Unit 3: Longer Fiction

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a “novel” is “a long fictional prose narrative, usually filling one or more volumes and typically representing character and action with some degree of realism and complexity.” In this sense, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 diverges from the traditional novel form in multiple ways. First, it is not a pure work of fiction—Kim Jiyoung weaves both fiction with nonfiction elements such as statistics, sociological research, journal articles, and social phenomena that took place when the novel was written. Synchronizing Jiyoung’s biography with the historical development of contemporary Korea, the novel brings together key events in Korean history and women’s lived experiences throughout those historical developments. The novel, with exhaustive footnotes and endnotes, sometimes reads like a sociology article or a medical report—it is not until the end of the novel, that the reader comes to understand Jiyoung’s story is documented by her male psychiatrist. Second, while characters in novels have unique, complex interiorities, Kim Jiyoung’s characters are more often depicted as collective beings with similar fates. By portraying the protagonist’s life as a biography of sorts, the novel focuses more on ordinary events that embellish Jiyoung’s life than her internal descriptions, such as her interpretation of the world or her thoughts and feelings on certain events. Cho Nam-joo, in her interview with Financial Times, explains that Jiyoung is a character that “doesn’t undergo great tragedy or happiness,” which makes her be “seen as the collective experience of Korean women […] with the element of the individual taken out.” Throughout the novel, readers are introduced to the lives of not only Jiyoung, but also her sister, mother, grandmother, college friends, boss, and even the wife of the psychiatrist who examines her. As the author’s interview illuminates, the novel shows how the protagonist shares similar experiences with the characters around her as a mosaic of the bigger picture of “collective experience of Korean women,” rather than focusing on Kim Jiyoung as an individual.  

Cho shared that she wrote this novel in two months, with most of that time spent researching “statistics about women’s lives” and “the indicators such as the average age of marriage and childbirth of women, and the number of career breaks due to childbirth and childcare,” and she “put it into a novel in the form of a report” (Sisa In). Like Jiyoung, Cho was born into a family that favored boys, and her career was interrupted by childbirth. Born in 1978 in Bucheon, a city near Seoul, Cho Nam-joo moved to Seoul when she was five. She was born the youngest of three children, with an older brother and sister. According to Cho, before she was born, her father and uncle made a deal: her uncle, who had five daughters, wanted a son, and Cho’s father agreed that if he had another son, he would give the newborn baby to his uncle.  Fortunately—or unfortunately, for her uncle—Cho was born a girl and raised by her parents.  

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is not Cho’s first book. She has previously published two works of fiction, If You Listen (2011) and For Comaneci (2016). However, this is her first book to garner international acclaim. After completing her B.A. in Sociology at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Cho spent almost a decade working as a television scriptwriter for TV programs focusing on current issues before turning to fiction. Like Jiyoung, Cho had to quit her job when she gave birth to her daughter. The author describes the strong energy that possessed her to write Kim Jiyoung as follows: “For two years, I was a stay-at-home mom for full time, while writing only when my child slept. Some people called me crazy for not catching up on my sleep at the time. In fact, I felt like I would go crazy if I didn’t write. Having worked as a television scriptwriter for years, I was falling apart when I had to mumble only babytalk all day” (SisaIn). Kim Jiyoung is not only an autobiographical novel that reflects Cho’s frustration after giving birth to her child, but also serves as a means of healing and sublimating a painful transition in her career. In this sense, this book is both diagnostic and therapeutic. The novel sheds light on the multilayered pathologies created by sexism in Korean society and attempts to bring healing to not only the author herself, but also women in and outside of Korea. 

Discussion Questions

1. What literary device is used in the following sentence: “I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend” (par. 70)? 

A. adverbial tense 

B. personification 

C. alliteration 

D. prefacing

2. If the basic conflict of this story is that between the attitudes of men toward women and women’s needs and desires, how does the story define those attitudes, needs, and desires?

3. The wallpaper is, as the title suggests, the chief symbol in this story. What does it symbolize, and how does it function as a symbol? What details about the wallpaper seem significant? How does the narrator’s attitude toward and vision of the wallpaper change, and what is the significance of those changes?

4. The wallpaper is one facet of the setting that carries great symbolic weight. What other aspects of the setting seem to be symbols, and what do they symbolize? How do these symbols contribute to the intensification and/or resolution of the central conflict?

5. What do you make of the ending of the story? Has the narrator been defeated, or is she triumphant? 

Close Reading

1. Examine the husband-wife relationship in this story. Make sure to look closely at the narrator’s explanations and her direct quotes from her husband. Is he controlling, loving, overbearing, or condescending? 

2. John, the husband of the narrator, abhors her writing habit. Why do you think writing is considered so “dangerous,” especially to a woman? According to John’s view, how is writing incompatible with a women’s duty as housewife and mother?

3. Discuss the element of “unreliable narrator” in this story. As readers, we want to take the woman’s account at face value—is the credibility of her story compromised as a result of her mental illness? Can we trust the narrator to give us a reliable and objective account of her home life? 

4. How are the details of the setting significant to both characterization and theme in this story?

Research

Some readers might diagnose Gilman’s narrator as suffering from postpartum depression; however, other details suggest that she struggled with mental illness from childhood and that the current episode may have been triggered not just by depression but also by the treatment methods. Write an essay in which you offer at least three diagnoses for the narrator’s illness; use evidence from the story to support your analysis. 

