Lee says:

Mozasu knew he was becoming one of the bad Koreans. Police officers often

arrested Koreans for stealing or home brewing. Every week, someone on his

street got in trouble with the police. Noa would say that because some Koreans

broke the law, everyone got blamed. On every block in Ikaino, there was a
 Choudhary 7

man who beat his wife, and there were girls who worked in bars who were

said to take money for favors. Noa said that Koreans had to raise themselves

up by working harder and being better. Mozasu just wanted to hit everyone

who said mean things. (269)

The problem occurs here as Mozasu takes defensive actions on the allegation of

Japanese in hasty generalization to all Koreans in any bad actions done. Othering for

Korean immigrants continue in different generations from grandma to grandson,

whether they are innate or hybrid. Solomon’s parent visits clerk to fix the issue of

identity crisis but remains unsolved due to Japanese law and order that; “It is

hopeless. I cannot change his fate. He is Korean. He has to get those papers, and he

has to follow all the steps of the law perfectly. Once, at a ward office, a clerk told me

that I was a guest in his country.” (437) Lee comes to the fourth generation, a modern

period but the problems still exist like the past. Hana, a Japanese lady having modern

personality, expresses her frustration in front of her boyfriend Solomon in regard of

bad ruling over immigrant and said that “Japan will never change. The Zainichi can’t

leave, nee? But it’s not just you. Japan will never take people like my mother back

into society again; it will never take back people like me. And we’re Japanese!” (517)

With her aggression over the nation, Japan, Hana suggests her boyfriend to hold the

ownership of his father’s pachinko business and earn money instead going back to the

United States. Solomon accepts her suggestion and take possession of his father’s

business.

This research paper is rooted in the qualitative research method, based on

library readings, and online readings. It will basically deal with the Identity Crisis of

the major characters of the novel who migrated to Japan forcefully or with their

desire. For that, many diasporic theories and theorist of the diaspora are brought here
 Choudhary 8

to dig out the identity crisis issue inside the novel. To complete the research, various

ideas regarding the sense of dislocation and identity crisis with the help of diasporic

theory will be useful tools. To accomplish the research writing, different theorists and

philosophers have been brought into the discussion. The idea of Salman Rushdie,

Stuart Hall, Homi K Bhabha, Ashcroft, Griffith and Tiffin have been applied in the

research study. For example, Salman Rushdie’s “notion of sense of belongingness and

past memory”, Stuart Halls’ “concept of cultural identity”, Homi K Bhabha’s “notion

of mimicry, ambivalence and hybridity”, and Ashcroft, Griffith, and Tiffin’s “idea of

hybridity”.

Reading of Previous Critics’ Works

This sections reviews the available texts and reviews on my research issue.

There are various critics like Zean Zimmerman, John Boyne and Krys Lee who have

presented their views on Pachinko by pointing out diaspora, problems of immigrants

and colonialism from different ways. This paper attempts to compare and contrast the

reviews from different critics’ ideas and views. With, those insights, this paper

recognizes the main inspiration for research work and research gap.

The American journalist, Tash Aw in “The Guardian”, depicts the sufferings

of Korean immigrants in Japan in reviewing the novel Pachinko. He claims that

Pachinko is a brilliant multigenerational story which allows the rich history about the

life of Koreans in Japan through a story of hardness and touching, emotional conflict.

Tash states:

Min Jin Lee meticulously reconstructs the relatively overlooked history of the

large ethnic- Korean community in Japan, referred to as Zainichi, whose

perpetual status as outsiders obliges them, like Noa’s nephew Solomon in the

novel, to renew their alien registration card every three years: a state of
 Choudhary 9

administrative limbo that mirrors their divided identities and condemns them

to the role of perpetual outsider.

Tash Aw’s observation and findings in this novel Korean people have desire to get

equal respect and treatment as Japanese people in Japan. He focuses on mainly, the

hardship and difficulties of Koreans in Japan. Japanese government discriminates

Korean Zainichi officially and they treat Korean as a second-class citizen. Through

the depiction of pain and suffering of Koreans, Tash reflects the reality of Koreans,

who are under the harsh laws that are against Koreans. Obviously, Pachinko is a

troublesome story of Korean people in Japan. As per novel’s incidents move on,

Korean people have a desire to get equal respect and treatment as Japanese people in

Japan as Tash mentions above.

In the Financial Times, Arifa Akbar, one of the prominent critics presents the

issues of migration, circling around themes of in-between identities, belonging, and

acceptance in Lee’s Pachinko. She writes:

While Mozasu rebels against the expectation to be a pliable, obedient “good

Korean”, Noa lives behind a carefully composed façade of “Japaneseness” to

survive in his hostile environment. Solomon, meanwhile, is distanced from

anti-Korean prejudice by his father’s wealth and an American education, but

despite his privilege, he must still negotiate questions of identity.

Akbar truly depicts Sunja’s families who are all the time living under the identity

crisis since the Koreans migrated in Japan. Sunja’s second-generation and her both

sons live in a hostile environment on foreign soil. Prejudices upon the immigrant’s

family continue up to Sunja’s grandson Solomon. Even though the status of new

generation is changed, there is no difference between these generations in terms of

achievements and identity since the prejudices occur continuously. My compliment

 Choudhary 10

based on Akbar’s observation is the application to Solomon that he must think for his

identity regain which is in threat since he lives in diaspora.

The Irish journalist, writer, and critic John Boyne observes Pachinko in a

newspaper The Irish Times, that Pachinko is a masterpiece of empathy, integrity, and

family loyalty. Also, Boyne reflects on an endearing saga of hardship and inhumanity

suffered by Koreans during World War II. “Koreans live in impoverished

circumstances, are paid less than their Japanese counterparts, are spoken to as if they

were dogs, and, in one powerful scene, are forced to register time and again as

strangers in a land in which many of them have in fact been born.” This is the

brutality of Japanese over Koreans that are expressed in his overview upon this novel.

