A Gyopo Reads East I - Pachinko and the Double-Orientalism of Korean Existence

By Injae Lee

Pachinko Series Poster (Image via Rotten Tomatoes)

“A Gyopo Reads East” chronicles columnist Injae Lee’s recognizing and embracing his identity as an Asian-American and Gyopo (Korean diaspora member). Injae writes of his interaction with Asian culture and how it influences his own identity as an Asian living in the West, focusing on literature and the written word. By doing so, Injae aims to carve out the parameters of his personal identity in relation to East and West and reclaim the term Gyopo, traditionally used disparagingly to refer to Koreans abroad who had lost touch with their culture.

Hallyu, or the “Korean Wave,” is a term that has become popular in both Korean and foreign media to describe the meteoric rise in global popularity enjoyed by Korean culture. The term is typically used to refer to K-pop and K-drama, the Wave’s most popular exports. Growing up in suburban middle-class America, child-me happily consumed the Hallyu to stay connected with Korean culture. Before BTS and TWICE there was Super Junior and Girls’ Generation. Before Squid Game, Secret Garden ruled the streaming sites. As I grew up, however, I discovered that besides the troupe-ridden soap operas and bands filled with slim light-skinned dancer-singer-supermodels, other Korean work was courting readers around the world. And as I engaged with Korean literature, I realized that it—along with all aspects of the Korean Wave—wrestles with a concept for which I only discovered the word in university.

Works by Korean writers now top Western bestseller charts, with Han Kang’s Vegetarian and Cho Nam-Joo’s Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 becoming international sensations. But one could make an argument that Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko is the most successful book by a writer of Korean descent. And not because it almost won the National Book Award or was recommended by (ex-)President Obama; Pachinko is the only “Korean” book turned into an AppleTV series. And that a Korean-American is among the latest writers to ride the Hallyu should not be taken lightly. Both Pachinko and its author’s own identity and relationship to Korea showcase the complex dynamics of “double-orientalism” under which Korean culture is expanding globally.

Edward Said’s theory on Orientalism is now ubiquitous, and double/dual-orientalism is a further expansion of his groundbreaking anti-colonial discourse. In short, Orientalism refers to how Western intellectuals and cultural exchanges place non-Western societies and cultures in a generalized “Other.” The “Other” is simultaneously exotified and simplified, creating a sense of superiority amongst Westerners as they borrow and appropriate “exotic” and intriguing aspects from “primitive” cultures. However, even if Westerners are the original source of orientalism, they need not be its perpetrators. Double (or dual)-orientalism refers to the processes by which non-Western peoples orientalize themselves—or other non-Westerners—preserving cultural inequalities and inferiority complexes.

Throughout its history, Korea was victim to both kinds of orientalism; dual-orientalism was particularly prominent in the colonial period Pachinko is set in. J.K. Watson explains that Japan’s occupation was driven by ambitions to “Westernize” Asia and bring the Asian race to “equality with the West.” Japan considered itself the West’s equal, and consequently believed that it possessed a duty to bring the rest of Asia—starting with Korea—into “modernity” so that a Japanese-Asiatic empire could match those of Britain and France The orientalization of Korea was therefore not limited to the West, where the Joseon dynasty was known as the mysterious and backwards “Hermit Kingdom:” double-orientalism occurred as the Japanese considered Korean culture inferior not only by Western standards, but to Japan’s also, placing the “Korean other” below both Japan and the West “in the absolute ladder of civilization.” This led to persecution of Korean culture throughout the occupation: usage of Korean was discouraged and punished, and Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese names and customs in public. Pachinko, which focuses on the experience of Koreans in Japan from the early occupation to the 1980s, is filled with examples of this double-orientalism. Discrimination and prejudice by Japanese authorities and people against Koreans is rampant throughout the book, stemming from a societally-inculcated sense of superiority. Korean characters are frequently castigated as “primitive” and lazy, and the view that Japan has a “civilizing mission” to “uplift” Korean culture is frequently espoused by Japanese characters. The Korean Noa, finds himself a particularly harsh victim of this double-orientalism: an excellent student, his Japanese teachers praise him by deeming him exceptional, noting that Koreans “like” him will be needed to “advance” Korea. And beyond the blatant discrimination, Lee highlights the subtle ways orientalism shapes Koreans’ lives in Japan even without open prejudice. Noa realizes that his Japanese girlfriend Akiko is dating him only to rebel against her anti-Korean parents, turning him into an object of fetishization and exploitation. Lee shows that Koreans in Japan are accosted by orientalism at every turn, connecting even their victories and joys with the struggle to carve out their own identity.

And as Pachinko underscores the orientalism Koreans experience, so does its author and the Korean Wave that she has ridden. Pachinko itself has been an enormously successful novel, arguably the most successful novel ever written by someone of Korean descent. And while some, such as the aforementioned Han, have won international acclaim, the question remains why Lee, an immigrant to America, has had so much success compared to other non-diaspora Korean writers. While Pachinko is truly an incredible story of astonishing breadth, why has Lee—a Korean-American Yale and Georgetown Law alum —garnered so much critical and popular acclaim and had her novel adapted into an AppleTV+ show over the arguably equally-deserving Han and Cho? Why haven’t other respected Korean writers, like Lee Ki-ho or Hwang Sun-won, reached the same levels of popularity in the West? When contemplating this question, it seems undeniable that Lee’s identity as a Korean-American and upbringing within America play a role in the embracing of her work by the American and Western public.

And of course, there is significant double- and self-orientalism at work within the Korean Wave, and South Korea’s rise as a global economic and cultural power more broadly. K-pop and K-drama have received significant amounts of criticism for their self-fetishization, presenting Korean performers and artists in a light attractive to Western audiences in order to gain global popularity and grow fanbases outside of Korea. Indeed, an acquaintance of mine once said that she would want a Korean boyfriend that would “treat [her] the way they treat their girlfriends in K-dramas.” Essentially, society now dictates what it takes for me to be a good Korean boyfriend. Traits that Westerners consider both favorable and possessed by Koreans are purposefully cultivated to encourage Western consumption—a purposeful self-orientalizing of Korean bodies and art to suit foreign tastes. And South Korea’s economic ascendancy, which the Hallyu is part of, has also been commonly described by both foreign and Korean commentators as a “catching up” with Japan and the West. Korea is still seen through a “come from behind” lens, especially to its former colonizer, implicitly still placing Korean culture in a position of inferiority.

When I first read Pachinko, these deeper thoughts obviously weren’t striking me all at once; indeed, my first impression reading the novel was that it was a damn good book. But damn good books, especially by Korean authors, do force you to reckon with difficult concepts. As a Korean-American, I have had to reckon with how Asian diaspora members like myself must reckon with both the traditions of our fatherlands and the cultures of the societies we live in. Through A Gyopo Reads East, I hope to explore how peoples of the East may abandon the colonial frameworks that divide us and instead—like the Koreans of Pachinko—immerse ourselves in the struggle to embrace our identities with all their complexities.