A review by kalkie
Ten Thousand Sorrows : The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan, by Elizabeth Kim
3.0
This is an interesting little book, detailing the life of "Elizabeth" Kim, born to a Korean mother and American GI father. Brandished a honhyol (a "non-person") because of her mixed race, her early life was filled with jeers and abuse from the other villagers where Elizabeth and her mother lived in relative isolation. When she was a young girl, her mother was killed by her father and brother in an "honour killing" for bringing shame on the family. Elizabeth escaped a life of slavery and was instead sent to an orphanage in Seoul.
The orphanage, run by missionaries, was in an appalling state of repair, and the children spent most of their days in "cages" lined along the edges of the main room of the orphanage. There was lttle food, and no love shown to the children living there. When she was about 6 years old, "Elizabeth"" (as no-one knew her real name, this was a given name) was adopted by an American couple who were christian fundamentalists, and was taken to live in the American West.
This book thus follows a life of abuse meted out with the name of god, and Elizabeth's subsequent abusive marriage and escape into relative freedom.
However traumatic the tale in this book is, unfortunately it is not one I haven't heard before. With the recent rise in "childhood abuse" memoirs such as Dave Pelzer's A Boy Called "It" or Julie Gregory's Sickened, it is a genre which all too readily pulls at the heart strings. That said, I was also incredibly angry in places with Elizabeth's behaviour. She was so "accepting" of her parents' behaviour, even when she was an adult she didn't rebel against them. And her treatment of her own daughter made me so angry. She clearly cannot see that the emotional pressure she put on her own daughter - making a "pact" that she wouldn't kill herself until her daughter was a teenager - is tantamount to the same level of emotional abuse her own parents put her through.
I found this a book of emotional highs and lows, and while there wasn't a nice neat "conclusion" or "answer" at the end of the book - probably because Kim herself hasn't reached her own conclusions on what has happened - I did find it an interesting and engaging book to read.
The orphanage, run by missionaries, was in an appalling state of repair, and the children spent most of their days in "cages" lined along the edges of the main room of the orphanage. There was lttle food, and no love shown to the children living there. When she was about 6 years old, "Elizabeth"" (as no-one knew her real name, this was a given name) was adopted by an American couple who were christian fundamentalists, and was taken to live in the American West.
This book thus follows a life of abuse meted out with the name of god, and Elizabeth's subsequent abusive marriage and escape into relative freedom.
However traumatic the tale in this book is, unfortunately it is not one I haven't heard before. With the recent rise in "childhood abuse" memoirs such as Dave Pelzer's A Boy Called "It" or Julie Gregory's Sickened, it is a genre which all too readily pulls at the heart strings. That said, I was also incredibly angry in places with Elizabeth's behaviour. She was so "accepting" of her parents' behaviour, even when she was an adult she didn't rebel against them. And her treatment of her own daughter made me so angry. She clearly cannot see that the emotional pressure she put on her own daughter - making a "pact" that she wouldn't kill herself until her daughter was a teenager - is tantamount to the same level of emotional abuse her own parents put her through.
I found this a book of emotional highs and lows, and while there wasn't a nice neat "conclusion" or "answer" at the end of the book - probably because Kim herself hasn't reached her own conclusions on what has happened - I did find it an interesting and engaging book to read.