His expressions of the suffering of Koreans immigrants lead readers to tragic

emotions. Boyne has brought out the issues of inhumanity and painful emotions of

Korean immigrants. The issues, illustrated here by Boyne, are apparent in the text that

most of the characters encounter with suffering, hardships, and disrespect in the

estranged land. Their only aim in life was to survive on alien soil. Despite their

hardships, they have love, kindness, and strong bond with their family members and

fellow Koreans. Their strong bondness tackles sturdily against the hardships.

Bondness is the only weapon that remains with them to tackle the problem there.

Critic Krys Lee about the novel in The New York Times, emphasizes on

outsiders, minorities, and the politically marginalized dealing with different issues

together like Japan’s colonization of Korea, World War II, Christian mission, family,

love, and the changing role of women:

Pachinko is about outsiders, minorities and the politically disenfranchised. But

it is so much more besides. Each time the novel seems to find its locus –

Japan’s colonization of Korea, World War II as experienced in East Asia,

 Choudhary 11

Christianity, family, love, the changing role of women – it becomes something

else. It becomes even more that it was.

Krys Lee observed Pachinko as a story of the political and cultural history of Koreans

that has marginalized them. They are taken as minor subjects in Japan due to

excessive colonial power of imperialist neighbor Japan. Despite it, there is a social

advantage for marginalized women in terms of gender roles. The then women of

contemporary times get privilege to play the remaining roles of men since men are

fighting politically. Krys Lee has reflected on political, and cultural issues and also

changing role of women that clearly communicates these thematic ideas with readers

providing such issues. These issues assist to comprehend the issues of the novel in a

deeper way.

The Japanese journalist Iain Maloney covers up fortune and misfortune of four

generations of Korean families and briefly their experiences in the migrated land.

Maloney has brought many events of the novel that are entangled with the discussions

of political and social realities that, “The emphasis is bleak: the suffering of Koreans

under Japanese occupation, the persecution of foreign nationals and Christians, and

the ongoing discrimination against Zainichi Koreans”. Maloney says Pachinko highly

carries the issue of nationality of migrated people. And, under colonial political

power, migrated marginalized people are influenced of Christianity because local

religions and culture were the main cause of sufferings to immigrants Korean. These

all experiences are examined through the characteristics of Sunja’s poor family

members.

Zean Zimmerman an American author, poet, and historian portrays her view in

NPR. She states that the novel Pachinko is a beautiful saga which is covered with

culture clash, survival, and hope including history.

 Choudhary 12

Lee deftly sketches a half- familiar, half- foreign but oftentimes harsh new

world of a Korean immigrant in imperialist Japan. Sunja gives birth out of

wedlock to Hansu’s son, her shame erased at the last minute by marriage to a

patrician, good- hearted pastor. The entwined destinies of the gangster’s

bastard and a second child, the son of a preacher man, become an engine that

drives the story forward.

The quote reflects that Korean’s identity is blur, not clear or full identity in relation to

culture as identity. So, culture is more important and powerful than other factors in

human life. Local culture of Koreans is replaced by the imperialist Japanese. To avoid

social shameness, pregnant Sunja got married to Isac and a religiously upper-class

person give his name of him to his abiological son Noa. Sunja’s son Noa a biological

son of Hansu who is harsh in his character got the character of his social father Isac

who is a good-hearted pastor. It means human life drives with the force of hope. Hope

is the life driver mechanism. Zimmerman rightly gave positive criticism to the novel

Pachinko in relation to the Korean immigrants, and their struggle in alienated soil

during the imperialism era. Therefore, Korean immigrants and their offspring live

their troublesome life in the migrated land and hopes for a quality life as being of

sharing the same community.

Another Indian critic Mona Verma a researcher and blog writer puts her views

in the Richland Library about identity crisis, discrimination, and prejudices upon

people, especially diasporic Korean people, and its consequences in the mental health

of different generational characters which has presented in the novel.

The novel highlights the importance of identity. Who are you? Where are you

from? All of this should not matter but it does. Noa looks like his biological

father but his temperament is similar to the father who raised him. He is a
 Choudhary 13

good man with virtuous ideals and values. When he learns that his real father

belongs to the infamous thug clan of the Yakuzas, he is deeply devastated.

Noa cannot recover from this discovery and his life takes a tragic turn.

The major concern of critic, Mona Verma in the novel is blurred identity versus real

identity which she has addressed in her observation. The blood connection/relation

with certain clans was stereotyped as the blood imputed in generations that Yakuza

clans and their offsprings were tagged as outsiders, dirty and non- nationality. As a

result, immigrants and especially Yakuza’s children were compelled to hide their real

identities and accept the identity of others for survival and adaptation to societal

acceptance.

Jonathan Soble, a critic whose review of the novel in The New York Times,

demonstrates that, “The eventual liberation of their homeland at the end of World War

II was a mixed blessing: No longer had subjects of the Japanese emperor, Koreans

lost the right to reside in Japan. Many had no homes or jobs to return to, so they

stayed on anyway, prompting decades of wrangling over their legal status”. Jonathan

projects the issues of freedom of residence and compulsion of staying in imperial

land, Japan. These are the issues that Jonathan Soble wishes to expand the situation of

migrated Koreans which unfolds their stories. To some extent, the end of World War

II comes with blessings for the freedom of Koreans. Somehow liberty of colonial

Korea opens the way for resettlement, returning to the homeland. But some of the

Koreans are able to go back to Korea and some of them could not go because of their

generation and partial inheritance.

