We Do Not Part

“In the mornings and evenings I continued to cook meals and sit down with my family. I tried to have as many conversations as I could with my daughter, who had just started middle school and was encountering new situations at every turn. But I felt split in half. Even in those private moments I could feel the shadow of the book lurking.”

This passage speaks to the intense emotional toll that writing about the massacre in G—— took on Kyungha. It consumed her every waking thought and disturbed her family’s daily routine. Kyungha’s deep sense of unease at uncovering and writing about such traumatic history is meant to speak to the nature of historical memory itself: Kyungha cannot forget about the massacre, and although she might not admit it, her pain has begun to shape her daily life, raising the theme of Historical Memory and Collective Trauma. The people of Korea, although they do not always discuss it openly, are similarly shaped by historical trauma even as they try to move on and live their lives normally.

“For the next three years, Inseon and I went on monthly assignments together until I left the magazine, and as we’d been friends for well over two decades, by now I knew most of her habits.”

Kyungha and Inseon’s friendship is an important aspect of the novel’s plot and thematic structure, illustrating the importance of Friendship and Human Connection. These women, both haunted in their own way, come together through their grief to form a bond that is helpful to them both. The way that human connection eases emotional pain is a key focal point in this novel, and it is best illustrated through Kyungha and Inseon’s relationship.

“Of the short films she made every couple of years, the first to receive favorable reviews was a series of interviews she’d done in the dense forests of Viet Nam. The women she’d interviewed spoke about the sexual assaults perpetrated by the Korean military during the war.”

Lost, buried, and overlooked women’s histories abound within this novel. Both its protagonists and Kang herself hope to draw attention to the way that war and mass violence impact women specifically and spark dialogue about women’s experiences. Kang draws connections between women in China, Vietnam, and Korea, finding commonalities across boundaries of nation and ethnicity.

“At first, I mistake them for birds. Tens of thousands of white-feathered birds flying right along the horizon. In fact, they are snow clouds scattered by strong gusts of wind.”

Snow in this novel symbolizes the suppression of memories, either by outside forces (like the government) or by one’s own mind, and illustrates the way that traumatic memories are often buried without first being processed and understood. Kyungha slowly unpacks the snow’s symbolism as the novel progresses, and ultimately, this process also allows her to understand both her memories and the collective unconscious of the Korean people.

“I can sense a migraine coming on like ice cracking in the distance. I have no idea what causes these headaches which last ages and are accompanied by terrible abdominal pain and a drop in blood pressure.”

Intense migraines are a key facet of Kyungha’s characterization, and her familiarity with them is shown by how she can feel them coming from a “distance.” These debilitating headaches cause her to self-isolate and interfere with her ability to eat and care for herself. They are also intensely emotionally draining and make it even more difficult for her to deal with the loss of her parents and daughter.

“My mother told me how when she was young, soldiers and police had murdered everyone in her village.”

Both the massacre in Jeju and the one in G—— that Kyungha writes about in her book form an important backdrop in this novel. Much of this history has been buried and is not openly talked about, and both Inseon and Kyungha hope to raise awareness so that Koreans can finally process and move past this trauma.

“I walk, feeling a strange compulsion to match my steps to the pace of the drifting snow, which itself seems synchronized to the passage of time.”

Snow is a powerful symbol in this novel that explores the way that historical trauma becomes buried within the collective cultural unconscious. Rather than processing their trauma, many South Koreans buried memories of various massacres and atrocities, a process facilitated by the government’s censorship and suppression. Snow falling symbolizes this process, which is why the snowflakes that Kyungha observes here strike her as being “synchronized to the passage of time.” The more time that passes, the more “snow” falls on traumatic memories, and the harder they are to access.

“Thousands of trees lurch in the gloaming under scattering snow. As if the black trees of my old dream were alive still, and this was their landscape.”

This novel is rich in symbolism. Here, Kyungha sees trees reminiscent of the trees in her dream. The dream trees symbolize the G—— massacre that has haunted her both during and after writing her book about it. Each tree represents a human life, slaughtered and buried in a mass grave. That the trees she sees now remind her of the dream trees gestures toward the idea that Kyungha is journeying back through time, processing both her own trauma and the historical trauma of the Korean people.

“A cluster of 40 houses, give or take, had stood on the other side of the stream, and when the evacuation orders went out in 1948, they were all set on fire, the people in them slaughtered, the village incinerated.”

Again, Kyungha, who spent years researching a different massacre, reflects on the Jeju massacre when faced with one of the actual sites. Through a dreamlike and abstract narrative, the novel wrestles with Korea’s fraught history of violence. Kyungha’s entire journey becomes metaphorical, a series of steps back in time to confront her country’s tragic past.

“Whatever she might be working on, Inseon made sure never to rush.”

This quote develops Inseon’s character as calm and careful, a person who takes great care with her work whether she is making a film or creating something out of wood. Kyungha, who herself takes great care with her work, is drawn to Inseon in part because of her slow, measured nature. The two women are kindred spirits in many ways, and their friendship is a source of solace to them both.

“On the days my father wasn’t quite himself and sat and stared all day my mother would call me. She’d grab whatever was on hand, a couple of raw sweet potatoes or cucumber slices, one or two mandarins, push them into my hands and say, take these to your abang.”

