Pachinko: Book 2, Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

In the aftermath of the Nagasaki bombing, Yoseb is struck and horribly burned by a falling wall from a nearby building. Hansu’s men finally track him down in the hospital and bring him to Tamaguchi’s farm on an American military truck. Kyunghee drops to her knees beside Yoseb’s stretcher when she sees his terrible condition, and everyone cries. Hansu gives her bandages and pain medicine with instructions on nursing him. Yoseb “had done everything he could for his family—this had happened to him because he had gone to work.”

Yoseb suffers, and he’s in too much pain to contribute to the work on the farm. One day Hansu visits and finds Yoseb resting alone in the barn. Yoseb asks him, “You’re the father of the boy, aren’t you? […] That’s why you do all this.” He’s observed that, although Noa has all of Isak’s mannerisms, his face resembles Hansu’s. Yoseb tells Hansu that it’s wrong for him to be around Noa, when Isak has already given Noa a name. He hates Hansu, with “his unchecked confidence, reeking of a devilish invulnerability.”

Yoseb tells Hansu that they’ll pay him back for everything he’s done and that they’ll return to Korea. Hansu tells him that Japan will never pay him for his work, that the Japanese are “pathologically intractable” in these matters, and that there’s nothing left for them in Korea—“you’re living for a dream of a home that no longer exists.” He also tells Yoseb that both his and Kyunghee’s parents have been shot by the Communists, but it’s actually a lie—he hasn’t bothered taking the risk of tracking them down, because “he didn’t see how their lives could be useful for his purposes.” He knows Sunja might follow her brother- and sister-in-law back to Korea out of a sense of duty, given the chance.

When Hansu coldly tells Sunja about the alleged fate of Yoseb’s and Kyunghee’s parents, Sunja finds him cruel and thinks that as she gets to know him, she realizes “that the man she’d loved as a girl was an idea she’d had of him—feelings without any verification.” Hansu says that since they can’t return to Korea, they need to start thinking about the boys’ education; he’ll pay for both to prepare for and attend Japanese universities. Sunja feels ashamed and powerless in her life, but Hansu tells her that refusing his help at this point is selfish, as she should be seeking every advantage for her sons.