Translated by Jamie Chang
163 pages were very heavy. I don’t have a reason why I picked this book but I am glad that I did. The book is set in South Korea but I’m sure a lot of women out there will relate to it inspite of the geographical differences.
A lot of us who are privileged sometimes turn a blind eye to the situation of average working class woman and say things like, “A lot has changed.” “This doesn’t happen at our home.” And none of this means that the overall condition has significantly improved.
As the author says,
"The world had changed a great deal, but the little rules, contracts, and customs had not, which meant that hadn't actually changed at all".
Story: Kim Jiyoung suffers extreme identity crisis. After an incident at her in-law’s her husband asks her to see a psychiatrist. The story is from the lens of the psychiatrist who is trying to understand the root cause. We follow the story of Kim Jiyoung starting from her mother’s story, her birth, childhood to marriage. The story focus on how she leads her entire life under pressure of societal expectations of being a woman.
Cho Nam Joo also added so many facts and numbers in between that it almost felt like I was reading an autobiography of a common woman.