As mentioned, critics’ insights on Min Jin Lees’s Pachinko are very much

useful for this research paper in terms of searching the issues of this thesis and the

issue which is partially addressed by prior writers but demands more elaborations for
 Choudhary 14

the clarifications of issues specifically. Those spotlighted issues are a family struggle,

poverty, war, discrimination, and class consciousness in a foreign land. Most

critics/scholars argue that this novel picturizes the Korean Zainichi struggle in Japan

during the colonial era plainly.

This research paper tries to show the immigrants’ sense of dislocation and

identity crisis through interdisciplinary diasporic studies. Korean people feel

dislocated and alienated because of Japanese superiority. Japanese people accuse

Korean as a violent, dirty, and wild and belittled them on all platforms. They are

deprived of opportunities in most of the sectors. Their identity is in crisis because of

Japanese people’s barbaric attitude and take as a second class citizen to Koreans.

Some Korean people in the modern time period have hybrid identity and they are

recognized as outsiders, criminals, and uncivilized. Lee gives the account of a Korean

family across four generations who were victim of identity crisis.

Exploring Identity Crisis in Pachinko

This research is mainly based on both primary and secondary resource

materials which are available in the library, Journals, and internet websites. This

paper has taken theoretical insights from various theorists like Stuart Hall’s “Cultural

Identity and Diaspora”, Homi K Bhabha’s The Location of Culture, Salman Rushdie’s

Imaginary Homelands, Edward Said’s “Reflection on Exile”, and Ashcroft, Griffiths,

and Tiffin, write in the Post-Colonial Studies Reader.

Identity crisis is a situation in the individual where one stays in a confusing

stage and searches for his/ her lost identity. It is the situation of an individual or any

group of people isolated and dislocated while a person or people live in a diasporic

community. Diaspora is also the situation of any group of people isolated, whether

forcibly or voluntarily, throughout the world. In Lee’s Pachinko, Sunja willingly

 Choudhary 15

leaves her country Korea to move to Japan. She gets married to the Korean-Japanese

man Isak and leaves Korea. She has a belief and dream that after going to Japan her

life will be blissful. She has misconceptions that she will get equal respect and

Japanese people will easily accept her in their society. But her imagination fails and

she nostalgias her past life. Lee describes:

Sunja wondered how they would manage then. After the war, she had planned

on going back to Yeongdo, but her mother said there is nothing left. The

government had calculated taxes on the boarding house owner, and the owner

had sold the buildings to the Japanese family. The servant girls had taken

factory jobs in Manchuria, and there had been no news of them. When Hansu

had located Yangjin, she had been working as a housekeeper for a Japanese

merchant in Busan, sleeping in the store room. (234)

Because of her past memory and emotional attachment to her country, she wants to go

back to Korea. For Sunja, Japan becomes a strange land because she dreams of high

hope and achievement but she gets disrespected and discriminated in her husband’s

home country. She feels melancholy of homesickness and remembers the moment

which she passes in her homeland during her childhood and she wants to move back

to Korea. She has only images of Busan and past events in her memory. Memory

becomes the medium for her to connect the homeland. Memory works as the time

machine for Sunja to travel to her past home.

In The Location of Culture an Indian English scholar and postcolonial theorist

Homi K Bhabha explains that diasporic people move to a foreign land which is a new

landscape for them. They can never leave their past life totally nor can they accept

new location as a new fate. Diasporic people always find their position in-between

two cultures. Due to their existence in two cultures, two different societies, two
 Choudhary 16

different languages, and different faces, their identity becomes complex. Bhabha also

explains that cultural hybridity commonly refers to the creation of new transcultural

forms within the contact zone produced by colonization. Here, hybridization takes in

many forms, linguistic, cultural, political, racial, and so on. The term ‘hybridity’ has

been most recently associated with the work of Bhabha, who analyzes the colonizer

and colonized relations pressures their interdependence and the mutual construction of

their subjective.

Immigrants find their position as hybrid which means the mixing up of

different two cultures in society due to the influences of colonization, and emigration.

Bhabha explains the diasporic condition in this way:

It is in the emergence of the interstices - the overlap and displacement of

domains of difference- that the intersubjective and collective experiences of

nationness, community interest, or cultural value are negotiated. How are

subjects formed in-between', or in excess of, the sum of the 'parts' of

difference (usually intoned as race/ class/ gender, etc.)? (2)

Diaspora comes due to the movement of people from their homeland to the new

location. Hence, it creates a sense of dislocation and alienation because they will not

be able to adopt themselves in a new location and culture. Physically they leave their

nation with their desire or forcefully but they always have an emotional attachment

with their home land. Once they feel dislocation they start to raise questions toward

themselves who are we in relation to race, class, and gender. What is our identity?

According to time and space, they get new identity which is Immigrants’ identity.

Diasporic people are sensitively connected with their home country which was

also the place for their original culture and tradition. When they come in touch with

different cultures in a foreign land, diasporic situation comes on the surface.

 Choudhary 17

Migration is one of the reasons for cultural and geographical rootlessness/ detachment

leading to alienation and distancing. Thus, it brings diasporic experiences such as

hybridity, dislocation, alienation, identity crisis, and so on. People who are in the

diaspora are culturally displaced and forced to be refugees accepting multiple and

incomplete identity. In such situations, while some people or ethnic groups of people

wander then identity is in threat.

