Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Book Title: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Author: Cho Nam-Joo

Date Started: June 12th 2020

Date Completed: July 16th 2020

Genres: Contemporary

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to the Korean Cultural Centre UK for this copy as part of their Literature Night ◆

This book was not an easy read, and I was an idiot to think otherwise. I found myself unexpectedly crying at multiple points without even realising it, and having to pause at other times to get some things off my own chest even if it was only to my bookshelf. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is about a woman growing up in South Korea and the micro-aggressions, casual sexism, and daily encounters and impact that misogyny and patriarchy have on individuals. And it doesn't hold back. That doesn't mean it's big and dramatic - on the contrary, the things that happen seem small and silly at the time, which is why I was crying. Because we brush them off like they don't affect us, but this book shows eloquently and viciously, that they break us.

I do want to say that I'm British (and white at that). While I have researched and/or been exposed to a fair amount of South Korea's culture and history, I have never been there and, of course, I'm not Korean myself. I'm also of a later generation than what is explored here. But, even so, it's depressing how universal a worrying amount of the situations were - but also Jiyoung-ssi's responses, emotionally and practically, to those events. I recognised a shocking amount of them in myself.

Okay, yes, the text is sometimes a bit stuff (although, when it's revealed the prose is her therapist's account of what she's told him, it makes more sense), and the use of referencing to real, contemporary statistics, studies, articles etc was a little distracting. But it gets across the point it's trying to make, and you can't argue it's speculation just because it's fictionalised.

For me, it was the final chapter that cemented my opinion of this book. It sets out the most important information and revelation this book can offer. After recounting Kim Jiyoung-ssi's life, it is brought to our attention that the account is from, in fact, a man: her therapist. This is honestly surprising, since it seems so sympathetic and raw. There's a moment of something like hope. And then a female therapist comes in, with a going-away present, apologising that she has to leave her job. She's pregnant, finally, but has been warned of dangers of miscarriage and harm to herself. The therapist is disgruntled that she is leaving, that her patients have preferred not to be moved to someone else's care, and muses to himself that he has to make sure the woman who replaces her is unmarried. In a single moment, so many things made sense for me. How a man can have sympathy for a woman whose entire life story has been 'revealed' to them, experiences, grievances from casual to giant, and how they have caused a ripple effect for her prospects and internal state. Yet minutes later, they can dismiss another woman, belittle her choices and have a shallow attitude to her situation.

This book somehow felt like a comforting hand and a death sentence for reality all at once. It was shocking, it was brilliant, it was hard, it was so simple. But, as I said, the most important question this book held was right on the last page. Why do we have to 'live through' a woman's experiences and trauma ourselves to believe them?