91Choi’s Gathering does not have the suspense
and action of her previous two novels, yet Gath-
ering is an apt finale to Sookan’s war experience.
The juxtaposition between the physical hardships
Sookan endured in the first two novels and the
hardship she endures as a foreign student helps
build the character of Sookan, whose acumen and
perseverance are constantly challenged, but who
has become strong enough to maintain her drive
to succeed to fulfill her dreams. Part of Sookan’s
education is coming to terms with the high expec-
tations placed on her by her family over in Korea.
Sookan is shocked at the way her American friends
seem to disrespect their elders and the wishes of
their parents in favor of striving toward their per-
sonal goals. But Sookan learns to respect her fam-
ily at home while allowing herself the pleasure to
pursue her own dreams.
Bibliography
Choi, Sook Nyul. Gathering of Pearls. New York:
Houghton, Mifflin, 1994.
Debbie Clare Olson
Gesture Life, A Chang-rae Lee (1999)
The affluent, reclusive New York City suburb of
Bedley Run is the ideal hometown to Franklin
Hata, protagonist of CHANG-RAE LEE’s A Gesture
Life. Now in his 70s and retired from his medi-
cal supply business, Hata is considered the town’s
ideal citizen and called “Doc Hata” by all, although
he has no medical degree. As the novel unfolds,
Hata tries to reconcile both his future relationship
with his estranged adult daughter Sunny and his
past relationship with a Korean sex slave called
K, whom he cared for as a Japanese medic during
World War II. Always “at the vortex of bad hap-
penings,” he attempts to atone for his past by help-
ing others but fears that his mere presence sparks
catastrophe.
On the surface Hata lives a quiet life, until he
allows his fireplace to burn his family room and is
hospitalized for smoke inhalation. He receives an
anonymous get-well card from Sunny, now 32, a
mother, and living nearby. The two begin a tenta-
tive reconciliation after 13 years apart, and Hata
becomes acquainted with his six-year-old grand-
son Thomas. But on one disastrous day, one of Ha-
ta’s friends dies in a car crash, another has a heart
attack, and Thomas nearly drowns, causing Hata
to question once again whether he is an angel of
mercy or of death. Ultimately he decides to leave
Bedley Run, removing himself from Sunny’s and
Thomas’s lives, without any clear picture of where
he will go next.
These events inspire a number of flashbacks
from Hata’s distant and more recent past, includ-
ing Sunny’s troubled adolescence. From the time
he adopted her from Korea, he tiptoed around
her as if she were an independent, fearsome adult,
seldom disciplining her. A well-mannered child,
Sunny becomes a rebellious teenager and moves
away from home at 17. She returns only once,
briefly, when Hata forces her to abort her nearly
full-term pregnancy, personally assisting at the
surgery. What he witnesses here is seared into his
memory, although he had expected to be immune
to the sight because of his wartime experiences.
In 1944, when Hata was Lieutenant Jiro Kuro-
hata, a medic stationed with the Japanese army in
Burma, he was entrusted with the medical care of
five Korean “comfort women” kidnapped to serve
in the military brothel. By speaking Korean, his
first language, he forges a connection to one of the
women, Kkutaeh, called “K.” She repeatedly asks
him to save her by killing her, first as a favor to
a countrywoman and later as a sign of his love.
When he refuses, K murders his supervisor and is
subsequently gang-raped and killed by Japanese
soldiers. Kurohata, as a medic, must collect her
scattered remains, discovering among them her
unborn child.
A Gesture Life evolved from an earlier draft told
from a comfort woman’s perspective. After about
two years of work Lee decided he could do the sub-
ject better justice if it were re-envisioned through
the perspective of Doc Hata, focusing not on the
immediate trauma but on its witnessing and after-
math. Having seen but not prevented the brutali-
ties of war, Hata must determine how to carry on
with his life and what kind of legacy he can leave.
All his attempts, including the daughter he adopts,Gesture Life, A 91