Sunja’s sons Noa and Mozasu feels dislocated when they are discriminated

and shamed in the school by their teachers to friends based on their familial

occupations though they are good at their study. All the Korean children are

dominated in school by their Japanese teachers and by their Japanese friends. Because

of being immigrants Korean people hardly get respectful jobs. So, they are compelled

to engage in low-profile jobs like farming, cooking, household work, and job in a

pachinko parlor. Noa, the eldest son of Sunja feels alienated and dislocated in Japan:

Like all the other Korean children at the local school, Noa was taunted and

pushed around, but now that his clean-looking clothes smelled immutably of

onions, chili, garlic, and shrimp paste, the teacher himself made Noa sit in the

back of the classroom next to the group of Korean children whose mothers

raised pigs in their homes. Everyone at school called the children who lived

with pigs buta. Noa, tsumei was Nobou, sat with the buta children and was

called garlic turd. (183)

In the taken lines, Noa and Mozasu are stereotyped by Japanese people. People living

in the diaspora always face discrimination as they have a different culture which was

perceived innately. As these two brothers including other Korean children are under

the segregation of the community in Japanese land only because they have Korean

blood. Their appearance is Korean, they eat Korean foods, they smell like Korean
 Choudhary 18

these are the only reasons to be out casted from the society. Because of such

experiences of discrimination, Noa requests his mother for snacks and meals that do

not contain garlic, hoping this would keep the Japanese children from saying bad

things upon Korean children at school and environment where they have communal

access of beings. Teachers themselves create discrimination between Korean and

Japanese children. The teacher’s negative behavior influences Japanese children to

behave toward Korean children negatively at school. Therefore, Mozasu hates school.

He desires that, “I want to stay at the farm, Mozasu interrupts. That’s not fair. I don’t

want to go back to school. I hate school... I like the chickens. I didn’t get pecked even

once this morning when I got the eggs.” (249). He feels comfortable in the farm

rather than at school. In school, he is always humiliated by Japanese students and his

teacher because of being a Korean child. To avoid such discrimination in social

platforms, Mozasu chooses farm rather than schools. He feels animals are more kind

hearted than fellow human beings because animals do not discriminate upon humans.

As a diasporic character, Sunja is frequently troubled by the memory of her homeland

and parents. Because of a sense of belongingness, Sunja wants to go back to her

homeland Korea. During the period of World War II all the Koreans along with Sunja

faced a troublesome situation, Sunja went on to the deep thought regarding her life

and her children’s future life:

Sunja folded her hands together. The war had been going on for so long.

Everyone was sick of it. Without the restaurant, the family would have starved

even though everyone was working and earning money… They said American

soldiers raped women and girls and that it would be better to kill yourself than

to surrender to such barbarians… Kim kept two hunting knives in his desk

drawer. (221- 22)

 Choudhary 19

Memory plays a most important role for diasporic people. Diasporic people always

bring their home in their memories, make a plan to return to their land, and search for

past identity but they are unable to bring their past practices. It means that a person

can be outside from his/her homeland but not from his/her mind. In the worse

condition during the colonial conflict, the main character Sunja imagines her

homeland and wants to go back to Busan. Earlier, when Sunja was in Busan she feels

that there is no better possibility in Korea. But after moving to Japan she again

realizes that Busan was far better than her current living place. Therefore, her past

memory tortured her to go back to Busan because her life was far better in Busan than

in Osaka.

British Indian novelist and essayist Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands

describes the memory and mention the feeling of belonging nowhere. The Feeling of

insecurity always remains there in Rushdie’s mind which got reflected in his work. He

is spending diasporic life because he was born in Bombay, India, spent a few years in

Pakistan and now he lives in the United Kingdom. Rushdie carries multiple diasporic

feelings as he migrated to three different nations. Thus, there is not fixed identity

which he can claim. On the one hand, in Britain, Rushdie is a citizen by the laws and

exercises the rights of the British nation on the other hand, he remains unsatisfied

mentally and emotionally with what he has been going through in Britain due to the

effect of his earlier culture at his first home. Diasporic people forcibly adjust in new

social environment but they often claim their belonging to the country once they

abandon from their homeland. And they even could not completely socialize with the

new culture, as the memory of the past does not allow them to accept the new

environment. They swing between two cultures, two languages, and two nations, and

as result lost their real identity. So, Rushdie declared that to live in British society is
 Choudhary 20

to face problems in everyday life. His only way of living in real home is his memory,

he contemplates those memories and creates prose. Most of the writings are set in his

past location/setting. Regarding identity, homeland, and memory Salman Rushdie

says:

It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated,

that its loss is part of our common humanity. Which seems to me self-

evidently true; but I suggest that the writer who is out-of-country and even out

of-language may experience this loss in an intensified form. It is made more

concrete for him by the physical fact of discontinuity, of his present being in a

different place from his past, of his being 'elsewhere'. This may enable him to

speak properly and concretely on a subject of universal significance and

appeal. (12)

According to Rushdie, the diaspora is driven by sense of loss and they look back on

their past which is impossible to regain it for them. They become unable to achieve

their past lifestyle. So, memory is only the means that enable them to reach their

homelands. Diasporic people’s identity is changed according to culture, location, and

social norms where they are currently living. In Lee’s Pachinko Koreans' identity is in

fluidity. Their identity is changed according to the Japanese culture. Most Koreans in

Japan have Japanese names. For the adjustment in a new cultural location, most of the

characters change their names and keep their Japanese name and surname, “Due to the

colonial government’s requirements, it was normal for Koreans to have at least two or

three names, but back home she’d had little use for the Japanese tsumei- Junko

Kaneda -.” (139 Identity is a cultural phenomenon that provides different

characteristics to a person. In that sense, identity is determined by nationality, culture,

race, class, language, gender, and so on. Sunja gets her new identity as a Boku-san
 Choudhary 21

according to Japanese culture. As Sunja migrated to the new land, her real identity is

displaced by the new identity where she carries her husband’s identity (Japanese

identity). This shows diasporic people’s identity is always in crisis. Japanese

government promulgated the law for Korean Immigrants that Korean people must

have a Japanese name on their Japanese residency papers. While they get new names

on their residency papers, their identity is changed according to the time, place,

culture, and situation where they have been living. hey lost their original identity.

