[Slate] The Great Legacy of 'Omoni,' Once Treated Like a Housekeeper

Looking Back on Half a Century of Zainichi History in 'Pachinko'
Protagonist Sunja, Called a Potential Housekeeper 'Omoni'
Enduring Hardship Without Life's Joys
Underlying Love Expands to Multicultural Coexistence

About 2 million Koreans crossed over to Japan during the Japanese colonial period. With Japan's defeat, many people returned home. About 600,000 remained. Koreans and their descendants who settled there are called Zainichi (在日). They make up 1% (about 1 million) of Japan's total population.

Apple TV+’s "Pachinko" looks back on their half-century history through the trajectory of Sunja (Kim Min-a and Youn Yuh-jung). The life young Sunja faces in Japan is harsh and severe. Each day is a series of discrimination and cold treatment. After the war, the economic recession makes household life even more difficult. Sunja does not give up. She sells kimchi and noodles on the street and raises her two children properly.

There is a term referring to first-generation Korean women like Sunja living in Japan. It is "Omoni." This is the Japanese katakana transcription of the Korean word for "mother." Japanese also have the word "Okaasan" meaning mother. However, among Zainichi Koreans, the pronunciation closer to the original Korean, "Omoni," is used more often. The meaning is not limited to mothers of Koreans born and raised in Japan. It is intertwined with deep feelings for the mother tongue and concerns about their "roots."

Since ancient times, mothers have symbolized the nation. Not simply because they give birth to children, but because they also nurture children until they become legal and cultural members of society. They can be seen as producers and transmitters of the group. However, in history, they were often excluded and depicted as objects rather than subjects. "Pachinko" overturns this old framework by putting Omoni at the forefront. It revisits a tragic history from a new perspective.

In fact, the term Omoni originated from the image of Koreans serving the imperial order. During the Japanese colonial period, Japanese families who moved to Korea often employed workers. Korean women who helped with housework or childcare were called "Kijibae" or "Oneya" if unmarried, and Omoni if married. Omoni was not an ordinary Korean mother but essentially a servant. They were rarely called by their real names or regarded as individuals. The asymmetrical power relations and limited social connections reflected in the term Omoni can be seen as a legacy of this.

This situation cast a shadow through the circuit of memory even after the war. Professor Cha Eun-jung of Sogang University analyzed narratives of Japanese people who attended elementary school in Gyeongseong during the colonial period in her book "Memory of Colonies and the Politics of the Other." According to her, Japanese people did not highly value the role of Omoni as family but expanded the scope to general Korean women. They invited Omoni as a medium to reminisce about Korea and share experiences. This unconsciously reproduced colonial perceptions that viewed all Korean women as potential housemaids.

However, Omoni cannot be simply defined as a reproduction of colonial perception. Many Zainichi Koreans continue to use this title. For them, Omoni is like a historical product of special circumstances. Especially since it derives from the mother tongue and circulates in its own way. It resembles a drifting object left in the former colonial power’s land, building a new life. The fact that it cannot be neatly reduced to the languages of the two divided countries or Japanese parallels a life that cannot be fully integrated into any national history.

The second-generation Zainichi Koreans, inheriting this fate, began producing related articles, essays, and interviews from the mid-1970s. Most of the content focused on the harsh life struggles of Omoni. Strong mothers, enduring mothers, illiterate mothers, breadwinning matriarchs, victims under oppression... All embraced the risk of essentializing motherhood and sacrifice.

This tendency was described in the co-authored work "Boundaries and Representations" by Han Young-hye, a researcher at Seoul National University’s Institute of Japanese Studies, Kim In-su, a professor at Konkuk University’s Asia Content Research Institute, and Jung Ho-seok, an associate professor in the Department of Political Economy at Seigakuin University: "As a preparation for the full-scale life history records of first-generation Zainichi Korean women appearing after the 1980s, it has important significance in newly recognizing first-generation Zainichi Korean women who remained invisible because they were not documented."

"Pachinko" is like a product that concretizes and develops these accumulated records. Sunja internalizes ethnic identity by actively fulfilling the "mother role" in a strange land. The traces of hardship are deeply engraved on her face. She endures hardship without any joy in life. She sustains her life with the sole determination to raise her two sons well.

At the core is "Omoni’s love." It is a feeling beyond favoritism toward children. As she enters old age, the scope expands to coexistence in multiculturalism. Even though prejudice and discrimination in the world persist, she comforts past memories and life with forgiveness and reconciliation. At that moment, Sunja transforms from a living witness of history into an active subject of self-expression and desire. She is portrayed as a "contemporary" bound to the same timeline as us or as a being that gives new awakening. This points to the possibility of the emergence of another Omoni’s strength.