Pachinko
Lee’s novel takes its title from a Japanese arcade game, similar to pinball. The game of pachinko is also one of the book’s central motifs. Pachinko involves skill, but luck is also required. A player’s chance of winning may also be reduced if the pachinko machine has been rigged. This practice is illustrated in the novel when Goro bends the machine’s pins by tapping them with a hammer.
Pachinko plays a large part in the fortunes of key characters in the novel. Mozasu and Noa both enter the pachinko business and make a great deal of money. By the end of the novel, Solomon also wants to become involved in the business. While pachinko is shown to be one of the few routes to wealth for Koreans in Japan, it is a business that comes with a stigma attached. This is because the arcade game falls into a moral and a legal grey area. While it is a form of gambling, it avoids breaking anti-gambling laws through technicalities. The author shows how the Japanese attitude to pachinko reflects the treatment of the Korean people generally. As the arcade game is big business and makes a significant contribution to the country’s economy, it is not in the government’s interest to ban it. Just as Koreans are never entirely accepted as Japanese citizens, however, the pachinko parlors are not acknowledged as fully legitimate businesses.
On another level, the game of pachinko represents the spirit in which the Korean characters live their lives. For many of them, it seems as if an invisible hand has tampered with the pinball machine at their birth, giving them little hope of winning. Nevertheless, they still play the game, hoping for victory.
Home
The motif of home is central to the Korean characters who are stripped of any clear sense of home or belonging. Colonization, migration and war fracture their sense of where they belong.
In Japan, the Korean characters never feel completely “at home” as they are not fully accepted into Japanese society. First-generation migrants Sunja and Kyunghee still think of Korea as home. However, they are prevented from returning, first by the privation caused by colonial rule and then by the Korean War. By the end of the war, the country they yearn for no longer exists.
While Sunja and Kyunghee long for home, Hansu and Yoseb do not identify with any one nation. Hansu has no interest in who wins the Korean War or World War II. His only concern is how the outcome will affect him personally. Meanwhile, Yoseb feels neither loyalty to Japan nor a sentimental attachment towards Korea, believing in protecting the family unit above all else.
For the second-generation migrants in the novel, the concept of home is even more distant. Although born in Japan, Sunja’s sons do not feel accepted as Japanese citizens. Noa tries to shed his national identity completely by passing himself off as Japanese. This plan is successful on the surface, but the denial of his true self involves constant deception and ultimately leads him to an even greater sense of dislocation. By contrast, Mozasu uses the few advantages his national identity gives him by entering the Korean-dominated pachinko business and becoming a wealthy man. Although never feeling accepted by Japanese society and dreaming of moving to Korea, he finds a secure sense of self in his family and his work.
In raising Solomon, Mozasu tries to make sure that his son will be able to choose his identity and the place that he calls home. Sending him to international schools and college in the USA, he gives Solomon the chance to escape Japan and the stigma attached to his Korean blood. Nevertheless, given the opportunity to marry Phoebe and become an American citizen, Solomon decides to stay in Japan. In doing so, he shows that he is willing to embrace his heritage as a Korean rather than attempt to escape from it.
Names
Names are another important motif in Pachinko. The significance of names in Korean society is first illustrated when Sunja falls pregnant. The shame attached to being an unmarried mother revolves around the fact that Sunja’s baby will not be able to take the family name. As a consequence, they will both be social outcasts. When Isak marries Sunja, he saves her and the baby by giving him his family name—something of no consequence to him but of great significance to them. This scenario emphasizes how names can define an individual and their destiny.
Names are also significant in the context of Japan’s oppression of the Korean people. The requirement that Koreans should have Japanese names on their identity papers is just one example of the way Korean cultural identity is obliterated. Sunja feels her Japanese name (Junko Bando) has no connection to who she is. Noa, meanwhile, chooses to adopt his Japanese name at school— a sign of his futile wish to become Japanese.
Forced into adopting Japanese names, the Korean characters assert what freedom they have when naming their children. Isak expresses his gratitude to his brother by asking him to name his sons. This tradition continues when Yoseb also goes on to name his great-nephew, Solomon. In each case, Yoseb chooses a name which he hopes will shape the child’s destiny. Noa is named after the builder of the biblical ark in the hope that he will inherit his namesake’s faith in the impossible. Solomon, meanwhile, is named after the wise man and king, reflecting Mozasu’s hope that he will go on to become a great man of the world. As it turns out, neither one lives up to the promise of their names. Noa loses all faith in God while Solomon rejects an international lifestyle to follow in his father’s footsteps. This demonstrates that, while names can aim to define a person, the success of this goal depends upon the will of the individual.
Clothes
Throughout the novel, clothing is described in detail, and the motif of clothes is used to reveal information about the characters.
When Sunja first sees Hansu, it is his fine Western-style clothes that make him stand out. Sunja, who is used to the fishy stench of the Chung brothers’ clothes, is impressed by how white and clean Hansu’s outfit is. However, in reality, Hansu’s immaculate suit reflects his untrustworthy nature. The fact that he is a fish broker but does not smell of fish suggests that he gets others to do his dirty work. Years later, during the war, Sunja wonders how Hansu keeps his shoes so shiny when shoe polish is unavailable. The answer is that he has acquired the polish (and many other items) on the black market. Hansu’s lack of moral principles means that he comes out of any situation looking like a movie star.
When Isak first appears at Yangjin’s boarding house, he also cuts an elegant figure in his smart Western-style clothes. In his case, his immaculate appearance reflects who he truly is. Isak can afford well-cut clothes as he comes from a wealthy family. However, his pleasing appearance also reflects his temperament. A true gentleman who possesses tremendous integrity, he never hits a false note in terms of behaviour or how he presents himself.
Isak passes on his high presentation standards to Noa who dresses immaculately even when he is living in the Korean ghetto. For Noa, presenting a tidy exterior to the world helps him feel as if he is achieving his aim of being a “good Korean.” This goal, however, soon turns into a more dangerous desire to pass as Japanese. By contrast, Mozasu is uninterested in clothes and only submits to being fitted for good suits at Goro’s insistence. More at ease with his identity than his brother, he sees no need to present an impressive exterior to other people.
Food
Food is another frequently used motif in Pachinko. In the first section of the novel, food plays a central role in the lives of the characters because it is so scarce. From 1910 until the 1950s, the Korean characters suffer from insufficient food supplies. The lack of basic necessities is brought home in the scene where Yangjin struggles to get hold of a small quantity of white rice to celebrate Sunja’s marriage.
Throughout Pachinko, there is a strong association between Korean women and food. For the earlier generations of women in the novel, cooking is a way of nurturing their family. It also provides a chance for them to contribute to the family finances. Creating tasty dishes provides an outlet for the female characters’ creativity and allows them to demonstrate their resourcefulness. Yangjin’s ability to make delicious meals from sparse ingredients plays a key role in the success of her boarding house. Her reputation as a good cook attracts a constant supply of lodgers. In Japan, Sunja and Kyunghee spend their days cooking together and eventually build up a business making kimchi and other side dishes. The work gives both women a sense of agency and empowerment.
In the final section of the novel, Lee illustrates how society has changed when Phoebe reveals that her mother does not cook. A Korean American, Phoebe has been raised on fast food and has only ever sampled Korean food in restaurants. Phoebe’s mother is a career woman who does not have time to slave for hours in the kitchen. Proud of her inability to cook, she feels it signals her liberation from traditional female roles.
