Sunja’s Childhood and Her Affair with Hansu

Pachinko begins in 1910 in Yeongdo, a small fishing village near Busan, Korea, around the time Japan annexes the country. Hoonie, a gentle, hardworking man born with a cleft palate and twisted foot, helps run his family’s modest boardinghouse. He marries Yangjin, a young woman from a poor farming family. After losing three babies in infancy, they finally have a surviving daughter, Sunja, who becomes the center of Hoonie’s life.

When Sunja is thirteen, Hoonie dies of tuberculosis. Yangjin continues running the boardinghouse with Sunja’s help, assisted by two orphaned sisters, Bokhee and Dokhee.

In 1932, sixteen-year-old Sunja regularly shops at the Busan fish market. There she attracts the attention of Koh Hansu, a wealthy Korean seafood broker who lives in Osaka, Japan. Hansu first gains her trust by intervening when three Japanese schoolboys harass her. He begins courting her, giving her expensive gifts, including an imported silver pocket watch, and meeting her secretly along the coast.

Sunja falls in love with Hansu and becomes pregnant. Only then does he reveal that he already has a Japanese wife, Mieko, and three daughters in Osaka. He refuses to marry Sunja but offers to provide a house and financial support if she becomes his mistress. Deeply hurt, Sunja rejects his offer and cuts off contact with him.

Around this time, Baek Isak, a young Protestant minister traveling from Pyongyang to Osaka, arrives at the boardinghouse gravely ill with tuberculosis. Sunja and Yangjin nurse him back to health. When Isak learns about Sunja’s pregnancy, he offers to marry her and raise her unborn child as his own. Grateful for his kindness, Sunja accepts.

They marry quietly and leave for Japan. Before their departure, Yangjin uses her savings to buy white rice for their final meal together and gives Sunja two family gold rings. Sunja also secretly packs Hansu’s pocket watch in case she needs money.

Marriage, Poverty, and Isak’s Imprisonment

In 1933, Sunja and Isak arrive in Osaka, where they move in with Isak’s older brother, Yoseb, and his wife, Kyunghee. The couple lives in Ikaino, an impoverished Korean neighborhood where immigrants face discrimination and limited opportunities.

Isak begins working at a Korean church, while Yoseb supports the household through his factory job. Sunja soon discovers that Yoseb borrowed money from loan sharks to pay for their journey to Japan. To repay the debt, Sunja and Kyunghee secretly sell Hansu’s pocket watch to a pawnbroker. Yoseb is furious and humiliated when he discovers what they have done.

That same day, Sunja gives birth to Noa, Hansu’s biological son, whom Isak lovingly accepts as his own. Several years later, Sunja and Isak have another son, Mozasu.

In 1939, their lives are shattered when Hu, a young Chinese worker at Isak’s church, refuses to recite a pledge honoring the Japanese Emperor during a mandatory Shinto ceremony. Japanese authorities arrest Hu, the church’s senior pastor, and Isak. Isak spends more than two years imprisoned without trial.

With Isak gone, the family struggles financially. Sunja begins selling homemade kimchi at the train station, eventually joined by Kyunghee. Their food attracts the attention of Kim Changho, who manages a Korean barbecue restaurant. He offers both women jobs preparing kimchi and candy for the restaurant.

In 1942, Isak is finally released from prison, but he is terribly weak and dying. He spends his remaining days with his family, blessing his sons and urging Noa to study diligently, remain humble, and show compassion even toward his enemies. He dies shortly afterward, leaving Sunja a widow with two young children.

Hansu’s Secret Protection During World War II

As World War II intensifies, Hansu unexpectedly reappears in 1944. He reveals that he secretly owns the restaurant where Sunja and Kyunghee work, along with the moneylending business connected to it. Hansu explains that he tracked Sunja down eleven years earlier after she sold his silver pocket watch. Without her knowledge, he has been financing the business that supports her family.

Warning that American bombers will soon attack Osaka, Hansu arranges for Sunja, her children, Kyunghee, and Yoseb to evacuate to a sweet-potato farm operated by Tamaguchi-san. He also brings Yangjin from Korea so she can reunite with Sunja.

Yoseb, however, has taken a better-paying job supervising Korean workers at a factory in Nagasaki. When the atomic bomb strikes the city, he suffers devastating burns and injuries. Hansu’s men eventually locate him and bring him to the farm, where he remains severely disfigured and bedridden.