They accept governmental laws for survival in a colonial land where Koreans have no

other ultimate solution to avoid the compulsion made by the government.

The crisis of identity is seen as a part of the wider process of change. It

fragments the central structure and social process. In “Cultural Identity and

Diaspora”, cultural theorist Stuart Hall argues that cultural identities are never fixed

or complete in any sense. Identities are social and cultural formations and

constructions essentially subject to the differences of time and place. Diaspora’s

identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves a new

through transformation and difference. Cultural identity is not just a matter of the

past, a past which has to be restored, but it is also a matter of the future. Cultural

identities no longer signify an accomplished set of practices which is already there;

they are subject to the ‘play’ of history, power, and culture. Hall considers the role of

globalization to be crucial to bring the crisis of identity. Hall adds more, cultural

identity is not only a matter of ‘being’ but of ‘becoming’, ‘belonging as much to the

future as it does to the past’. From Hall’s perspective, identities undergo continuous

change, surpassing time and space. True to his theory, Hall’s life was defined by not

one identity but several identities. Hall is seen not only as an intellectual who bears

witness to his era of historical change but as one whose interventions contributed
 Choudhary 22

towards social transformation. The cultural identities informing those experiences

remain open to re-articulation, recontextualization, and transformation. Identity is a

matter of becoming and opening fresh possibilities for understanding culture

critically. Refusing determinist notions of culture, Hall’s understanding of how

categories of class, race, and gender conjoin to produce discursive cultural identities

continues to allow us to think of the world differently; a cause of optimism not for a

utopian world, but for a critical intervention in the here and now. The notion of

cultural identities is not innate or fixed but open to modification by interruptive forces

with the potential to deconstruct and reconstruct exactly who we think are:

If we feel we have a unified identity, from birth to death, it is only because we

construct a confronting story or “narrative of the self” about ourselves. The

fully unified, completed and secure and coherent identity is a fantasy. Instead,

as the system if meaning and cultural representation multiply, we are

confronted by a bewildering, fleeting multiplicity of possible identities any

one which, we could identify with at least temporary. (228)

According to Hall identity is a process so it is never completed, as per time and space

identity keeps on changing. Hall’s globalization suggests that global culture is brought

about by a variety of social and cultural development. The role of globalization and

the impact of migration create the situation of multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic,

multilingual, and so on. And it desires the way of hybridity. Diasporic people feel a

crisis of identity when people have been detached temporarily from their homelands

and cultures are cut and assimilated into other cultures.

In “Of Mimicry and Man” Homi K. Bhabha lays out his concept of mimicry.

Mimicry is an important term coined by Bhabha in post-colonial theory because it has

come to describe the ambivalent/ uncertain relationship between native and foreign. It
 Choudhary 23

is most commonly seen when members of a colonized society imitate the language,

dress, politics, or cultural attitude of colonizers. Under colonialism and in the context

of immigration, mimicry is seen as an opportunistic pattern of behavior; one copies

the person in power because he/she hopes to have access to that same power oneself.

Apparently, while copying the master/ colonizer, one has to deliberately suppress

one’s own cultural identity, though in some cases immigrants and colonial subjects

are left so confused by their cultural encounter with a dominant foreign culture that

there may not be a clear earlier identity to suppress. In Min Jin Lee’s novel titled

Pachinko too, mimicry is never very far from mockery where Noa shows the

characteristic of Japanese culture and behavior. Noa mimics/ copies the Japanese and

their lifestyle by adopting cultural habits, and assumptions, in accordance with the

situation and context. But, Noa is unable to mimic the Japanese culture correctly it

was only the mockery of other’s cultures. He tries all to mimic Japanese culture by

presenting self in their attire, keeping Japanese name, eating Japanese food and

speaking Japanese but at the end he isn’t accepted by the Japanese.

“Where are we going?” “Nagano,” Hansu replied. “Is that where he is?”

Yes. He goes by Nobuo Bando. He’s been there continuously for sixteen

years. He’ married to a Japanese woman and has four children. Solomon has

four cousins! Why couldn’t he tell us? He is now Japanese. No one in Nagano

knows he’s Korean. His wife and children don’t know. Everyone in his world

thinks he is pure Japanese. Why? Because he does not want anyone to know

about his past. (419-20)

After a long period of time, Sunja and her ex-lover Hansu are traveling to the city

Nagano where their son Noa is residing with his family. Sunja wants to meet her elder

son. Noa has been living in Nagano, passing as Japanese called name Nobuo Bando.
 Choudhary 24

He is a manager of a pachinko parlor and has settled into small, invisible life. He

hides his real Korean identity and treats himself as Japanese. From his childhood, he

tried to copy Japanese culture to avoid discrimination. Noa mimics the Japanese

values which he considers to be superior to his own culture. The novel shows how

mimicry creates rejection of his own culture and copies Japanese culture but

ultimately fail miserably to become a part of the culture he mimics. As a result, he is

alienated from both cultures and suffers from a crippling sense of dislocation and

identity crisis. He feels his culture, costumes, and tradition to be inferior to that of

Japanese culture, society, and language.

