Choi’s novel is built around Serk’s identity as a lifelong outsider, which stems from his childhood experiences in Japan. His fictional experiences represent a larger historical phenomenon that underscores the complexities of citizenship and identity. To better understand why Serk rejects his Korean identity and self-identifies as Japanese, it is necessary to understand the phenomenon of the Korean diaspora in Japan, colloquially known as the Zainichi (Korean for “residing in Japan.”)

Following its victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Imperial Japan moved to consolidate its power over the East Asian region by annexing the Korean Empire as a colony in 1910. Though this opened the border for Koreans to enter Japan, mass migration only began in the 1920s, when Japan used Koreans to meet the challenge of a national labor shortage. By the end of World War II, the ethnic Korean population of Japan numbered in the millions, lured by the promise of official assimilation. The Japanese surrender in WWII upset the trajectory of this policy; from 1945 onwards, ethnic Koreans faced increased racial discrimination and economic exploitation.

A major complication tied to this shift is that many ethnic Koreans were encouraged to integrate into Japanese society through marriage and childbirth. When Japan regained its sovereignty from the United States in 1952, a majority of Zainichi were from a new generation born in Japan; they identified as culturally Japanese and were not proficient in Korean. To repatriate them to either of the Korean states en masse was impossible, especially since the Japanese government refused to help Koreans with re-assimilation. Some Zainichi feared the political instability of a divided Korea, preferring second-class citizenship in Japan, where they had at least achieved cultural assimilation.

The responsibility to aid the Zainichi fell upon Korean social organizations, such as the General Federation of Resident Koreans in Japan, more commonly known as Sōren. Sōren provided financial aid to buoy business losses and help Korean Japanese through Japan’s economic downturn. They also established schools with the purpose of assimilating students into Korean culture. Crucially, Sōren led a campaign to repatriate Koreans to North Korea in the 1950s, driving a mass exodus that quickly stopped when the privations of life in North Korea became known.

Serk and his family experience each of these developments. Serk is so invested in his Japanese identity that he draws a positive association between his Japanese name, Hiroshi, and the quality of his life. He feels that his childhood takes a turn for the worse once the United States takes control of Japan and South Korea. His Communist-leaning parents jump at the chance to repatriate to North Korea. Serk, on the other hand, is skeptical, preferring his treatment in Japan to uncertainty in the newly established Korean states. Even after his family leaves Japan, Serk never considers the possibility of repatriating to South Korea because he has no affinity for it. His decision to immigrate to the United States, on the other hand, is based on the possibility of being valued for his skills as an electrical engineer. In this sense, Serk’s flight to the United States is an attempt to get as far as he can from the state that rejects him, as well as the state that he can never call home.