During a visit, Yoseb notices how closely Noa resembles Hansu. When confronted, Hansu admits that he is Noa’s biological father. Hansu also tells Yoseb that communist forces in North Korea have executed landowners, falsely claiming that Yoseb and Kyunghee’s parents are dead. He wants to discourage the family from attempting to return to Korea.

After Japan’s surrender, the family returns to Osaka and rebuilds their lives with Hansu’s financial assistance. Changho becomes part of the household and secretly falls in love with Kyunghee, although she remains devoted to her injured husband. Eventually, Changho joins a repatriation program to North Korea. Yoseb even offers to let Kyunghee leave with him, but she refuses.

Noa’s Education and Mozasu’s Pachinko Career

As the boys grow older, their personalities become increasingly different. Noa is quiet, intelligent, and academically gifted. He wants to succeed through education and become a respectable member of Japanese society. Mozasu, on the other hand, dislikes school, fights with boys who insult his Korean heritage, and struggles academically.

Mozasu befriends Haruki Totoyama, a Japanese boy whose mother runs a uniform-making workshop. In 1955, after Mozasu gets into trouble for defending a girl selling socks at the market, Goro, a successful Korean pachinko parlor owner, intervenes and offers him a job.

Mozasu leaves school and discovers that he has a talent for the pachinko business. He works hard and gradually becomes a successful manager.

Noa takes a different path. In 1956, he earns admission to prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo. Sunja cannot afford the tuition, so she visits Hansu, who agrees to pay for Noa’s education and living expenses. Sunja insists on treating the money as a loan, but Hansu privately refuses because he considers it his responsibility to provide for his son.

At university, Noa studies English literature and successfully passes as Japanese. He begins dating Akiko Fumeki, a wealthy Japanese student who takes an intense interest in his Korean background.

In 1962, Akiko unexpectedly joins Noa for one of his regular lunches with Hansu. Afterward, she suggests that Hansu is connected to the yakuza and may actually be Noa’s father.

Shocked, Noa travels to Osaka and confronts Sunja. She finally admits that Hansu is his biological father and that Isak knowingly married her while she was pregnant.

The revelation devastates Noa. He believes Hansu’s criminal associations have permanently tainted him and accuses Sunja of ruining his life. Unable to reconcile his identity with the truth about his parentage, he drops out of university and disappears, cutting off contact with everyone he knows.

Noa Disappears and Builds a Secret Japanese Life

Unknown to his family, Noa moves to Nagano and assumes the Japanese name Nobuo Ban. He claims his parents are dead and takes a bookkeeping job at a pachinko business called Cosmos Pachinko.

In 1969, he marries Risa Iwamura, a Japanese woman whose father, a doctor, committed suicide following a medical scandal. They eventually have four children. Neither Risa nor their children know that Noa is Korean.

Back in Osaka, Sunja desperately searches for her missing son. Even Hansu cannot initially locate him. Although Noa secretly sends Sunja money each month, he never reveals where he lives.

Meanwhile, Mozasu marries Yumi, a Korean seamstress who works for Haruki’s mother. In 1968, they have a son named Solomon.

Three years later, tragedy strikes when a taxi swerves onto a sidewalk. Yumi pushes three-year-old Solomon out of its path but is struck and killed herself.

Devastated, Mozasu asks Sunja to help raise Solomon. The family moves to Yokohama as Mozasu continues expanding his pachinko business.

Sunja Finds Noa, but Their Reunion Ends in Suicide

In 1978, Hansu’s private investigators finally locate Noa in Nagano. Hansu drives Sunja there so she can see the son she has spent sixteen years searching for.

Sunja approaches Noa at his workplace. He speaks politely but explains that he has built an entirely new life. He is now legally Japanese, and his wife, children, and employer believe he is Japanese by birth. If his Korean background becomes known, he fears losing everything.

Noa promises to call Sunja that evening and visit her in Yokohama the following week. She leaves hoping that they might finally reconnect.

But just minutes after Sunja leaves, Noa sits at his office desk and shoots himself.

The following morning, Hansu calls Sunja and tells her that Noa has committed suicide. She is devastated but deliberately stays away from his funeral. Attending would risk exposing his Korean identity to Risa and their children, destroying the secret he had worked so hard to protect.