Most of the diasporic characters in the novel are trying to adopt/copy the

Japanese culture and lifestyle. Noa’s uncle Yoseb also dresses like other Japanese

people. Yoseb had been working as the supervisor at a biscuit factory, overseeing

thirty girls and two Japanese but he never distinguished from these people because of

his adopted manner and sense of dress. He always wears neat and clean clothes like

his Japanese boss. Japanese people also have been adopting the western culture so

they feel superior if they wear a western dress like trousers, woolen coats, shirts, and

so on. The main character of the novel Sunja is compelled to wear a Japanese dress.

And, the last generation Solomon also adopt himself as a modern American copying

western culture, costumes, and languages. Diasporic people are compelled to mimic

other culture. According to time, place, and environment they need to compromise

and change themselves by adopting others' lifestyles.

In The Location of Culture, Bhabha says cultural production is always the

most productive where it is most ambivalent. He brings various concepts in the

surface such as hybridity, mimicry, ambivalence, stereotypes, otherness, and so on.

This reflects that how the colonized people find a way to resist the unsecured power
 Choudhary 25

of the colonizer. He adds more, the mimicking of colonizing culture, behavior, and

values by colonized contains both mockery and certain risks as well. Mimicry refers

to adopting and adapting or even copying. So, that mimicry is nearer to the menace. It

is the process by which colonized subject is reproduced as almost the same, but not

quite. It is also the sign of double articulation which emerges as the representation of

a difference that is itself a process of rejection. Mimicry caused displacement to

Koreans in Japan when they changed their identity and tried to adopt their culture and

behavior too. In the last stage, they neither leave nor totally adopt the Japanese culture

but suffer. It is an exaggeration copying of language, culture, manners, and ideas.

Homi K. Bhabha says:

It is from this area between mimicry and mockery, where the reforming,

civilizing mission is threatened by the displacing gaze of its disciplinary

double, that my instances of colonial imitation come. What they all share is

discursive process by which the excess or slippage produced by ambivalence

of mimicry almost the same, but not quite does not merely ‘rupture’ the

discourse, but becomes transformed into an uncertainty which fixes the

colonial subject as ‘partial’ presence. By ‘partial’ I mean both ‘incomplete’

and ‘virtual’. (86)

Bhabha talks about the fallacy of both colonizers and colonized people in terms of

cultural adaptation and practices. It is difficult to locate both of them in relation to

their cultural identity that is set to be applied. So, they are dislocated in this context.

Dislocation refers to the lack of adjustment when one person moves from a known to

an unknown location. It is the outcome of willing or unwilling movement from a

known to an unknown place. The phenomenon of dislocation in modern societies is

the result of transportation from one country to another country by slavery or

 Choudhary 26

imprisonment, by invasion and settlement. It is a society where no stable identity of

an individual is possible. It is caused by the decline of old identities, which stabilizes

the social world for so long. It gives rise to new identities and fragments to the

modern subjects.

A sense of loss and dislocation arises in Sunja’s life in Japan since she has

been living for twenty years. She is not feeling comfortable and adjusted in Japanese

society. Busan seemed a peaceful place like another life compared to Osaka, their

little rocky island, which stayed impossibly fresh and sunny in her memory that:

It was difficult for Sunja to imagine anything but the bright, sturdy house that

her father had taken care of so well by the green, glassy sea, the bountiful

garden that had given them watermelons, lettuces, and squash, and the open-

air market that never ran out of anything delicious. (264)

In these lines, Sunja brings a beautiful picture of her hometown as heaven while her

husband has just talked about heaven. She remembers the whole thing like the garden,

room, market, and so on. She loves and misses her hometown more in the alien land.

Such kind of condition is not only applicable to portrayed characters like Sunja but

also to all diasporic people.

Edward Said an oriental essayist, theorist, and novelist mentions in his essay

“Reflections On Exile” that, exile can also be beneficial for diasporic people, they

have plenty of ways to use their exile period in the right attitude. Nevertheless, exile

can cross the boundaries of cruelty and deliver a huge amount of suffering and

alienation to the people. Said observes “the exiles know that, homes are always

temporary borders and barriers which become a prison, and are often defended

beyond reason and necessity”. (190) Exile crosses the border, and breaks the barriers

of thought and experience. Said is determined in his views that one should not
 Choudhary 27

romanticize exile. It has torn millions of people from the nourishment of traditions,

cultures, families, and geographies. Exiled people have experienced life-in-death

situations and cruelty without mercy produced by the fellow humans. Exiled people

deprive from all the care which a nation can do for its natives. Exile is full of

depression, past memories of the homeland, rigorous feelings, and full of suffering.

Exiles’ are cut off from their roots, their land, and their past. The feeling of belonging

has been lost, contrary they felt orphans on another’s land. Said clearly remarks, exile

is full of depression, atrocities, and suffering of exile people. Despite all of this

negativity, he also emphasizes exile people can learn new things as more than one

language, and culture and can elevate their skills in exile. Said expresses the

experience of loneliness and loss of identity in exile through his writings and the

unavoidable memories:

Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the

unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the

self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And

while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious,

even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts

meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement. (180)

Diasporic/ exile literature contains different sorts of literary genres which have been

experienced during exile time. These works are done to overcome the feeling of

sorrow in an estranged land. For writers like Said, who are exiled, emigrants, or

expatriates, are troubled by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back,

even at the risk of being damaged both past and present identity. Similarly, Korean

immigrants’ identity is fixed or isn't fixed in Japan. They have a double identity where

they cannot accept themselves totally neither Korean nor Japanese. Because of their
 Choudhary 28

dual identity, they are discriminated in both countries in Korea and Japan too. Lee

brings up the issue of victims of their dual identity:

Listen man there is nothing you can do. This country isn’t going to change.

