Previous
Yoseb Baek
Kyunghee is Yoseb’s wife, classically beautiful and “tenderhearted to a fault.” To her ongoing sorrow, she is unable to have children, but she pours her energy into making a comfortable home amidst the squalor of Ikaino, Osaka’s Korean ghetto. When Isak brings his bride to Osaka, Kyunghee and Sunja quickly develop a lifelong sisterly bond. Though Yoseb has always forbidden his yangban wife from working outside the home, she cooks kimchi and other confections for a food cart which Sunja runs in the Ikaino market. Later, both women work as cooks in Kim Changho’s restaurant. After the war, Kyunghee faithfully nurses the injured Yoseb and later cares for a dying Yangjin. Changho falls in love with Kyunghee, and Yoseb gives his permission for them to marry after he is dead, but Kyunghee refuses.
Kyunghee Baek Quotes in Pachinko
The Pachinko quotes below are all either spoken by Kyunghee Baek or refer to Kyunghee Baek. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 3, Chapter 12
Quotes
“Go-saeng,” Yangjin said out loud. “A woman’s lot is to suffer.”
“Yes, go-saeng.” Kyunghee nodded, repeating the word for suffering.
All her life, Sunja had heard this sentiment from other women, that they must suffer—suffer as a girl, suffer as a wife, suffer as a mother, die suffering. Go-saeng—the word made her sick. What else was there besides this? She had suffered to create a better life for Noa, and yet it was not enough. Should she have taught her son to suffer the humiliation that she’d drunk like water? In the end, he had refused to suffer the conditions of his birth.
[…]
Noa had been a sensitive child who had believed that if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe in such cruel ideals.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Pachinko LitChart as a printable PDF.
Kyunghee Baek Quotes in Pachinko
The Pachinko quotes below are all either spoken by Kyunghee Baek or refer to Kyunghee Baek. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 3, Chapter 12
Quotes
“Go-saeng,” Yangjin said out loud. “A woman’s lot is to suffer.”
“Yes, go-saeng.” Kyunghee nodded, repeating the word for suffering.
All her life, Sunja had heard this sentiment from other women, that they must suffer—suffer as a girl, suffer as a wife, suffer as a mother, die suffering. Go-saeng—the word made her sick. What else was there besides this? She had suffered to create a better life for Noa, and yet it was not enough. Should she have taught her son to suffer the humiliation that she’d drunk like water? In the end, he had refused to suffer the conditions of his birth.
[…]
Noa had been a sensitive child who had believed that if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe in such cruel ideals.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
