White Chrysanthemum

This is a harrowing story of two Korean sisters under the Japanese occupation. Hana is a haenyeo, one of the female divers like her mother on their beautiful island of Jeju. The divers enjoy an independence that other Koreans do not. They catch their own food and are allowed to sell the surplus in the market. Hana has a younger sister, Emi who waits on the shore keeping the birds from eating their catch. Their mother entrusts Hana with the safety of her little sister at all times. They live a happy and productive life in spite of the occupation until one day as Hana comes up from under the sea, she sees a Japanese soldier heading towards the beach where Emi sits. To save her little sister, Hana swims quickly ashore and attracts the show more attention of the soldier while telling her sister to stay quiet and hidden. Hana is captured and transported to Manchuria and forced to become a "comfort woman" to the Japanese soldiers...at age 16. As we read about this, we are also reading in the present time about Emi. She has spent more than sixty years living with the guilt over her sister's sacrifice. The lives of both sisters are both heroic, tragic and completely spellbinding. I read this book in one sitting last night. The author's notes are not to be missed. She explains the history behind the story telling us that between 50,000 and 200,000 of South Korean women were kidnapped and forced to become comfort women to the Japanese army. Most of the time their parents did not know what happened to them. The history of these "comfort women" was unknown until 1991 when one brave woman, Kim Hak-sun told her story and filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. A book not to be missed. show less

White Chrysanthemum is such an incredibly sad and difficult book to read. It is also unforgettable and hard to put down when one has begun to read. Now it's been a while since I finished the book, but I remember how gripping the book was and how much I learned about Korea during and after World War II.

I found that the book's story, the sisters' fates touched my soul. Hana is captured by Japanese soldiers and Emi has to live with the feeling of guilt of seeing her sister sacrifice herself for her. We then get to follow them through their different lives. Hana who struggles to be free, but she's increasingly losing hope as she is put through ordeal after ordeal. Then, we have Emi who looks back on his life, also filled with tragedy. The show more ending, well let's say it's a very strong ending.

White Chrysanthemum is an incredibly good book, terribly hard to read, but I promise you will feel enriched after you have read it.

Thanks to Bookmark Förlag for the review copy! show less

White Chrysanthemum is the story of two sisters, Hana and Emi, separated by war. Born on the Korean island of Jeju, they are haenyeo, the famously independent women of the sea. In 1943, when Emi was still a child sitting on shore to watch the catch while Hana and their mother dived, Hana noticed some Japanese occupation soldiers walking toward Emi. She swam to shore and showed herself so they would not see Emi, sacrificing herself to save her sister. She was taken away and shipped north to Manchuria as a comfort woman. The Japanese military thought they would be stronger in battle if they slept with a woman before battle, so the military stole women away to service the men.

We see Emi again as she prepares to visit her son and daughter show more in Seoul. They have left Jeju and her daughter refused to continue the generations of haenyeo to pursue an academic career. She lives a life of self-denial in many ways, continuing to dive, living in a shack. She has shut herself off from pain by refusing to remember, but of course, her memories are always there.

White Chrysanthemumis told as two narratives, Hana’s story in the past and Emi’s story in the present, though we learn what happened to her and her family since that day on the beach. While she is visiting her children, she insists on going to the march to remember the comfort women, including her sister.

The story was inspired by the comfort women monuments that were so thoughtfully designed to remember and to heal. It is heartbreaking. Both Hana and Emi suffered incredible hardships because of war, but more particularly because how governments use women as a way to wage war. Rape and stealing woman is a way of changing the population of a country, a level of war that can amount to ethnic cleansing. This story also highlights how much Jeju, in particular, suffered, not just in the Japanese occupation, but in the Korean War as well, as those fleeing the north moved into the south and oppressed those perceived as too independent or possibly sympathetic to the Communists.

I feel guilty that I did not like White Chrysanthemum more. I liked Emi’s story a lot and admired Hana’s grit and determination. For me, there’s this balance with stories of rape and abuse that is hard to define and achieve. How much abuse and rape is enough to make sure we understand the pain and horror that Hana endured and how much is sick-making. This went to sick-making for me in its detail and relentlessness. Sure, I am only reading about it, it’s not happening to me, but it was still too much for me.

Other people will find the important story, the history and the humanity too important to cavil at too much detail. It is an important story and sheds light on a little mentioned time in history and not just on the comfort women but on the people of Jeju and what happened to them. It is full of drama and well-written. Most people will probably love it.

I received a copy of White Chrysanthemum from the publisher through NetGalley

White Chrysanthemum at G. P. Putnam’s Sons | Penguin Random House
Mary Lynn Bracht author site

★★★
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/07/07/9780735214439/ show less

Accidentally inhaled this in one bedtime reading sitting. The title refers to the flowers of mourning in Korea, as this is a tale of tragedy, viewed through the past as it was happening to Hana, the older sister, and from a contemporary point of view as Emi, the younger sister, nears the end of her life but is determined to find out what happened to Hana.

It's upsetting that it wasn't until 1991 that survivors began to speak about their "comfort women" experiences, and that part of why this was largely buried from the public mind was 50 years of purity culture shame. A riveting story, and as the author notes at the end, a reminder that war atrocities on women still continue to this day.

I read this book after really loving the Island of Sea Women by Lisa See about an Island in South Korea where women free dive for prized sea creatures and are the primary breadwinners. This one begins there, but quickly diverges into a painful story of one young diver who is kidnapped and enslaved as a "comfort woman" in a Japanese military brothel. Her life was engrossing, painful and intense. Her younger sister who was left behind by the kidnappers led a very different life. She repressed, but eventually confronted her own painful memories of her loss.

This was a deeply engaging and powerful book. The author was highly successful at bringing me into the world of the sisters and the huge challenges that the older one had to overcome.

It is during WWII, and 16-year old Hana is a haenyeo with her mother in he water on Jeju Island in Korea when she is stolen from the beach in an effort to protect her younger sister from the soldier Hana spotted. She is taken with other young girls to a brothel in Manchuria to “service” the soldiers (these girls/women are later known as “comfort women”). In 2011, an older woman, Emi, is still haenyeo, but has two middle-aged children in Seoul. Emi has kept plenty of secrets from her children about her life when she was younger.

I was not prepared for the amount of violence and rape. I must have known that would be the case when I added it to my tbr, but often, between the time of adding a book to my tbr and actually reading it, show more I forget what the book is about. I only remembered it being about haenyeo (women divers in Korea). That being said, although I learned about haenyeo in Lisa See’s book, I didn’t know about “comfort women”; the two books have a different focus.

I often like one storyline more than the other in these dual timeline books, but although Hana’s story is the more jarring and powerful of the two (I often “like” those better), I think Emi’s story gave me a bit of a break from Hana’s abuse. Oddly, although I often don’t like unrealistic endings, this one didn’t bother me (and the author explains in her note why she ended it this way). Overall, I thought this was very good. show less

Hana and Emi are sisters separated by the former's act of courage and sacrifice. Hana thought she spared Emi from the ravages of being a comfort woman but Emi led a life of guilt and shame and could never fully focus on the present. Towards the end of her life, she found peace when she found her sister in the form of a commemorative statue. The author also revealed at the end of the book what happened to Hana. I am sure this is not the author's intention, but I can't help thinking that their story is an illustration that our best intentions may not end up being the best and may make things worst. How would Hana feel if she knew that her sacrifice had ended up making Emi guilty and unhappy for most of her life?