Hello, today I'm going to be talking about Pachinko by Minjin Lee. This came out in 2017 and it is an epic saga that goes from the years of 1910 to 1989 and it follows a Korean family as they migrate to Japan and Just like everything that happens around that over those decades. I liked this book a lot I think it was written really well I think it was a rich well-roved I've said that like five times now well woven tapestry of Stories and characters and it manages to like really focus on the people But then also give this great historical context to what's happening I sometimes find it hard to read these kind of books because you just get settled into one Like situations like they're making kimchi and selling at the market and then suddenly it jumps 10 years And you have to get used to that you normal and you do but it's just like a bit of a shift and that was fine But the one thing I didn't like about this book is that you couldn't ever really tell who the protagonist was I think I've only ever read one other like family saga book which is middle sex by Jeffrey you just right here middle sex by Jeffrey you denities and this is like a three-generation thing But it's always focused on you know from the start that's gonna focus on the Like grandchild the last person in the in the family But this starts with a woman called Yang Jing and she's sort of like the matriarch of this family in Busan in Korea and Then her her daughters around and then her daughter gets pregnant and that's when they moved to Japan And then she has two sons and then it kind of like follows their children But as the years are going by it's sort of paying less attention to the older generations And they're the people that you like feel the most for because you really know their story And I kind of felt like it fills all out a bit towards the end like it didn't really feel like it had a conclusion Because all of the people I care about just sort of faded out along the way one element that I found really interesting about this book Was about the treatment of different ethnic groups inside of Japan This is a part of the world and part of history. I know very little about I know nothing about history But yeah, so they migrate from Busan to Osaka essentially their economic migrants They have no food where they were so they have to go and find food elsewhere And there's literally like a district in Osaka for the Koreans and this is during the war when tensions are high But even like a generation after you could be Korean but born in Japan spent your entire life in Japan never have been to Korea And you are still extremely discriminated against and I'm repeating myself And I'm really interesting to see how the history has played out like through the eyes of these characters So like Korea splitting into North and South Korea you From the perspective of the people on the ground in Japan They kind of like hear a lot of the Koreans in Japan are like going back to Korea now It's like slightly more stable Or there are like those jobs and food over there And some of them if you were born in like Pyongyang if you were born in the north of Korea you'd obviously go back there And you know just hearing about oh is it actually better in South Korea or North Korea in terms of like food But like there's a character that goes back to North Korea and you don't hear from them again But North Korea isn't an explicitly malevolent state at that point And I feel like growing up in in the 90s you Like there's this perspective of and there still is of North Korea is like the most annexed Space in the world and it kind of having grown up like that it feels like it always has been when Just through the spoke you kind of see That that first initial break and then the kind of like slow shifts over time which was fascinating Similar to exit west which I've also just put up a video about um One of the main themes in here is immigration and discrimination because of immigration because they economic migrants They're coming because they like need food to eat You see this massive range of prosperity Um at different points in the novel like there are times where they literally can't feed themselves And then there are times that they're working all hours of the day for the bare minimum And then there are times where they're like extremely rich and Everything's fine And you get to see that from the individual characters But you also get this this more macro perspective of the communities And it's strange to have this like omnipotent view because you know that the characters for them They were like starving 30 years ago that they probably can't like It's not as immediate that difference But for you reading the book it's like oh suddenly it jumps 10 years and they can you know A Ford schooling it feels much more harrowing because you know how desperate it was I would recommend you read this it is an interesting and well written and thoughtful book And taught me a lot about that area of the world and in that time period Um also it's really beautiful like you can't really see this is doing a bad job at showing it But it's like the covers in boss and it's got some shiny bits and it's just It's a lovely object as well. So maybe just buy puttuna shells and then maybe read it someday Anyway, this has been a video about patinco by minjoonlie. I hope you've enjoyed it and I will see you in another one soon. Bye