“Sunja, a woman’s life is an unending series of painful experiences. Hardship upon hardship, that’s what being a woman means. You should brace yourself. Now that you’ve become a woman, you need to know this. You must always work. No one is going to take care of a poor woman. We can only rely on ourselves.”

Sunja, the protagonist of “Pachinko,” is a living testament of the Korean diaspora. Her “woman’s life” is a microcosm of our Korean history, marked by its many ups and downs. In an interview, Min Jin Lee touched our hearts by saying, “I believe we’ve lived heroically, tragically, romantically, and through so much suffering. And I think that’s made us strong.” Korean women are resilient.

women, hardship, resilience