Sunja continues grieving Noa for the rest of her life, privately speaking to him in her thoughts and prayers whenever she visits Isak’s grave.

More losses follow. Yoseb dies in 1979, and Sunja returns to Osaka to care for her dying mother, Yangjin. During her final days, Yangjin bitterly blames Sunja’s youthful relationship with Hansu for the suffering that followed, particularly Noa’s fate. Sunja tearfully asks her mother’s forgiveness before Yangjin dies.

At Yangjin’s funeral, Hansu approaches Sunja again. He is now widowed, ill, and walking with a cane. He asks Sunja to marry him, but she firmly refuses.

Solomon’s Childhood, Hana, and His Banking Career

While Sunja mourns her family, her grandson Solomon grows up in the relative comfort created by Mozasu’s successful pachinko business.

As a teenager, Solomon becomes sexually involved with Hana, the rebellious daughter of Mozasu’s Japanese girlfriend, Etsuko. Their relationship begins when Solomon is fifteen, but Hana eventually runs away from home and enters Tokyo’s nightlife and sex trade.

During this period, Hana contracts HIV from a Japanese customer who owns an old trading company and later dies. Her life becomes increasingly difficult as her illness progresses.

Solomon, meanwhile, follows a more conventional path toward success. He attends Columbia University in New York and, after graduating in 1985, joins Travis Brothers, an international investment bank. He also begins dating Phoebe, a wealthy Korean-American woman.

While Solomon is in New York, Hana calls him, sounding sick and desperate. Despite their separation, she remains an important part of his life.

By 1989, Solomon has transferred to the bank’s Tokyo office, where he works under Kazu, a Japanese managing director. Solomon hopes that his prestigious education and international banking career will finally allow him to succeed in Japanese society without being judged primarily by his Korean heritage.

Kazu assigns him an important real estate transaction involving a Japanese golf course client. The deal depends on purchasing land owned by Matsuda-san, a ninety-three-year-old Korean woman who refuses to sell to Japanese buyers.

Solomon devises a solution. He asks Goro, his father’s longtime friend and former employer, to act as an intermediary. Matsuda-san agrees to sell the land to Goro, who will then resell it to the bank’s client.

The arrangement initially succeeds, but shortly after signing the contract, Matsuda-san dies of a heart attack. The client becomes nervous about the timing of her death and fears accusations that she was pressured into selling.

The client cancels the transaction, and Kazu fires Solomon to protect the bank. He suggests that Goro or his possible yakuza connections may have been involved in coercing Matsuda-san, even though there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Solomon loses the career he believed would secure his place in Japanese society.

Hana’s Death and Solomon’s Decision

Around the same time, Hana is dying of AIDS in a Tokyo hospital. Solomon visits her regularly during her final days.

Hana tells Solomon that no matter how successful or educated he becomes, Japanese society will continue treating him as a foreigner, or gaijin. She urges him to stop seeking approval from people who will never fully accept him and instead consider joining Mozasu’s pachinko business.

Hana dies shortly afterward.

Solomon’s relationship with Phoebe also falls apart. She refuses to remain in Japan, where she would face discrimination, and she does not support his decision to enter the pachinko industry. She breaks up with him and returns to America.

Having lost his banking career, Hana, and Phoebe, Solomon decides to join his father in managing the family’s pachinko business. Rather than continuing to pursue acceptance in the corporate world, he chooses to work in the industry that has supported his family for decades.

Sunja’s Final Visit to Isak’s Grave

The novel concludes with Sunja visiting Isak’s grave in Osaka.

At the cemetery, she meets Uchida-san, the groundskeeper, who recognizes her and reveals something astonishing about Noa.

For fifteen years, beginning in 1963 and continuing until his death in 1978, Noa secretly visited Isak’s grave on the last Thursday of every month. During those visits, he befriended Uchida, encouraged him to read, and gave him translated novels by Charles Dickens.

Sunja had believed Noa had completely abandoned his family after discovering the truth about Hansu. Now she learns that he continued visiting and honoring Isak, the man who raised him, throughout his years in hiding.

Overcome with emotion, Sunja takes out a small photograph of Noa attached to her key ring. Using her bare hands, she digs a hole beside Isak’s marble tombstone and buries the photograph there.

After years of separation, secrecy, and loss, Sunja leaves Noa’s photograph beside the grave of the father he never stopped loving.