The story features an ensemble of characters who encounter racism, discrimination, stereotyping, and other aspects of the 20th-century Korean experience of Japan.
[2] The novel is divided into three sections, which begin with quotations from the works of Charles Dickens, Park Wan-suh, and Benedict Anderson, respectively.
In 1883, in the little island fishing village of Yeongdo, which is a ferry ride from Busan, an aging fisherman and his wife take in lodgers to make a little more money.
However, she shows little interest in him until he saves her from an attempted sexual assault by three teenagers on her way home from the market, leading her to start trusting him.
That day marks the beginning of their affair, where Hansu repeatedly uses her for sex, while Sunja believes they are meant to be married.
Yangjin discusses the matter with one of their lodgers, a Christian minister suffering from tuberculosis who she has been caring for since his arrival at her boardinghouse months prior.
In Osaka, Sunja is shocked to learn that Koreans are treated poorly: most are forced to live in a small ghetto and are only hired for menial jobs.
While Noa resembles Hansu in appearance, he is similar in personality to Isak and seeks a quiet life of learning, reading, and academia.
Despite Yoseb's resistance, Sunja begins to work in the market, selling kimchi that she and Kyunghee make at home.
Their small business is profitable, but they struggle to make money as Japan enters World War II and ingredients grow scarce.
During her time at the farm, Hansu also reunites Sunja with her mother, Yangjin, and eventually returns a permanently crippled Yoseb to the family after he is horrifically burned during the US atomic bombing.
Despite Sunja's resistance, Hansu pays for Noa's entire university education, pretending it is simply because he feels responsible for helping the younger generation as an older Korean man.
Mozasu meets and falls in love with a Korean seamstress, Yumi, who dreams of moving to the United States.
After having abandoned his birth family and living sixteen years under a false identity, Noa is tracked down by Hansu at the request of Sunja.
In the meantime, Mozasu has become extremely wealthy, owning his pachinko parlors and dating a Japanese divorcee, Etsuko, who refuses to marry him.
Hana, Etsuko's troubled teenage daughter from her previous marriage, arrives to stay with her mother after learning she is pregnant, and later she has an abortion.
Years later, Solomon, now attending college in New York City and dating a Korean-American woman named Phoebe, receives a call from a drunken Hana in Roppongi.
After graduating from Columbia University, Solomon takes a job at a British bank and moves back to Japan with Phoebe.
His first major client project involves convincing an elderly Korean woman to sell her land to clear the way for the construction of a golf resort, which he accomplishes by calling in a favor from his father's friend Goro.
With newfound resolve and a clearer outlook on life, Solomon chooses not to object when Phoebe leaves him, goes to work for his father's business, and has closure with Hana, who is in the hospital, dying of AIDS.
[3]: 3 He meets his wife, Yangjin, on his wedding day, and they have three children who die young before Sunja, their only surviving daughter, is born.
Themes in Pachinko include discrimination, stereotypes, and power, particularly in the context of the experiences of Koreans in Japan during World War II.
From the commodity of white rice to the labor involved with producing kimchi, Lee uses traditional concepts of meals to convey her message of disparity between peoples.
[4] Pachinko takes place between the years of 1910 and 1989, a period that includes both the Japanese occupation of Korea and World War II.
In an interview, Lee noted that the history of Korean-Japanese people demonstrates "exclusion[citation needed] and otherization".
The cast includes Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Min-ho, Jin Ha, Anna Sawai, Minha Kim, Soji Arai, and Kaho Minami.