Must Read Books If You Are Traveling to Asia this Summer
I started my own Asian American Book Club in Los Angeles in 2019 to support Asian American writers. What I didn’t expect was the gift it gave me when I traveled to Korea and Japan this spring. As a Korean American writer and debut novelist, I wanted to encourage people to read female diasporic writers and a friend of mine encouraged me to start a book club. I’m happy to say it’s grown to over fifty women — mostly Asian American woman in our 40s to 60s — and we’ve read almost twenty books by female (and a few male) Asian authors.
Recently, our book club branched out to reading female Asian writers in translation. One member of my book club told me she was also in a Korean book club and read Korean language books, some of which have been translated into English. That gave me the idea to suggest two translated titles to my book club, and I read them while on my recent trip to Asia. These books are Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo and Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a novel about a young, millennial Korean “everywoman” who begins to impersonate the voices of other women after quitting her job to care for her infant daughter, structured as a narrative told to a psychiatrist. Convenience Store Woman is about an unusual Japanese woman who works as a clerk at a convenience store in Tokyo and feels pressured to pursue a career and marry. But when she takes steps to please the people around her instead of herself, her life takes a dark turn. Both of these novels are largely autobiographical and commentaries on the life of a modern woman in Korea and Japan.
My book club discussed these books this past week, and we were disheartened to read that patriarchy still exists the way it does in modern day Seoul, and how conformist Japanese society is when it comes to gender roles. The books explored themes of gender bias, motherhood, career, and emotional resiliency, which are surprisingly timely and relevant even in our own country. Because they shed light on contemporary women living in Korea and Japan, we couldn’t help but compare these characters’ lives with ours in America. Despite all our country’s problems, I think we all agreed that we are grateful we live here. But we also saw that women face similar issues wherever we live.
Reading these books while I was visiting Korea and Japan, I realize there’s still a lot to be done in the area of gender equality. Even though I was born in Seoul and lived there until I was seven, and I spoke to family and friends who live in Kyoto now, I know very little about what women experience in those countries on a daily basis. Reading these books helped me gain a deeper understanding of the Korean and Japanese way of life, especially how women still face economic, political and societal obstacles while navigating their personal and professional lives today.
One scene in each book helped me see the common message: that we could all do our part to try to make women’s lives better. For example, a scandal erupted at Kim Jiyoung’s old marketing company where male workers planted cameras in women’s bathrooms and distributed the photos. The victims reported the abuse, and the men were investigated. Keiko, the protagonist in Convenience Store Woman, did what society expected of her by living with a man, but in the end fought back when he insisted that she find a different job, and left him.
We live in a world where there are still many conflicting expectations of women. By reading these books, I was reminded that taking action against unfair treatment, small or big, could change things. It empowered me to discover what I could do to help raise awareness of women’s issues right here at home.
Perhaps it was starting this book club that was the impetus of change for me. I am encouraged by members who say they are reading more books than ever, as a result of participating in my book club. And I am growing by seeing characters that look and feel like me, and connecting with other women who see themselves in these books too.
I highly recommend reading these novels in translation if you plan to travel to Korea or Japan. Exploring these countries while reading books about the people who inhabit them, has broadened my understanding of others, as well as myself. This is especially true as we commemorate AANHPI Month, but I’m glad our book club gets to celebrate all year long. We always have great food to go along with the themes of what we’re reading, and we look forward to our next title.