Kim Jiyoung’s first chapter introduces a family gathering scene taking place during Chuseok, which is similar to American Thanksgiving. Research Korea’s Chuseok and “holiday syndrome." Do Americans experience similar symptoms on holidays. Look up online newspaper articles from The Korea Times or Korea Bizwire. 

• After completing the research discuss:

  1. What is different and what is similar between Chuseok and American Thanksgiving?

  2. Why do you think the “holiday syndrome” exists in South Korea? Why you think it affects women more than men? Do you think it is specifically Korean phenomenon?

  3. What are some your experiences of holidays? Have you ever experienced stressful circumstances during or after holidays?

Discussion Questions

1. Consider the first scene: the order people enter and speak, the actions ascribed to them by Glaspell. What hierarchies are established?

2. What do we learn about Minnie Wright just from the stage set?

3. What is the significance of the cage, the bird, and Mrs. Hale fixing the stitching?

4. The women's language is important (see how the men react to it); how do you feel about the gender roles exhibited through language in this play?

5. How do the women and the men perceive of justice at the beginning of the play? at the end?

6. Why do you think the women conceal evidence? Do you think they are right (morally, not legally) to do so?

7. Check out "A Jury of her Peers," Glaspell's short story version of Trifles. How are two versions similar and different?

The Minumsa—the original Korean publisher of the novel—version of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 includes commentary written by Korean feminist scholar Kim-Go Yeon-Joo. 

The following is an English translation of a short passage from this commentary:

In an era where diversity and individuality are valued, what can a typical, representative character speak for us? Today, it has become a personal challenge to find out what “I” am, but it’s not easy to find one. Individuality is constituted by the differences one has with others. Of course, there are many different elements that make up an individual’s identity, and one’s experience may vary depending on which identity one attaches more meaning to. However, among the various identities, gender is at the core of identity. If we focus on the identity of “female,” half of the South Koreans have a fairly similar experience. This is because gender is a powerful system that operates in all areas of life, from the private sphere—love, marriage, family formation, childbirth, parenting, and aging—to the public sphere—including the economy, religion, politics, media, and schools (“Kim Jiyoung of All of Us,” 82 Nyeonseang Kim Jiyoung).

In a July 2023 episode of the podcast Breaking Down Patriarchy, the translator Jamie Chang shares her experience of reading Kim Jiyoung:

I was born in 1982. I was raised in a family that moved around and my upbringing was very different from Kim Jiyoung’s upbringing. And I think that was maybe good and bad as a translator because part of me was able to see Kim Jiyoung’s life through fresh eyes because her experience was so different from mine. And then there was another small part of me that had to really work to understand some aspects of Kim Jiyoung’s thinking.

For instance, her need to conform or her need to be, I guess, a “nice girl” or a model student, a good daughter and so forth. But anyway, I went to nine schools across three countries between K-12. So unlike Kim Jiyoung, I didn’t really have a community that I needed to fit into. […] Because of my upbringing, I can’t say that I’m able to speak for the average Korean heterosexual woman because I’m not a heterosexual woman. And I was also raised as an only child, like Kim Jiyoung has a sister and a brother. The brother is the youngest and sort of like the treasured child of the family. But I was raised an only child in a family where you were able to be sort of discreetly and passively sexist and racist and all these things but, you know, saying things overtly was frowned upon. So I didn’t encounter a lot of discrimination based on my gender growing up, but I can tell you what I have been able to observe in my time here. I’ve been living in Korea for the last seven years and I did go to middle school in Korea. […] I think [my wife] would be a better point of reference because she was also born somewhere around 1980 and she actually, unlike me, did not leave the country until she was 29. So she has that continuous exposure to one culture, one language. But my wife is the middle daughter of three girls. And when her younger sister was born her father was so disappointed that he didn’t even come to the hospital to see her. I mean, that’s fairly common in Korea (Breaking Down Patriarchy).

On June 30, 1983—which is roughly one year after Kim Jiyoung’s birth—Korea Broadcasting

System (KBS) created and aired a special live broadcast program named “Finding Dispersed Families.” Park Chung-hee, the president at the time, ordered the creation of the program to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. The idea of the program was to reunite families who were separated during the Korean War or afterward—mostly due to economic hardships—and were unable to contact each other thereafter. The program was originally planned to be 95 minutes of the morning show, but due to the overwhelming number of applicants from all over the country, it was expanded into a special program and aired live for 435 hours and 45 minutes for over 138 days. The program brought more than 53,000 individuals to the screen, resulting in nearly 10,000 family reunions. This historical video documentation is an invaluable record of the little-known Korean War and Cold War civilian sufferings that have lasted for more than 30 years. “Finding Dispersed Families” was nominated as UNESCO Memory of the World in 2015.  

Minsu Lee—which was a common name for South Korean males born in the 1980s—the protagonist in Kim Young-ha’s novel The Quiz Show (2007), is an unemployed college graduate. Due to his “abnormal” family background, he experiences challenges on the job market, suffering from a chronic sense of unfairness and constant anxiety about survival. Although The Quiz Show focuses on youth unemployment and ingrained social inequalities in 2000s South Korea, it offers us a helpful snapshot of the generation in which Kim Jiyoung was born: they experienced drastic social changes and rapid “growth rate” of South Korea and were forced to quickly adapt to the ever-changing social landscape of the country.

