Risk, luck, crime, and hope are interwoven themes in Min Jin Lee’s novel, Pachinko. This presentation describes the unsettling connection between Pachinko, a game of chance, to the yakuza, a criminal world. Pachinko follows the story of a Sunja, a woman living through drastic change in East Asia in the 20th century. Sunja faces many hardships as she lives through World War II and political acrimony in Korea. Sunja became pregnant as a teenager with a man named Koh Hansu. Throughout the novel, she and her family receive financial support from mysterious and shady businessman, Koh Hansu.
Koh Hansu financially controls the family throughout the novel, leaving Sunja to speculate on how he obtains his wealth, “Hansu owned many properties in Osaka. How did he do that? she wondered” (Lee 136). Koh Hansu also owns a restaurant in Osaka where Sunja was employed for part of the novel. Hansu hired a man, Mr. Kim, to manage the restaurant and instructed him to hire Sunja to make kimchi. When a main ingredient in kimchi, cabbage, is scarce, Mr. Kim assures Sunja that he can obtain the vegetable, “I’m looking for some women to make all the kimchi and bandchan for the restaurant. I can get you cabbage” (Lee 215). Sunja believes the availability of ingredients is luck and that she is employed because of her skill as a chef, but it is Hansu that gets her the job. Hansu’s ability to find Sunja and obtain black market cabbage is an indication of his power within the city.
While not explicitly stated in the novel, Hansu’s suspicious behavior leads the audience to believe that he is involved with the yakuza.
Later in the novel, Sunja’s grandson, Solomon, is fired from his consulting position because of his father’s ownership of multiple Pachinko parlors. Solomon was hired to broker a real estate deal between one of his company’s clients and an elderly Korean woman selling her home. The woman had been reluctant to sell her property to the company’s client because the client was Japanese. Solomon brought in one of his father’s Korean business partners, Goro, to buy the property from the woman and resell it to the client. When the woman dies shortly following the sale to Goro, the client assumes the worst and backs out of the deal because of Goro’s connection to the Pachinko industry. Goro, surprised at this accusation, claims he had no part in her death. Solomon loses his job because of perceived suspicious circumstances.
This exhibit describes connection between organized crime in Japan and the Pachinko industry. Many aspects of the Pachinko industry could be considered gambling and an opportunity for organized crime to maintain power and control. The game of Pachinko and its connection to organized crime is a metaphor for life and the mysterious forces that control fate.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy my exhibit.