Week 9: Akiko

         I think that the passage provided (the second one) offers a lot of insight into how nationality is something inescapable for the characters of Pachinko. Noa has one desire in his whole life: not to be Japanese or Korean, but to become someone beyond those labels entirely. His relationship with Akiko kind of represents how his desire to separate himself through his academic excellence, professionalism, and intelligence, has ironically placed him in the exact position he wanted to avoid. Noa's constant drive for success is his attempt, from an early age, to become Japanese. The story describes this: "the boy wanted to be Japanese" (176). When Noa reaches this goal, at Waseda, he finds Akiko. She instills in Noa the idea that no matter how successful he is, no matter what he does or who he becomes, that he is still Korean and many Japanese people will still see him that way. He won't be the stereotypical Korean, the impoverished and lower people; instead, he will be seen as the exception, as a model minority of sorts. It pushes Noa away from wanting to be Japanese, leaving him wanting to be removed from labels all together. Colonialism makes individuality impossible for people like Noa. If they succeed, they will find themselves being condescended everywhere. If they don't, they will be pointed to as an example of their people's 'worst traits'.

    Compared to Hansu and Sunja, Noa and Akiko's relationship seems to be more romantic and conventional, at first. It gives the impression that Noa may have gotten what he finally wanted- a sort of figurative way of reaching the status of Japanese. However, Akiko slowly becomes more and more fixated on Noa's nationality. Her love is shallow, even down to her being overly physical. She also shows little care for Noa's feelings. Their relationship, ironically, has a lot less love then Hansu and Sunja's.

Comments

  1. Monique Cov.March 10, 2023 at 11:38 AM

    Hey Jalen! I think your analysis of Noa is quite reflective and insightful. I didn't quite connect the role of colonialism to Noa's desires to be successful until I read your post. As much as Noa wants to succeed he realizes that there is really no way for him to really succeed because the Japanese don't seem to be changing their minds about how Koreans are and just call him the exception to a bad race. And if he fails he will just be seen in the negative as just another Korean. Those are some great connection between Sunja and Hansu and Noa and Akiko.

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  2. HeatherLMarch 12, 2023 at 11:29 AM

    Hey Jalen! I liked your insights on Akiko's motivation to data Noa. I wonder if Noa exhibits some of these same qualities in reverse. Does he data Akiko partly because she is Japanese, and their relationship casts him as a more 'assimilated', 'other', Korean? If so, it seems like both people use their partner's identity to validate themselves in some way, which unsurprising contributes to the toxicity of their relationship.

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  3. CassiMarch 12, 2023 at 1:01 PM

    Hi Jalen! I really liked reading your insights in this post, I particularly enjoyed the part where you connected Akiko's view of Noa to the concept of the "model minority." I know this is a crisis we have been speaking on a lot more recently in our society, so it was really interesting to see how this connected to Pachinko as well. Great post!

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  4. Gema Sanchez GamezMarch 12, 2023 at 7:06 PM

    Hi Jalen, I think this analysis is really interesting! Since Noa went into a romantic relationship with the agenda of becoming Japanese, he seems to have ended up both without love and without the status he wanted. I also think it's important that you contrasted Noa's relationship with Hansu and Sunja's relationship. While Noa and Akiko's relationship would be more socially acceptable than his mother's relationship with Hansu, it does seem like the relationship benefitted Sunja more.

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