We were born in the 80s, growing up with the advent of color television and professional baseball, and went to school in the affluence of the 90s. In college, we studied abroad and backpacked around the world, and we saw our country reach the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup. […] We grew up in a completely different country than those who came before us and are equipped with so many abilities that we are almost like supermen compared to our predecessors. We were born in an underdeveloped country, grew up in a developing country, and went to a college in a developed country. But still, we don’t have a job (Quiz Show 232).

The year 1982, and the period that follows, offers a particular picture of South Korean modern history, and captures the so-called “underdeveloped,” “developing,” and “developed” phases described by Kim Young-ha. The historical, economic, political, and social upheavals generated by the Korean War and the postwar period, thrust Korean society into a “compressed modernization process,” as described by Korean sociologist Chang Kyung-sup in his article, “Compressed Modernity and Its Discontent.” According to Chang, “compressed modernity” refers to the condensed process of economic, political, and social transformations that South Korea and other previously colonized Asian countries experienced over a relatively short period of time between the 1950s to 1990s. Unlike the “gradual” modernization seen in Western countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, South Korea’s modernization was highly accelerated, in part due to intense external pressures and internal drives for development such as the country’s independence from Japan, the Korean War, and military dictatorship. The world, including the people of Korea, were awestruck by the “fastest” growth in human history, thus naming the process “the Miracle on the Han River”—the “miracle of achieving [economic development] over a mere few decades what took Westerners two or three centuries” (Chang 31). As the word “miracle” implies, the way South Korean society barreled towards the threshold of modernity broached the fantastical, almost to the extent of the surreal.

Some sociologists describe the “unreal” aspect of the country's economic boom as a “mirage” rather than a miracle. This is particularly relevant when we consider the myth of the “ideal middle class” that characterized the 1960s and 1970s. This middle class was based on the acquisition of real estate, stable employment, and access to quality education, but it was a myth because achieving this social status was nearly impossible for most of the population. According to Yang Myungji’s From Miracle to Mirage, the explosive economic growth of South Korean benefited only certain groups of people who were complaisant or lucky enough to seize the opportunity, making the process of class mobility “speculative and exclusionary” (137). These lucky few succeeded in entering the middle class during this period only because they happened to buy land at the right time, not because they necessarily worked harder than others. But for most of the Korean population, this middle-class ideal was unattainable; it may as well have been speculation or a mirage. Not only did this “mirage” of rapid growth engender a heightened level of anxiety across the entire population, but it also frustrated the majority of the people chasing an impossible dream of becoming middle class. Rather than diagnosing the downfall of the South Korean economy and its bubble burst in the late 1990s and the early 2000s as an abrupt tragedy, Yang interprets these events as symptoms that reveal the unfair and defective nature of South Korea’s fast-track modernization that “did not reward hard work and fair play” (132).

Whether miracle or mirage, there is something dramatic—even melodramatic—about South Korea’s historical narrative that catches people’s interest, both at home and abroad. Nancy Abelmann argues that whether or not South Korea has achieved the fastest economic and social “growth” in human history, the country and the people’s stories are heavily influenced by the melodramatic tone which describes the drastic ups and downs of this society between the 1950s to 1990s. The three female characters in the second chapter are “neither exceptionally poor nor particularly politically active” (Abelmann 282), and yet they find themselves trapped in the current of rapid modernization.

The Korean War and Its Aftermath

To understand South Korea’s compressed modernization in the late twentieth century, it is crucial to explore the reasons for the country’s desperate need for such rapid growth. Behind the aspiration for the development that dominated South Korea for the decades, there was the experience of colonization and the war that devastated the entire Korean peninsula.  

During Imperial Japan’s pursuit to integrate the “Greater East Asia,” Korea (which was at that time known the Joseon Dynasty), fell under Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945. Following Japan’s defeat in World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Korea was liberated and gained independence. However, the political vacuum following the liberation was soon filled by the two superpowers: the Soviet Union and the United States. After 1945, the Eastern Bloc and Western Bloc recognized the strategic significance of the Korean Peninsula, which served as a crucial link between the East and West due to its borders that touch both China and Russia and extend into the Pacific Ocean. Under the pretext of establishing political stability, the United States and the Soviet Union partitioned the Korean Peninsula along the 38th parallel. The U.S. supported Syngman Rhee’s administration centered in Seoul, and the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union supported Kim Il Sung’s regime in Pyongyang.

The Korean War, commonly known as the “6.25” in Korea, broke out on June 25, 1950. Backed by financial support and weapons from the Soviet Union and China, North Korea used severe communist oppression to justify the military invasion of South Korea. The rapid advance of the North Korean army was inexorable; within three months, they had seized control of almost all South Korea, save for Busan in the southeastern corner of the peninsula. Upon the invasion, the United Nations Security Council denounced the attack and dispatched the allied troops to support South Korea. The United Nations assembled a coalition of military personnel from 21 nations, with the United States contributing the majority of the troops. UN forces landed at Incheon in September 1950, and succeeded in cutting off the North Korean army’s supply lines.

Over the following months, the allied forces pushed northward toward the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China. Shortly thereafter, however, Chinese intervention and support of North Korea led to two years of intense fighting as both forces fought to control Seoul. 

Image: Korean War in Four Maps

The Korean War came to a close on July 27, 1953, with both sides agreeing to the Korean Armistice Agreement. Despite the ceasefire, the devastating three-year war left a deep scar across North and South Korea. With almost the entire Korean peninsula changing hands multiple times—in the case of Seoul, four times—the war resulted in an estimated 3 million causalities, mostly civilians. The indiscriminate carpet bombing made no distinction between enemies and allies, soldiers and civilians; on top of that, numerous refugees were mercilessly massacred by the occupying armies on suspicion of sympathizing with the enemy’s ideology. Vital infrastructures such as schools, hospitals, roads, factories, and electric systems were laid in ruins by relentless air raids. The war forced up to 3.7 million people in North and South Korea to abandon their homes and migrate both within and out of the country, many never able to return due to the division of the Korean peninsula. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 children were orphaned, separated from their parents during evacuations, or lost in the chaos of attacks.

