This review is based on the Simplified Chinese translation《82年生的金智英》(2019).
Cho Nam-joo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 feels harrowingly real — so much that, at times, I wondered if Cho had somehow crept into my life and made a story of it.
The novel’s characters aren’t real people, of course. The realism of Kim Jiyoung’s life comes less from three-dimensional characters and more from the parts of my own life they seem to reflect. I wouldn’t be able to tell you, in any given situation, what a specific character would do and how that made them unique, but the real power behind Cho’s characters is that she notices and creates wonderfully detailed molds of stereotypical roles: the mother, the father, the daughters, the son.
“It’s just a story,” some might say. “It’s fiction.” But it’s not. Cho makes that abundantly clear through concise and pertinent statistics, sprinkled throughout like a dose of realism for the non-believers. Those statistics multiply Kim Jiyoung, over and over again: these women, these stories — these lives — have happened millions of times. They are happening now.
In simple, unembellished language, Cho gives us first the tale of Jiyoung’s mother, who was forced to work in a factory to pay for her brother’s education and ensured her husband’s financial success to finance her children’s schooling. At one point, Jiyoung’s mother tells her, “I wanted to be a teacher, once.” Jiyoung is shocked into laughter — not because her mother wouldn’t make a good teacher, but because it’s difficult to believe she had ever existed as anything but Jiyoung’s mother. I had a near-identical conversation with my mother when I was around the same age Jiyoung had been, and the explanation that followed was almost exactly the same, too: both her mother and mine put aside dreams and career goals to finance a brother’s schooling. Both tossed aside their dreams after having children, having to finance their educations instead.
Later, Jiyoung experiences severe cramps at the turn of puberty. Her sister fills a hot water bottle for her, all the while condemning the lack of menstrual cramp-specific painkillers: “We cure cancer and perform heart transplants in this day and age, but there’s no medicine specifically for period cramps? What a world we live in.” Her spiel is almost an exact replica of what my secondary school math tutor said to me when I showed up to class twenty minutes late and riddled with cramps. Buscopan was the best painkiller for cramps, she told me; it worked for both herself and her daughter. It didn’t work for me, though. “Medications don’t work the same way for everyone,” she sighed. “But this is the best we’ve got.”
Kim Jiyoung’s experiences with stalking and harassment hit closest to home. In 2017, at the height of #MeToo, I was introduced to someone who worked in an industry well-known for power struggles and sexual harassment. Upon first meeting me, he said to my senior, “Another girl? We’ll have to be careful.” Then, he turned to me. “You know, these days, we can’t do or say anything.” Instantly, it occurred to me to speak up and say something like, Is being asked not to harass and assault women such a big issue? or What were you going to do that #MeToo would stand in your way? Something along the lines of what Jiyoung would have thought. Like Kim Jiyoung, though, I held my tongue.
What he said bothered me for years, and it was only recently that I realized why: in placing me in that conversation, he’d made me complicit. “You know,” he’d said to me, like this was friendly small talk. “You know,” he’d said, like I’d understand, like I had no reason to disagree with him. Like I was a part of it. And the worst part was I had stayed silent and smiled.
The specifics of Kim Jiyoung’s life — her relationship with her boyfriend, her work-related frustrations, her personal joys and pet peeves — are glossed over in favor of these universal details. For the faceless Kim Jiyoung, these moments make up her whole life. For us, who see our own lives reflected in Kim Jiyoung’s, they magnify and reappear before our eyes. How could I have forgotten? It happened to me, too. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but it really was.
Kim Jiyoung doesn’t discuss race, colorism, sexuality, or religion. It only touches on class briefly to mention the importance of upwards social mobility. Nor does it really delve into the consequences of societal misogyny. Since the characters aren’t fleshed-out characters in their own right, they don’t rage or despair or resent. We see only what happens at a very surface level: they do, accept, and adapt. Cho doesn’t explore a solution to the devaluation of domestic labor, for instance, nor the relationship between misogyny and other hierarchies. An example: in Hong Kong, long working hours mean domestic labor is often outsourced to foreign workers, perpetuating oppressions of class, race, and global economic inequality. And gender, of course — most foreign domestic workers are women. Naturally, this creates contrasting ripples in countries where women working abroad are the breadwinners, and so on.
But Kim Jiyoung’s lack of intersectional approach doesn’t water down its message. At its core, it’s a book about remembrance as power. The path to power, it tells us, doesn’t lie in simply having a voice, but in having something to say. Instead of brushing these moments and feelings aside, hold them. Acknowledge them, and remember them. Listen. And then, we will be ready to speak.
It’s worth noting that Kim Jiyoung almost always chooses silence when faced with sexism: she bites back her remarks to her colleagues, to her doctor, to strangers who make snide comments. We find feminist triumph in other characters instead: in Jiyoung’s mother, who (rightfully) claims 70% of her father’s success; in her sister, who rants about the lack of period-specific painkillers; in her classmates, who speak up against authority and drive away a sexual harasser; in her colleague, who reports a pinhole camera found in the office bathrooms. Her mental illness manifests as split personalities, where she speaks up for herself as different women in her life. Even in the throes of female hysteria, she gives herself no voice. This indirectness is part of what makes Kim Jiyoung feel more real: that these acts of defiance are visible and tangible but never quite doable, not for us ordinary people.
Yet such an interpretation seems to unfairly paint over what Kim Jiyoung achieves, because Jiyoung does speak up. She tells her husband how she feels, as well as her therapist — and she tells us, through words on a page. In her world, words hold power. They ripple. The indignance she feels and puts a name to in her mind, and the bold defiance of the women around her, leads her to speak up to millions of readers. The question is, now: when will we choose to speak up?
* All book quotes were loosely interpreted from the Chinese translation.
Related reading I also enjoyed:
- Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Noble
- Big River, Big Sea — Untold Stories of 1949 by Lung Ying-tai
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay
