Ancco

Told from the perspective of an adult South Korean cartoonist reflecting upon her adolescence, this story by an adult South Korean cartoonist gives the impression of autobiography but is apparently fiction.

Pearl and Jeong-ae are two teenage girls who have been deemed juvenile delinquents by family, classmates and teachers. In a culture steeped in domestic violence and corporal punishment, the authority figures and men in their lives either believe frequent and severe beatings will fix the show more girls or just plain enjoy the powerful feeling it gives them. It's horrible either way and hard to view.

Early on the friends run away from home and find themselves in the world of lounge hostesses and prostitution. Though they return home, things remain a violent muddle as their lives diverge and the book wallows in Pearl's emotional misery in the past and her melancholy in the present.

I could see other readers connecting powerfully with this material, but the storytelling is too disjointed and depressing for me, and the art sometimes made it difficult for me to distinguish characters. show less

Wow this book was really brutal and, to be honest, quite depressing.

Why read it then?

What made me borrow this book was because it’s a translated comic, and one from Korea. I haven’t read many Korean comics, and this was a rare one on the library shelves.

The story is told from the perspective of 16-year-old Pearl, growing up in the 1990s in a poor neighbourhood in Seoul, South Korea. Her father is abusive, but then so is nearly every relative in the building she lives in, who treat her show more like a punching bag.

“But in all the times Dad beat me, I never once hated him.

Any parent would have done the same.”

Those lines just made me ache with anger and sadness.

Pearl has a group of close friends at school. Her best friend is Jeong-Ae and the two of them run away for a while, staying at a motel and trying to get work as hostesses. But they both eventually return home. While Pearl has an abusive father, she realizes that her family is more ‘normal’ than the other girls’ families, especially Jeong-Ae’s. That while her father beats her, there is still someone who cares for her and wants better for her. One day, Jeong-Ae doesn’t turn up at school and no one knows where she is, although rumors are rampant. Pearl, ten years later, wonders what happened to her best friend.

“Why did it take me so long to figure out that being beaten didn’t have to be part of life?”

I came away from this book wondering if Korean culture was still like that – this acceptance of physical abuse. Parents, usually fathers, hitting, kicking, punching their children. Students physically hurting each other in school. Even teachers abuse their students.

It’s not uncommon to have canes in households in Singapore, even today. I don’t know about schools now but when I was in primary school, I remember that some teachers had canes. Is it something that’s just more accepted in Asian societies?

A harsh but honest look at the lives of these young women. One of the most disturbing books I’ve read. show less

A depressing collection of short diary comics, autobiographical vignettes, and other stories by a Korean cartoonist centering around a family life full of drunkenness, domestic violence, and corporal punishment in schools. The artwork is scratchy and the heads on characters are often disproportionately large for their bodies.

Really good. Somewhat gritty, troubled-teen memoir, set in South Korea. If that sounds like it would appeal then you'll probably enjoy it.