The two Koreas are still at war—they have maintained a ceasefire state for the past 70 years. Military and political tensions between North and South Korea are ongoing. In South Korea, one can be punished under the National Security Act for possessing political pamphlets or publications made in North Korea. There are numerous U.S. military bases deployed in the South

Korean territory—especially near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea’s border—in defense against possible North Korean military advances. Movement of people, communication channels, and trade between the two Koreas are strictly prohibited. Despite various efforts to formally end the war, including the most recent attempts in 2021 led by former South Korean President Moon Jae-in and former U.S. President Donald Trump, such endeavors face significant obstacles due to complex political and diplomatic challenges. The unification of North and South Korea would require cooperation of and agreement from not only North and South Korea, but also the United States and China.  

While many believe that the Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union, the legacy of Cold War tensions persists in Korea. Similar to the Vietnam War, which began in 1955, the Korean War served as a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union and China, with each superpower vying for hegemonic control by supporting their respective allies.

Contrary to the outcome of the Vietnam War, where North Vietnam emerged victorious over U.S.-backed South Vietnam and unified the country under communism, the Korean War ended in a stalemate. Despite North Korea’s support from the Soviet Union and China and South Korea’s backing from the United States and the United Nations, neither side achieved a decisive victory, ultimately leading to an armistice that has gone unresolved for more than 70 years.

Postwar Maelstrom

In the 1950s and 1960s, South Korea faced severe economic challenges. The country had endured resource theft during the Japanese occupation—most of the farmlands and major production facilities were owned by Japan—and suffered further setbacks due to the Korean War, which devastated its economy. Compared to North Korea, South Korea had a weaker industrial base and lacked essential raw materials like iron, coal, and oil, making economic recovery even more daunting. As a result, South Korea became one of the poorest countries in the world in 1955, when the country first joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (The World Bank).  

However, from the 1970s onwards, South Korea experienced a remarkable economic transformation known as the “Miracle on the Han River.” The country pursued state-led development projects that led to rapid economic growth: its gross national income (GNI) per capita surged from $67 in 1955 to $33,745 in 2023, marking a 500-fold increase; its gross domestic product (GDP) soared 85 times; and its exports grew 153 times (The World Bank). Within three decades of the Korean War, South Korea successfully hosted the Asian Games in 1986 and the Seoul Olympics in 1988, showcasing its remarkable recovery.

Image: The GDP Growth of South Korea

This rapid development came at a cost. Behind South Korea’s economic growth was a political and social climate that stifled individual rights and freedoms. One cannot talk about South Korea’s postwar period without mentioning Park Chung-hee, a military dictator, who seized power in 1961 via military coup and maintained his presidency for two decades through multiple constitutional amendments. Under his authoritarian rule, Park drove the massive economic boom in the 1960s and 1970s by implementing Five-Year Economic Development Plans and promoting industrialization. To nurture the manufacturing industry, heavy and chemical industry (HCI), and export-oriented growth, Park politically and economically supported the rise of chaebol, the family-owned, hereditary-managed mega conglomerates such as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai that started to play an essential role in the Korean economy. Park believed that building large-scale heavy chemical plants would increase the growth rate more than fostering small and medium-sized enterprises and actively encouraged the chaebols to participate in the HCI by giving them immense financial and tax privileges. Due to the “successful” corporate-led economic growth, a back-scratching alliance of government and select business in South Korea has dominated economic development since the 1970s, widening the gap between rich and poor.

To overcome the lack of natural resources, Park Chung-hee focused on “human resources,” the only exportable goods South Korea could produce at the time. Under his regime, South Korean workers were sent to Germany and the Middle East as laborers, miners, and nurses and to the Vietnam War as soldiers to facilitate the flow of foreign capital for domestic development. At the same time, Park started a nationwide movement called Saemaeul Undong, also known as the New Community Movement, a nationwide initiative in South Korea that aimed to modernize rural communities and boost agricultural productivity in the 1970s. Through this movement, Park emphasized the spirit of hard work and diligence for the sake of the survival of the community and the nation, enforcing strict collectivist thinking on the entire population.

Donald Gregg, a retired CIA Korea Chapter director who worked under Gerald Ford’s administration, recollected that Park was a tricky alliance for the U.S., “whose agenda was shaped by his country’s immediate needs, not broader issues such as human rights or free trade” (Time). Park’s regime truly was the time when the “country’s immediate needs” preceded all others. Up until his assassination by his subordinate, Kim Jae-gyu, in 1979, Park established harsh suppression of political dissidents and crushed all voices of discontent. His decision to hastily normalize diplomatic relations with Japan and accept their financial aid in the early 1960s sparked major public backlash and nationwide protests in June 1964, which he violently suppressed, and declared martial law to contain. Park amended the constitution several times to serve unlimited terms as president and manipulated elections. During his presidency, he suppressed student movements and political opposition with brutal military force. South Korean culture also suffered strict censorship: foreign cultural influences such as American pop, long hair for males, and miniskirts were banned; Korean music and TV programs could not contain even the slightest sexual or political connotations.

