Pachiko is not a story but a historical summary of Korean Japanese from 1910 to 1989. It reminds me of blacks in USA, Malays in Singapore, and all minority migrants in the Western countries.
Darwin’s natural selection is never about the fitness but the changes and the adaptation. Man will never change but be forced to change. That is the natural selection in human history. States, institutions like schools, police, courts, and many others are just ideas. Men believe in ideas.
Most prejudice comes from the belief that we are different from others, in particular, we are smarter, stronger, and better. However, sooner or later you will realize that you’re just like everybody else, more or less.
Just like Hana told Solomon the very last time, “No one is clean. Living makes you dirty.”
When Sunja missed Noa, “Noa had been a sensitive child who had believed that if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow, the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe such cruel ideals.”
About the suffering of women, “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.” But this is for all of us, right?
“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. So what the fuck?”
“It was not Hansu that she missed, or even Isak. What she was seeing again in her dreams was her youth, her beginning, and her wishes–so this is how she became a woman.”
Osaka 大阪 Nagano 长野 Yokohama 横滨
As Hannah Arendt said, “what is most difficult is to love thw world as it is, with all the evil and suffering in it.” "