Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: A Novel

Jiyoung is born in Seoul in 1982. She has an older sister and will eventually have a younger brother. They live in a small house with her mother, father, and paternal grandmother.

Jiyoung’s earliest memory is of her mother, Oh Misook, giving her sips of her brother’s baby formula. Jiyoung’s grandmother Koh Boonsoon scolds and hits her if she catches her sneaking formula. Jiyoung and her sister understand the implication of their grandmother’s disapproval: They are stealing from her grandson. Jiyoung’s brother always receives preferential treatment. She doesn’t find this strange because it has always been this way.

Jiyoung’s father was the third of four brothers. His mother worked many jobs to provide for her family; his father never worked. Jiyoung’s father is the only one of his brothers to care for his mother in her old age. Koh Boonsoon concludes that at least four sons are required to ensure a mother’s late-in-life security.

Koh Boonsoon stressed the importance of having boys to her daughter-in-law. When Oh Misook’s first two children were girls, Koh Boonsoon assured her that the next would be a boy.

When Oh Misook was pregnant with her third child, she was despondent upon learning that it was a girl. South Korea’s government at the time enforced a population control policy called “family planning” that increased the desirability of male babies. Oh Misook secretly decided to have an abortion, which pained her. The female abortion doctor consoled her after the procedure. Five years later, she gave birth to a boy.

The family’s home is overcrowded and Oh Misook takes on a series of jobs to save for an eventual move. Her primary occupation is rolling weather strips, a difficult and repetitive task that gives off noxious fumes. One day, Father scolds her for doing the work around the children and Oh Misook immediately quits. She enrolls in a hairdressing course and then establishes a successful small hair salon in the house.

Oh Misook was born on a rice paddy. After elementary school, she was sent to work in a Seoul factory with her sister. They worked long hours in a dangerous environment for low wages. Their income was used to send their two older brothers to college. One brother became a doctor and the other a police officer. Oh Misook eventually earned a high school certificate.

Jiyoung learns that her mother had wanted to be a teacher. She asks Mother why she doesn’t become a teacher now. Mother explains that she is too busy working to provide for the children. Jiyoung has the sense that she is holding her mother back.

Jiyoung attends a large elementary school where her older sister looks out for her. She is upset at how her male deskmate treats her. The deskmate hits her, teases her, and steals from her—a common experience euphemized as “pranks.” One day in class, he kicks Jiyoung’s shoe to the front of the classroom. Jiyoung is in trouble with the teacher until another girl tells the teacher the deskmate did it. The teacher sympathizes with Jiyoung but tells her the deskmate treats her this way because he likes her. Jiyoung is confused by this explanation, which makes her feel that the harassment is her fault.

In third grade, Jiyoung is distressed by the lunchtime schedule, which forces her to eat too quickly. The children in her class eat in the order of their birthdates; the boys begin eating first and the girls after. A group of girls decides to confront the teacher about the unfairness of the eating order. The teacher agrees to alternate the order within each gender group, but all the boys are still first.

The girls don’t understand why the boys should eat first. They notice many other examples of boys taking precedence at school and throughout society. Their class monitor has always been a boy, for instance, despite adult acknowledgment that girls are smarter and more organized.

When she is in the fifth grade, Jiyoung’s family moves to a larger house. Her mother has proved adept at running a business and managing family finances. Grandmother thinks the girls should sleep in her room so that their younger brother can have his own room. Mother disagrees. In the girls’ new room, Mother hangs a map of the world on the wall. She tells the girls that they should remember that Seoul is only one place in a wide world. Grandmother dies the following year; the younger brother moves into her room.