Park’s assassination, unfortunately, did not lead to South Korea’s political stability, but rather to a period of harsher military dictatorship. Chun Doo-hwan, one of Park’s military subordinates and the head of Defense Security Command at the time, raised another coup in December of that same year. In May 1980, Chun subdued nationwide democracy protests by military force, killing many citizens, especially in Gwangju. During his reign in the 1980s, Chun imprisoned and tortured political opponents and human rights activists, accusing them of being communists or North Korean spies. Ironically, the Asian Games and Olympics that were held in Seoul, which showcased the economic development of a “free Korea,” took place at the height of Chun’s political control, a time during which college campuses reeked of tear gas and riot police forces were everywhere. Chun stepped down from office in 1988 after the death of two college student activists—Park Jong Chol by torture death and Lee Han-yeol by police brutality during a protest. Their deaths sparked a storm of public protest known as the June Democratic Struggle in 1987, which demanded a direct and transparent presidential vote, basic human rights, and freedom of the press (Korea JoongAng Daily).   

Image: Crowds Gather at the State Funeral of Lee Han-Yeol in Seoul, July 1987

IMF Economic Crisis

The 1990s in South Korea was a watershed era as the country reached “modernity.” Much like Jiyoung’s family moved to a brand-new apartment instead of their old house, which was “an odd mix of traditional and modern due to years of partial renovations” (Cho 38), South Korea rebranded itself as a new country that was socially humanitarian, politically democratic, and economically neoliberal. The 1998 presidential election of Kim Dae-Jung—a democratic activist who was previously imprisoned and sentenced to death under military dictatorship—was the first election of a member from the left-wing party directly elected by the people. Kim’s presidency and his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his human rights efforts and attempts to reach out to North Korea seemed to demonstrate that South Korea was moving forward.

  However, the so-called “IMF bailout” triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis brought to the forefront the social, political, and economic side effects of rapid growth in South Korea. In 1990s, South Korea was viewed as a worthy investment for foreign capitals, because mega conglomerates, chaebols, had achieved significant growth during the 1970s and 1980s. Not only South Korea but also the Asian market, at large, was considered a lucrative investment market for foreign dollar-holding investors: low labor prices, solid fiscal surplus, high annual GDP growth rates, and high savings rates were among the factors that attracted foreign investors. The needs of Asian corporations and foreign investors were well matched—Asian companies wanted to rapidly expand their businesses, and investors expected high returns with low risks. As a result, an unseen amount of short-term foreign debt accumulated. Inflation in the real estate and stock markets intensified, and state and private debt began to pile up.  

  The global economic slowdown in 1996 led to a decline in foreign investors in Asian financial markets. From Thailand, where the foreign exchange speculation was the severest, the Asian financial crisis spread to other Asian countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Hong Kong, and South Korea. This gave foreign speculative capital the impression that it would be difficult to recoup its investment in Asia, further destabilizing Asian investment markets and encouraging massive outflows of U.S. dollars. As the demand for Asian currencies such as the Hong Kong dollar, Korean won, and Thai baht decreased, and the demand for U.S. dollars increased, the value of Asian currencies plummeted.

A large-scale investment panic struck South Korea. A shortage of U.S. dollars and the weakness of the won led to the inability of companies to repay short-term foreign debt and the depletion of national foreign exchange reserves in the Korean government. Numerous banks and mega-corporates declared bankruptcy. Huge motor companies like Kia, Samsung, and Daewoo also suffered and were forced to partially liquidate their firms or sell their business to foreign companies. During this widespread financial panic, the Korean government tried to comfort its people by announcing that its dollar reserve was US$30 billion, however it was later confirmed that the country had US$150 billion in foreign debt—more than five times its foreign exchange reserves. In the end, the South Korean government requested the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package of US$58.4 billion in return for a total “restructuring measure.” In effect, South Korea’s entire economy fell into the hands of the IMF: the government had to implement a massive financial sector reform program, under which more than 800 “insolvent financial institutions” were closed or merged. In 1998, approximately 3,300 companies went bankrupt every month, and there were unprecedented layoffs (The New York Times). In 1999, “the unemployment rate jumped to close to 9 percent in February from less than 3 percent before the crisis hit” (IMF), and millions of people were laid off and faced unpaid wages.

  South Korea’s 1997 financial crisis marked the end of the country’s high-growth economic era of the 1970s and the 1980s, and revealed chronic social maladies which were suppressed for the past two decades. It was a tipping point that disclosed the “speculative and exclusionary” (Yang 137) nature of the neoliberal late-capitalist market logic that South Korea had relied on for its rapid economic boost. The spectacular financial failure of South Korea was caused by several factors. These include international factors—such as speculation funds flooding the Asian investment market—and numerous domestic issues, including the “incestuous relationship between government, banks, and enterprises,” as criticized by then IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus (IMF). On top of that, poor labor laws, oppression of labor unions, unstable housing, rising household debts, and skyrocketing housing prices due to property speculation all played significant roles in the crisis. Even though the IMF management ended in August 2001 when South Korea repaid its borrowings in full and ahead of schedule, the adverse effects on South Korea’s economic growth that surfaced during that period are still being felt today. Economic, social, and political polarization among the people, job insecurity, youth unemployment, and ever-increasing suicide and divorce rates are still among the most persistent problems in South Korean society.  

