Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

The book is great but the English translation butchered the authors voice and tone. Some parts read like Google translate results. There are awkward words used in place of the original Korean term to force the narrative to fit in an American cultural audience. These awkward terms are a disservice to the Korean culture that this narrative is set in. The translator took inappropriate liberties to use verbiage that detracts from the original authors voice. Disappointing, because the subject matter is relevant to America but also a window into Korean womanhood. The narrative is so poignantly written by the author to capture gender equality in the Korean culture but the English translator did the author a horrible disservice with the flippant use of ridiculous English vocabulary.

I think this book is worth your time. But I think it is also worth tempering your expectations against the way the book has been advertised, especially in its English translation. For example, according to the inside of the hardcover dust jacket this is presented as the story of a thirtysomething millenial everywoman at the center of our global #MeToo movement. I want to gently push back on this marketing copy as I think the novel and the characters rise above that of archetype and stereotype.

There can be something flattening about how the everyday indignity of sexism and discrimination is unintentionally smoothed over when described as universal. When discrimination happens to you, what can be so shattering is how excruciatingly individual and direct that pain can feel; how hard it can be to put what just specifically happened to you into words, let alone speak of it to others; finally, it is astonishing how difficult it can be for others to truly understand in a meaningful way what you, as an individual, went through: This is the experience that Cho Nam-Joo attempts to capture in this novel and one I feel the author succeeds in doing.

You are never left in doubt that this is a novel about Kim Jiyoung, and as you read, you will be told more about her older sister Kim Eunyoung, her mother Oh Misook, her grandmother Koh Boonsoon, and more. The circle of women in her life shape and inform, guide and restrict, challenge and sometimes even seem to possess her as their lives unfold and fold into each others. This is not a novel full of exquisite prose and brutal interiority that delves deep into the stream-of-consciousness of our central character. It is not slow or meditative. It is a blunt book. The narrative does not dawdle and is structured to move quickly across several periods of Kim Ji Youngs life labelled childhood, early adulthood, and (tellingly) marriage.

In the English translation by Jamie Chang, the plot of the novel carries an urgency and reads as taut like a spring, uncoiling as you read it. The story presents a steady, ceaseless stream of individual, highly personal episodic events from Kim Ji Youngs life as well as the other women in her life: Moments where their status as a woman was used by others to truncate a dream, bring them fear, make them uncertain, to be imposed on them by another as a way to reduce their ambitions or their agency. These moments begin in slow waves at first. And at a certain point, the narrator even begins to cite statistics from the likes of the Economist, or the Ministry of Labor, or Statistics Korea at the end of a narrative event, in the same manner as one might add an underscore or italics for emphasis. By the end, these moments arrive almost ceaselessly, one after the other. I certainly felt overwhelmed as a reader.

At 163 pages, I was able to finish the slim, hardcover version in a single sitting, on a quiet Friday. The ending of the novel, which I leave for you to discover, made me feel more acutely than ever the challenges we have in lasting empathy or understanding. The novel shows how easy it is, for anecdotes or accounts of suffering to induce a moment of clarity, and empathy, to bemoan the circumstances. It also shows how easy it is to revert to the mean, to proscribe a platitude, to once more slip into a norm of everyday inequity. I found this book to be a source of many good conversations, and an opportunity to discuss our individual experiences, and made me hope for more lasting awareness of our capacity to discriminate unintentional or not but also our ability to be better.

This book was a real eye-opener as to how far equality for women still has to go. Thankfully I live in America where, while nowhere near perfect and not as far along as it should be, the gender gap is much closer than in many other countries, especially Asian countries. An informative look at how culturally diverse and yet how alike we are around the world. S great book for wine’s studies. Women most often do get short-changed for no other reason than because we are women. We have to work twice as hard, if not more, than men for less than the same rate of pay. We have to carry, bear and tend the children and yet women are vilified for wanting to choose when, or if, they have them (not to excuse our actions or to advocate for or against certain options). We have to endure obnoxious and offensive behavior from men who are so self-centered they can only think of how our protesting and reporting will affect them, nevermind us. Thankfully there were many brave and determined women who came before who put in the most arduous work to obtain results that we 21st century American women are blessed to enjoy. There is much more to be done, but we’ve come a long way. Be appreciative as respectful towards all women; we wouldn’t be here without them. And, fyi, feminist does not equal man hater.

Born in 1982 is not much different than had she been born in the US in 1962. But we were told, over and over again we could have it all: a meaningful career, a marriage, a family. 48 years later, women still get paid less, work the double shift of employment and housework, are more likely to stay at home with sick kids, and find themselves exhausted. Women still have to deal with men who get handsy and more so, Weinsteins defense attorney loudly blamed the survivors for being raped. I think more men understand of what women speak but a lot of days I find myself not missing the all too constant sexist nonsense when I was working. I feel for Korean women that they are so devalued and that those women who help perpetuate it by swaddling their sons and husbands.

You don’t have to be a female in Korea to relate this this story. It’s a quick read, but it packs a lot of material in those pages. The author does a great job of making you feel the “death by a thousand paper cuts” sexism that women (not just in Korea) have to deal with on a daily basis. The twist at the end really drove the point home. I strongly recommend people everywhere read this book.

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