Koreans like me can’t leave. Where we gonna go? But the Koreans back home

aren’t changing, either. In Seoul, people like me get called Japanese bastards,

and in Japan, I’m just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I

make or how nice I am. (416-17)

Mozasu confesses his frustration to another Korean immigrant Haruki. They are

following two cultures, languages, religions, and so on. Their identity is not fixed.

Because of their dual identity, they are humiliated from both countries' people. Even

they have enough money and good behavior they are recognized in Japan as filthy

Korean and in Korea as Japanese bastards. Haruki and Mozasu are sharing each

other's pain while facing a diasporic situation. “When I was a boy, I wanted to die,

Haruki said. Me too. Every fucking day, I thought it would be better if I died, but I

couldn’t do it to my mother. Then after I left school, I didn’t feel that way anymore”

(417). They are discriminated and embarrassed in new land. Before Mozasu left

school, he wanted to die because he was humiliated and discriminated in school by

Japanese students and teachers. They both have a dreadful experience about their

childhood. They have been psychologically haunted by a childhood memory. They

always tried to be good Koreans but they never are good Koreans in the eyes of the

Japanese.

Sunja’s Grandchildren have a hybrid identity. They all contain mixed culture

and tradition and also mixed of different race/ mixed blood relationship. Noa and

Mozasu get married to the Japanese girls. Solomon is the son of Mozasu and Yami.

As a Korean Japanese educated person in the state, Solomon is both a local and a
 Choudhary 29

foreigner. At the same time, Noa lives in Nagano away from his mother and got

married with Japanese girl Risa. They have two sons but they don’t know what their

real identity is because Noa never tells them about himself. Even Noa’s wife Risa

doesn’t know a person with whom she got married is a Korean man.

In the context of the major characters of the novel, they all want to leave their

original Korean identity and embrace new Japanese identity. The gulf between their

real-self and unreal identity makes them hybrid. Their Hybridity is largely reflected in

their activities, they all tried to be Japanese unknowingly or they are compelled to do

so. But unfortunately neither they could never fully abandon their real Korean identity

nor could they ever manage to convince others or themselves that they are Japanese.

The term hybridity was mainly coined and discussed by Homi K. Bhabha who

focused hybridity from a sociocultural perspective. But here Ashcroft, Griffiths, and

Tiffin use the term hybridity in different ways where they focused on colonialism and

imperialism and it results the hybridization in the colonized people. Ashcroft,

Griffiths, and Tiffin write in the Post-Colonial Studies Reader in this way:

The term hybridity has been sometimes misinterpreted as indicating something

that denies the traditions from which it springs, or as an alternative and

absolute category to which all post-colonial forms inevitably subscribe but, …

rather on their continual and mutual development. The interleaving of

practices will produce new forms even as older forms continue to exist. The

degree to which these forms become hybridised varies greatly across practices

and between cultures. (184)

The colonizers forcefully invade the new territory/ new land and force the indigenous

people to assimilate their culture. The movements like migration, exile or supply of

labor lead to the creation of hybrid culture and identity. Migration is the major factor
 Choudhary 30

that leads toward the cultural hybridity. Hybridity also occurs in post-colonial

societies both as a result of conscious moments of cultural suppression, such as when

the colonial power invades to combine political, cultural, and economic control, or

when imperialist/ invaders disposes indigenous peoples and force them to assimilate

into new social patterns.

Identity is also a cultural product; it never moves in a constant and stable way.

Identity in every human being engages in an active exchange of beliefs, attitudes, and

ideologies. The culture of a particular community greatly determines person’s

identity. They extremely desire for their root, race, culture, ethnicity, and nationality.

Korean people stay in Japan as a refugee even they are born in Japan. The government

does not allow them to get the fundamental right of natural citizenship. They have a

temporary card which they need to renew every three years. Korean people are

discriminated and dominated by the Japanese government as well. Because of war,

they suffer from poverty and loss. Due to the internal war, Sunja the main character of

the novel loses her husband Isak. She voluntarily leaves her country for goodwill but

is trapped in loss, poverty, and disrespect.

And in case of next-generation like Noa, he is more infatuated with the culture

of the adopted nation, Japan as he sees Japanese people’s life is luxuries and are

privilege in Japanese land so he wants to spend his life like local people from his

childhood days. Whenever he is misbehaved and teased by Japanese children he never

fights with them because he wants to prove that Korean people can be gentle and

decent. He is very good in study and always gets a good position in academic rank in

his school. “At school, Noa didn’t have any friends, and when the Korean children

played in the streets, he didn’t join them” (183). On the one hand, he thinks that if he

plays with Korean children he will be again discriminated in school so he never

 Choudhary 31

makes Korean friends but on the other hand Japanese children are not ready to be his

friend. So, the only person he looks forward to seeing is his uncle Yoseb. He likes to

stay at home rather than play with Korean children. Noa is discriminated in school

though he is good in study. He wants to have equal respect as Japanese becoming an

educated person. Therefore, he expresses his interest in attending college. After

finally being accepted in Waseda University, Noa gets a sponsor Hansu, to pay for his

college expenses. Soon after, Noa goes to Tokyo for further study. In Tokyo, he is

highly influenced by jazz music and English literature. “In his new life in Tokyo, he

had discovered jazz music, and he liked going to bars by himself and listening to

records that the owners would select from bins” (305). He tries his best to replicate

the rich Japanese people’s lifestyle. From his childhood, he believes that if he knows

more English, he can get a good job and earn enough money. Noa is very passionate

about learning English literature, so he reads about George Orwell, TS Eliot, and

some Victorian fiction. While reading fiction he has discovered some lines which he

relates with his current situation. “Jews men are often seen as exceptionally brilliant

and the women are often beautiful and tragic. Here we have a situation where a man

does not know his own identity as an outsider” (308). Like a Jews people suffering,

Korean immigrants are facing the same identity problem. In Japan, Noa is recognized

as an outsider and other. Noa is creating himself as other/an outsider unknowingly by

adopting Japanese culture and lifestyle. He is passionate to read English literature so

that he can secure his future but having read the English language, he does not know

that he is unconsciously othering himself.