View the YouTube Video: "Rotating Savings Among Koreans--Gye" by Talk to Me in Korean

Read the article: "A Korean Secret to Keeping Friendships Strong: Saving Groups" from the New York Times (June 2024)

Jiyoung’s life is heavily affected by South Korea’s social, political, and economic transformations following WWII. Her birth year—which took place towards the end of the economic boom of South Korea—is representative of a time where society was beginning to lose hope that the “national uplift” would benefit every individual member of the nation-state. Just as Jiyoung is an everywoman who represents the Korean women who were born around the 1980s, Jiyoung’s mother, Oh Misook, and her grandmother, Koh Boonsoon, also serve as typical “mom” and “grandma” figures that represent their own generations. These characters testify to the price of modernization that South Korean society had imposed upon its people, especially women. Chapter 2 discusses the experience of the three generations of women who each survived rapid transitions in Korean history. In each of their own ways, these women were responsible for supporting their families and struggled to achieve selffulfillment. Oh Misook, Koh Boonsoon, and Kim Jiyoung work days and nights as much as—if not harder than—their husbands and brothers, not because they are exceptionally poor but because they cannot maintain their family’s social status if they do not participate in supporting their family. Despite their status as middle-class or even upper-middle class, Jiyoung’s family experiences anxiety about falling behind because they know that there will be no second chances to climb the social ladder should they ever fall back into poverty.

Jiyoung’s earliest childhood memory is connected to her grandmother. Like the taste of Jiyoung’s brother’s formula that is “rich, sweet, nutty” yet leaves “a strange feeling in her mouth that wasn’t quite dry or bitter” (Cho 13-14), the novel’s description of Jiyoung’s grandmother— Koh Boonsoon—is complex and nuanced. She explicitly favors her grandson over her granddaughters and even physically punishes Eunyoung and Jiyoung when they “dare” to “take something that belongs to [her] precious grandson” (Cho 15). Koh never acknowledges her daughter-in-law’s efforts to support her and further presses Oh Misook to give birth to a son. This leads Oh to “voluntarily” get an abortion of the unborn daughter. These hardships aside, one cannot judge Koh for her actions without a proper understanding of her personal history, which is full of its own ups and downs. While the novel describes her as “easy-going considering the life she’d had, and relatively caring towards her daughter-in-law compared to other mothers-in-law of her generation” (Cho 17), Koh’s attitude towards her family should be read within the context of Korean history and the collective experience of Korean females of her generation. Koh is both a witness and a survivor of whirlwind-like modern Korean history: she experienced the plunder of Imperial Japan, sudden independence, and the Korean War in the span of only a few decades. 

Based on the novel’s description of her husband, we can assume he belongs to the aristocratic class. Koh’s husband’s appearance—his “fair complexion and soft hands” (Cho 16)—suggests that he has never engaged in manual labor, unlike most Koreans at the time, and raises the possibility that he is a fallen yangban, a gentry class in traditional Korean society. However, despite being upper-middle class, Koh and her husband do not seem economically well-to-do. Koh still had to work hard, “fighting tooth and nail to raise the four boys” (Cho 16) for his husband’s incompetency. To bridge the gap between their social and economic status, Koh throws herself into farming, peddling, and laboring for someone else. One of her sons is dead, one immigrated to the United States, and another one repudiated his family; Jiyoung’s father is the only remaining son who is willing and able to support his elderly mother. A harsh history has robbed her of her sons, but instead of blaming this outcome as a grand failure of her country or the circumstances of this period in history, she chooses to interpret it as a humble personal accomplishment: “Still, I get to eat warm food my son made me, and sleep under warm covers my son arranged for me because I had four sons” (Cho 16). 

Not unlike Koh, Oh Misook’s story represents the challenges that women dealt with during this time. The extent of the economic and political upheavals of the 1970s and 80s are not directly mentioned in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. However, the atmosphere of the era that forced individual sacrifice in the name of the “national economy” can be seen in Jiyoung’s family backstory, particularly in Oh Misook’s journey. The novel focuses on how such personal sacrifice for “the greater good” was more heavily forced upon women than men, while the rewards were more exclusive to men. In the 1970s and 80s, when industrialization and urbanization were on the rise, Oh Misook worked in a textile factory, staying in a “chicken coop dormitory” with her sister, “without adequate sleep, rest or food, thinking that was what working entailed for everyone” (Cho 24-25). The meager wages of the female workers “went toward sending male siblings to school,” in the belief that “the family’s wealth and happiness hinged upon male success” (Cho 25). When her eldest brother monopolized the honor of “provi[ding] for his family,” Oh and her sister realize that “their loving family would not be giving them the chance and support to make something of themselves” (Cho 26). Similarly, when Oh aborted her unborn daughter at the clinic out of pressure, “all the responsibility fell on her, and no family was around to comfort her through her harrowing physical and emotional pain” (Cho 19). Oh’s original family and in-laws—a microcosm of postwar Korea—speaks volumes about the women’s unrecorded toil and sweat.

To understand Jiyoung’s grandmother and mother’s relationship described in the novel, it is crucial to grasp Korean family dynamics. Korea was under the strong influence of patriarchal Confucianism, where the head of the family was considered equal to the head of the country—as a famous idiom says, “a monarch, a teacher, and a father are one and the same” (君師父一體). In this tradition, serving one’s ancestors was at the center of the family relationship. The eldest son should not only carry out the responsibility to support the parents and other family members but also perform the ancestral ritual for the dead. In Chuseok and Seollal, families gather and perform ancestral rituals in front of food preparations. Most of the labor-intensive responsibilities fall to the female members of the family, while the most important part—bowing and offering spirits to the dead—is performed by the male members. 

