Pachinko

Pachinko parlors are gambling halls where people play pachinko, which is a type of vertical pinball machine in which many silver balls are dropped, bounced around pins, and, if the gambler is lucky, dropped into the middle slot in order to win. It is one of the largest businesses in Japan but despite its popularity, it also has a “dirty” reputation during the time of the book since it is based on gambling and also because it is a business dominated by Korean Japanese.

When Kazu talks to Solomon after their poker game, Kazu says, “If you are a rich Korean, there’s a pachinko parlor in your background somewhere” (443). Many of Solomon’s colleagues assume Solomon’s father is a gangster, even though Solomon tries to explain his father’s honesty, saying, “He’s an ordinary businessman. He pays all his taxes and does everything by the book. There are some shady guys in the business, but my dad is incredibly precise and moral” (443). Kazu reassures Solomon that he understands why Mozasu is in pachinko since the game is the one of the few lucrative businesses available for Koreans. Mozasu, Noa, and then Solomon all end up working in the pachinko business.

Of course, other than being a means of livelihood for the family, the game of pachinko serves as a metaphor for many of the characters’ lives as well. Their lives are often bounced by forces beyond their control, like the silver balls bounced against the pins that have been set by the house to ensure that the house always wins. However, the descendants of Hoonie and Yangjin are not simply victims of the game. As best they can, they work hard to take back control of their lives.

Family names shift as the family immigrates from Korea to Japan. Like many immigrants throughout the world, moving to another country often means changing one’s name to fit in. “At school, he went by his Japanese name, Nobuo Boku, rather than Noa Baek; and though everyone in his class knew he was Korean from his Japanized surname, if he met anyone who didn’t know this fact, Noa wasn’t forthcoming about this detail” (176). Names become another way to hide one’s identity and assert another

Like Noa, Yumi relies on her Japanese name to escape her past. She connects the Korean stereotypes to her parents, who are alcoholics, working as a prostitute and a pimp. Yet despite Yumi’s understandable desire to escape from her childhood conditions to seek a better life, she does not deny her entire Korean heritage. When Mozasu tells Etsuko about Yumi, he tells her about Yumi’s desire to name Solomon “Sejong,” a Korean king who invented the alphabet. Despite Yumi’s desire to disown her Korean’s family shame and her desire to leave Japan’s racist attitudes, she still had pride in her Korean culture. And yet, she did not have the power of naming. It is tradition for the husband’s father to name the child, and since Isak is dead, Yoseb names the child “Solomon” after the biblical king, just as he named Noa and Mozasu after Noah and Moses from the Bible, honoring Isak’s work as a minister. And thus, the Korean king who invented the alphabet is denied a place in the story until Etsuko asks Solomon to recall the past.

While Korean men are often associated with pachinko parlors, Korean women who work outside the home are often limited to the food business. In this story, Noa, Mozasu, and eventually Solomon work in the pachinko business while Sunja, Kyunghee, and eventually Sunja’s mother Yangjin work in the making and selling of food. When Sunja and Kyunghee make kimchi in the house in order for Sunja to sell it in the market, Noa is embarrassed by the way the pickled smell marks him as Korean. He is relieved when they begin making kimchi in the restaurant so his home and his clothes can lose their Korean smell. When Sunja first arrives in the market to sell kimchi for the first time, the other market sellers tell her, “You can’t stink up our area” (158). These women are also Korean sellers, and they don’t want her nearby. The older Korean women (ajummas) are worse as they threaten her into leaving and so she must get away from the ajummas in order to sell her kimchi, setting up shop near the Japanese butcher surrounded by animal carcasses. The Japanese butcher is her first customer, and when he eats his bento in front of her, he is sure to show her his appreciation of her food; his behavior to her is in strong contrast to the Korean women.

Eventually the business shifts from kimchi, to restaurant work, to eventually the sweet-smelling work of selling sweets. However, even when they work in the confection business, the labor required to make the sweets is great as they must sweat over hot stoves, melting and stirring the sugar.