Regarding Jews, we can relate with the ideas of Palestinian-origin essayist

Edward Said, who write for the oppressed Palestinians by the Israelis during the 20th

century. One of his famous essays “Reflections on Exiles” Said clearly advocates on
 Choudhary 32

the side of Palestine against colonizers Jews. Said shares his feelings as he collects the

experiences of exile by himself. Exile is full of atrocities, sufferings, and thorny roads

but at the same time it enlightens you with learnings and it always made you harder/

stronger. Edward Said, in his essay “Reflections On exile”, mentions that,

Expatriates may share in the solitude and estrangement of exile, but they do

not suffer under its rigid proscriptions. Émigrés enjoy an ambiguous status.

Choice in the matter is certainly a possibility. White settlers in Africa, parts of

Asia and Australia may once have been exiles, but as pioneers and nation-

builders, they lost the label exile. (187)

Essayist Said as a diasporic writer reflects his own life through his different novels

and stories as he migrated and traveled through different nations. In his essay

“Reflections On Exile” he puts many European, Asian, and African writers as an

example that they live as immigrants and became great writers of their era. And his

issue of writing is his homeland, Palestine/middle east. He tells in his work of essay

that exile is painful as well as it can enlighten with knowledge for the immigrant

people. Similarly, most of the characters in the novel Pachinko also experience the

same things during their exile period in alien soil Japan.

Japanese suppression upon Korean immigrants

The research work on Min Jin Lees’s Pachinko, presents how diasporic

condition on people creates identity crisis when they move from their homeland to

foreign land. The major character of the novel Sunja represents people who

voluntarily leave their homeland and in some cases, their fate compelled them to

migrate in the foreign land.

Most of the characters in the novel forcefully manage with the Japanese way

of living by developing mixed nature of identity. Being attached upon native Korean
 Choudhary 33

socio-cultural locations, the majority of characters do not easily adjust with Japanese

culture. Sunja represents the hardship and difficulty of diasporic people. As Sunja got

married to a Korean Japanese man, Isak Baek, and then migrated to Japan, she comes

to face the problem of getting adjusted in the new socio-cultural location in her

husband’s country. Her sense of real identity is questioned, problematized, and

depreciate in Japan. For her, being a second-class citizen in Japan is like living a

hellish life. Sunja sometimes feels revealing about her real identity in foreign land but

she is in a dilemma that she will get culturally, socially, and politically troubled. She

usually goes through sense of humiliation, dishonor, and embarrassment in Japan. She

is in such a situation, where neither she can totally accept Japanese culture nor she can

leave her own local culture. However, the next character, Noa hides his real identity

in order to adjust in a new cultural environment of Japan. He believes that revealing

his true identity among Japanese people will bring domination and hatred in his life.

He experiences difficulty in his study, finding jobs, and making conjugal life in new

land where he feels sense of dislocation, identity crisis, and cultural domination. He

feels distressed when his expectation of getting job opportunities, equal treatment, and

better life in Japan does not meet. The unfair, discriminatory, and barbaric treatment

of Japanese people compelled him to kill himself.

Through the novel, Min Jin Lee shows the troublesome conditions of diasporic

people in the foreign land as, she herself is living a diasporic life, she was born in

Korea and lives in America. She migrated with her parents when she was seven years

old. She has firsthand experience with the diasporic situations. So, she has written this

novel to show the Korean immigrants’ hardship to adjust in Japan during

colonization, the cold war, and World War Second. Sunja and Noa are the

representative characters of all those diasporic people who have been facing hardship
 Choudhary 34

culturally, socially, and physically for a long time around the world. Sense of

dislocation and crisis in identity have clearly shown through the different characters.

Through Noa’s character, readers can witness the frustration, anxiety, and

disappointment of displaced people who are spending their life in diaspora. Diasporic

and dislocated people always suffer from inferiority complexes, marginalization, and

prejudice.

Thus, Lee’s novel Pachinko portrays the experiences identity crisis of Korean

immigrant. As an immigrant, Lee raises the voice of diasporic people through the

representative characters of the novel such as Sunja and Noa because she wants good

treatment, equal respect, equal opportunity, and an indiscriminate social environment

in the adopted land for the migrated people. The novel also portrays how migration

causes emotional violence for the immigrants who find themselves cut off from their

families, relatives, and homeland. The thesis study shows the history of the Asian

colonial era and tragic reality through the story of common people in different

generations. During colonial era how different generations of the same family are

affected with a sense of dislocation and losing their real identity. During the tough

situation also familial bonds tackled bravely to regain their lost identity and made a

comfortable environment for the proper adaptation in alien soil. In this way, the novel

has raised an issue of Korean immigrants, their troubled life, and their identity crisis

during the twentieth century. This research has explored the sufferings of immigrants

and the feelings of people who live in diaspora. And, the research mainly delimited

the issue of identity crisis in immigrants, where earlier various writings are nearly

close with the issue of identity crisis but not clearly mentioned.

This thesis studies only one issue in the characters of the novel that is identity

crisis from the perspective of diasporic theory mainly Asian diaspora. Hence, the
 Choudhary 35

study of story, events, and characters from various concepts, such as Cultural studies,

post-colonial studies, diasporic theory, history, a study of life narrative, and several

other analyses can be some future possibility to any viewpoint who desires to do

research in this novel.

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