In traditional Korean marriage culture, once married, daughters are considered the “outsiders” of their original family and incorporated as members of the in-laws family instead. From the wedding ceremony to death, the bride was often not allowed to visit her original family except for special circumstances. During this sijipsari—life with the in-laws—mothers-in-law took charge of the “education” of their daughters-in-law. From housekeeping and taking care of the elders to household finance management, it was taken for granted that daughters-in-law would obey their mothers-in-law’s commands. If the daughter-in-law did not satisfy her motherin-law’s standards—from serious family matters like not giving birth to sons to minute mistakes like the unpalatable seasoning of food—her mother-in-law could harshly scold her. This strict hierarchy sometimes gave mothers-in-law strong authority within a family, sometimes even greater than her husband and son, at least within the domestic realm. This relationship dynamic still lingers in Korean marriage culture, where families tend to be more and more nuclearized, often produced severe daughter- and mother-in-law conflicts—where the daughter-in-law did not wish to abide by her traditional values. 

Close Reading:

The four brothers were born and raised at a time when mere survival was a struggle. As people died, young and old, of war, disease, and starvation, Koh Boonsoon worked someone else’s field, peddled someone else’s wares, took care of domestic labor at someone else’s home, and still managed to run her own home, fighting tooth and nail to raise the four boys. Her husband, a man with a fair complexion and soft hands, never worked a day in his life. Koh Boonsoon did not resent her husband for having neither the ability nor the will to provide for his family. She truly believed he was a decent husband to her for not sleeping around and not hitting her. Of the four sons she raised thus, Jiyoung’s father was the only one to carry out his duties as a son in her old age. Unwanted by her ungrateful children, Koh Boonsoon rationalized this sad outcome with an incoherent logic: “Still, I get to eat warm food my son made for me, and sleep under warm covers my son arranged for me because I had four sons. You have to have at least four sons.” Oh Misook, her son’s wife, was the one who cooked the warm food and laid out the warm covers for her, not her son, but Koh Boonsoon had a habit of saying so anyway. Easy-going considering the life she’d had, and relatively caring toward her daughter-in-law compared to other mothers-in-law of her generation, she would say from the bottom of her heart, for her daughter-in-law’s sake, “You should have a son. You must have a son. You must have at least two sons…” (Cho 16-17).

The novel’s third chapter, “Adolescence: 1995-2000,” shows Jiyoung’s realization and recognition of the meaning of “becoming a woman.”

What are the Boys’ Names?

Historically, many women have used male names to access privileges not granted to women. For example, female writers, such as George Eliot, have used male pennames to publish without gender-based bias. Many American parents in the 1970s and 1980s also named their daughters traditionally boys’ names, like Tyler, Jackson, or Dakota, to “empower” their girls with “strength and coolness, ” according to The Atlantic article titled “Why Some Parents Turn Boys’ Names Into Girls’ Names.” 

Pamela Redmond Satran, who runs the baby-name website Nameberry, says that “it is clear from the data that boys are not being named Sue or Sarah or Elizabeth,” which are typical girls’ names. In other words, subverting gender norms is allowed when females take on masculine traits or activities, but it is not necessarily socially acceptable for men to take on traditionally feminine qualities or conventions. This phenomenon is related to gender norms that “is considered perfectly fine for a girl to exhibit traits associated with masculinity, yet a ‘serious problem’ when men or boys reveal ‘even a whiff of femininity’” (The Atlantic). 

This article uses data from the Social Security office to analyze names that have had shifts over time: https://flowingdata.com/2019/08/28/gender-switched-names/ 

Reread pages 57-63 then focus on this section of the text specifically.

Eunyoung, whose dream was to become a television producer, chose journalism as her major and was already looking at previous years’ essay test material from the school she was thinking about. When her mother brought up the idea of teacher training college, Eunyoung said no in a heartbeat. ‘I don’t want to be a teacher. I already have something I want to do. And why do I have to leave home and attend university so far away?’ ‘Think ahead. There’s no better job for women than a schoolteacher.’ ‘What’s so great about being a schoolteacher?’ ‘You get off work early. You have school vacations. It’s easy to take time off. There’s nothing like teaching for working mums.’ ‘Sure. It’s a great job for working parents. Then isn’t it a great job for everyone? Why specifically women? Do women raise children alone? Are you going to suggest teaching to your son, too? You’re going to send him to a teacher training college, too?’ […] The mother looked up at the world on the wall. On the map with tattered corners were a few green and blue heart-shaped stickers. It was the elder sister’s idea to put stickers on the countries they wanted to see. Kim Jiyoung chose the more familiar countries such as the USA, Japan, and China, while Eunyoung chose northern European countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland. When asked why she picked those places, Eunyoung said she wanted to go someplace with few Koreans. The mother knew what the stickers meant. (Cho 58-61)

Questions for Discussion:

1. What do you think are the differences between a “great job for working mums” and a “great job for working parents?” 

2. In your opinion, what would Eunyoung have thought when she saw her mother “giv[ing] up [her] dreams for the sake of the family, having made that sacrifice herself,” a sacrifice that is “made without truly understanding the consequences, or even having the choice to refuse” (Cho 61-62) that eventually broke up the family?

3.  Why do you think Eunyoung put stickers on Northern European countries such as “Denmark, Sweden, and Finland?” What do those countries have in common, especially compared to the countries like “USA, Japan, and China?”

