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Book 3, Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pachinko, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Family
Imperialism, Resistance, and Compromise
Identity, Blood, and Contamination
Love, Motherhood, and Women’s Choices
Summary
Analysis
Solomon regularly plays poker with his boss, Kazu, and some other guys from work. One night after a game, Kazu has a talk with Solomon, telling him it was dumb to have lost the game on purpose. He explains that in life, there’s a tax on success and a tax on doing badly, but the worst is the tax on the mediocre, on playing it safe, which is heavier than one would think.
Solomon doesn’t know where Kazu is going with his speech, but he seems to be taking a special interest in Solomon and to want to encourage him not to shy from risks or avoid standing out.
Themes
Kazu goes on to explain to Solomon that there’s nothing worse than knowing you’re just like everybody else, but this is what most Japanese want. Solomon realizes this is true; his uncle Noa had “killed himself because he wanted to be Japanese and normal.” Kazu tells Solomon he shouldn’t worry if other guys get on his case about his father’s pachinko business. Solomon defends his father as “not some gangster,” but “an ordinary businessman.” Solomon tells him he doesn’t have to explain; anyway, it’s not as if most Koreans had much choice in their profession, given Japanese injustices. As Solomon catches a cab home, he wonders why Kazu is so worked up about this.
Kazu, who’s Japanese, tells Solomon that Japanese culture is conformist, but that everyone knows Solomon is a wealthy Korean with pachinko connections, and he shouldn’t try to resist that. Solomon, who’d never known Noa, grew up with the story that Noa had committed suicide because he could never blend in. At the same time, he sincerely wants to defend his father as “ordinary,” too. Kazu doesn’t buy this, believing that a family as successful as Solomon’s would have had to achieve something unusual. Even Kazu implicitly looks down on pachinko. However, he’s encouraging Solomon to own his uniqueness and not try to be just like his coworkers; mediocrity won’t get him ahead. Solomon, who’s had a fairly smooth and privileged path overall and hasn’t faced overt prejudice in the same way his dad and grandparents did, doesn’t quite see what his boss is getting at.
Themes
Next week, Solomon is the youngest guy who’s put on a major real estate transaction to build a golf course in Yokohama. At the meeting, the client explains that all that’s left is to get three remaining landowners to sign on. The last of these is an old woman who won’t be bought out. After the meeting, Kazu asks Solomon to go for a drive with him. They drive to the woman’s house and sit outside. Kazu asks, “So how do you get a person to do what you want when she doesn’t want to?”
Kazu obviously wants something from Solomon in this deal and is offering him a chance to distinguish himself. The old woman who refuses to be bought out is reminiscent of a young Sunja, who refused to be “bought” by Hansu and whose will was only moveable when it came to protecting the ones she loved.
Themes