4. How would you interpret Eunyoung’s desire to “go someplace with few Koreans?” Do you think she wants to escape her own country or culture? If so, what do you think is the most significant reason for her to be in a country that is so different from Korea?

5. Why do you think the novel says that “Eunyoung’s entering college was a good thing for the whole family?” Why do you think Eunyoung eventually decided to become a teacher, even though she did not want the job at first? Do you think Eunyoung has sacrificed her dream for the entire family? If yes or no, why?

Below: The M Curve in Female Labor-Force Participation Rate in Korea and Japan. Business Insider.

Research the marriage and family related neologisms listed below. 

Neologism is a new word or phrase that has come into common use or a new meaning that has been given to an established word 

• Gold miss: “‘Gold Miss’: To Be or Not to Be?” 

• Bihon: “The Young Feminists Rejecting Marriage” 

• 4B Movement: “A World Without Men” 

• DINK: “Dual income, no kids ... and loads of free time” 

• Chosen family: “What ‘Chosen Family’ Means — and How to Build Your Own” 

In the end, they concluded that one of them had to be a stay-at-home parent, and that one person, of course, was Jiyoung. Daehyun’s job was more stable and brought in more money, but, apart from that, it was more common for husbands to work and wives to raise the children and run the home. The fact that Jiyoung saw this coming did not make her feel any less depressed. Daehyun patted her on her slouched back. “We’ll get a sitter once in a while when our baby’s bigger, and send her to daycare, too,” he said. “You can use that time to study and look for other work. Think of this as an opportunity to start a new chapter. I’ll help you out.” Jiyoung knew that Daehyun was being sincerely supportive, but she couldn’t hold back her anger. “Help out? What is it with you and ‘helping out?’ You’re going to ‘help out’ with chores. ‘Help out’ with raising our baby. ‘Help out’ with finding me a new job. Isn’t this your house, too? Your home? Your child? And if I work, don’t you spend my pay, too? Why do you keep saying ‘help out’ like you’re volunteering to pitch in on someone else’s work?” Jiyoung felt bad about jumping down his throat after the two of them had done a good job of making a tough decision together. She apologized to her stunned, stuttering husband, and he said, “No worries.” (Cho 131)

The doctor chuckled to himself. “Back in the day, women used clubs to do the laundry, lit fires to boil baby clothes, and crawled around to do the sweeping and mopping. Don’t you have a washing machine for laundry and vacuum cleaner for cleaning? Women these days—what have you got to whine about?” Dirty laundry doesn’t march into the machine by itself, Jiyoung thought. The clothes don’t wash themselves with detergent and water, march back out when they’re done, and hang themselves on clotheslines. The vacuum doesn’t roll around with a wet and dry rag, wipe the floor, and wash and dry the rags for you. Have you ever even operated a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner? The doctor checked Jiyoung’s previous records, said he’d prescribe drugs that are safe for breastfeeding and clicked the computer mouse a few times. Back in the day, physicians had to go through filing cabinets to find records and write notes and prescriptions by hand. Back in the day, office clerks had to run around the office with paper reports to track down their bosses for their approval. Back in the day, farmers planted by hand and harvested with sickles. What do these people have to whine about these days? No one is insensitive enough to say that. Every field has its technological advances and evolves in the direction that reduces the amount of physical labor required, but people are particularly reluctant to admit that the same is true for domestic labor. Since she became a full-time housewife, she often noticed that there was a polarized attitude regarding domestic labor. Some demeaned it as “bumming around at home,” while others glorified it as “work that sustains life,” but none tried to calculate its monetary value. Probably because the moment you put a price on something, someone has to pay. (Cho 136-137)

Watch a YouTube clip titled “Leave it to Beaver a Woman’s Place is in Home.” Leave it to Beaver is an American TV sitcom that aired in the 1950s and 1960s, which was a time when the “traditional nuclear family” was heavily promoted and endorsed in post-World War II America. Leave it to Beaver was a TV show that portrayed the epitome of this suburban-white, nuclear family while also poking fun at the ironies and absurdities of such a family stereotype.

On the Wednesday that marked the one-month anniversary of their wedding ceremony, Jiyoung caught the last train home from work, and Daehyun came home unusually early, made himself ramen, did the dishes, cleaned out the fridge and folded laundry while watching a TV show. When Jiyoung walked in, he was waiting for her with a piece of paper on the dining table. It was the form to legally register their marriage. He’d downloaded and printed it out at work and had two guys from work sign as witnesses. Jiyoung couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s the rush? We had a wedding and we live together. Nothing will change because of one document.” “It changes how we feel.” Jiyoung had been oddly moved that he was in a rush to make the marriage legal. […] She didn’t think legal procedures changed how she felt. Was Daehyun more committed for wanting to make the marriage legally binding, or was she more dedicated for thinking she’d always feel the same whether they were official or not? Jiyoung saw her husband in a new light—more dependable, yet oddly more alien. […] Then came section five: “Do you agree that your child will take his or her mother’s surname and place of family origin?” “What do you want to do about this?” “About what?” “Number five here.” Daehyun read the question out loud, looked at Jiyoung and casually said, “I think ‘Jung’ is a decent surname.” […] “Most people still take their father’s last name. People will think that there’s some story behind the kid if they have their mother’s last name. There will be a lot of explaining and correcting and confirming to do if the child takes the mother’s name,” Jiyoung said and Daehyun nodded. (Cho 116-119)