Much of this novel focuses on the victims of mass killings, both on Jeju and in G——, but in this passage, the author details the experiences of survivors, exploring the theme of historical memory and collective trauma from a different perspective. Like Inseon’s father, many survivors never quite recovered from what they witnessed. Their trauma became part of the collective trauma of the Korean people, and in uncovering those long-buried histories, Kyungha and Inseon hope to help Koreans find healing.

“The tide was going out. The waves, which loomed like cliffs, did not swallow the coast but were instead dragged out to sea. A basalt desert ran out to the horizon. Volcanic cones emerged from underwater like massive burial mounds, soaked and glittering black.”

Much of the symbolic imagery in the novel speaks to its interest in violence and death. Part of Kyungha’s sense of unease about the massacre at G—— is rooted in Korea’s animistic belief system: The way that bodies are treated, according to animistic religions, impacts the experiences that their souls have after death. Bodies that are desecrated or not given proper burial struggle in the afterlife. The mass graves at G——, which Kyungha fixates on, are an example of this kind of desecration, which is why she often sees trees, rocks, and other pieces of the natural world that remind her of bodies.

“Only when we heard the water at the bottom of the kettle boil did Inseon break the silence: ‘As in we refuse to part by refusing to say goodbye, or as in we actually don’t part ways?’”

Here, Inseon asks Kyungha about the title that she has chosen for their film project. When Kyungha tells her that the tree film will be called We Do Not Part, Inseon asks for clarification. Kyungha does not provide it. This ambiguity reflects the broader ambiguity of the novel itself, where Kang does not always clarify whether Kyungha is dreaming or not, which of her plot points are reality and which are inventions, and what her symbols mean. The purpose of this ambiguity is to pose questions that spark discussion rather than to provide easy answers and to encourage further reflection and critical thought. This, she argues, is how societies come to terms with trauma: through open-ended reflection.

“Sometimes, it feels like there’s some other presence here said Inseon.”

Both Kyungha and Inseon are haunted by their own family histories and by Korea’s tragic, traumatic history of political violence, hinted at here by the “presence” that Inseon mentions. Their interest in filmmaking is rooted in their desire to understand their families, to contextualize their family histories within Korea’s broader historical trajectory, and to raise awareness of mass killings like those that occurred on Jeju and in G——. In doing so, they hope to rid themselves of the ghosts that haunt them and help Koreans move past their trauma.

“‘That was the autumn they unearthed the remains,’ Inseon said. ‘Where?’ I asked. She lowered her voice. ‘At Jeju airport, underneath the runway.’”

Jeju Island is an important location within the Korean cultural imagination, and its inclusion in this narrative is deliberate. The author grew up in Gwangju, the city referred to here as G——, which was the site of an uprising and massacre. Jeju was also the site of an uprising and massacre, and significantly, both Kyungha and Inseon come from places with violent, traumatic histories. This shared experience is part of the reason why they are drawn to each other and why they feel compelled to make a film that will help the Korean people come to terms with their devastating, lasting impact.

“Mostly the bones suggested prone bodies lying face down in the dirt with sprawled legs, but this person seemed to have been on their side facing the wall. Their knees were drawn up to their chest, just as we curl up when we are unwell or have trouble sleeping or can’t quiet our minds.”

The victims of the uprisings at G—— and Jeju loom large over this novel, but this is the first passage in which they are described using realistic language rather than more ambiguous symbolic imagery. This marks a progression of sorts in which the women are beginning to talk overtly about collective trauma that has, up until this point, remained buried, a shift paralleled by the stylistic shift to more graphic descriptions and focus on the individuality of each victim.

“I decided to structure my film around my search for the identity of the unnamed deceased. I would visit the team of excavators with my clipping and ask them where the remains of the rubber shoes from the dig were being kept.”

Here, Inseon recalls wanting to devote her film to uncovering the identity of one of the thousands of victims in Jeju’s mass graves. In structuring her film around this search, Inseon hoped to provide this nameless person with an identity and dignity. The treatment of the deceased and burial customs are important in Korean culture, and Inseon’s attempts to restore humanity to this person have deep cultural and religious significance. It will allow the person’s spirit to rest and undo some of the damage caused by their violent death and the desecration of their body.

“The soldiers had visited each household with copies of the resident register and, insisting that any male member of the family not present must have joined the rebels, executed the remaining family members.”

The story that Inseon tells about her father’s experiences during the Jeju massacre is historically accurate. In the years following World War II, communist guerilla factions fought US-backed nationalist forces for ideological dominance and political control of Korea. On Jeju, where communist guerillas hid in the hills, nationalist military units and police brigades often rounded up young men thought to be communist sympathizers based solely on their age. These men and their families were routinely killed. The inclusion of this historical detail, couched in the context of Inseon’s family, is one of the ways in which Kang highlights the impact of these military events on individuals and families.

“At the time, I was reading up on related or similar instances of historical mass killings both at home and abroad in preparation for my book on the subject. But I’d resolutely passed over these volumes which contained the oral history of the massacres perpetrated in villages across this island.”

Here, Kyungha notes that even when she was researching mass killings, she avoided reading oral histories that contained individual accounts of mass killings on Jeju. This unwillingness to encounter lived experience speaks to this novel’s broader interest in willful forgetting and the way that the Korean public consciousness shied away from confronting its nation’s brutal history. Much of the work that Inseon and Kyungha undergo seeks to restore individual voices to historical trauma, although even for them, it is difficult to come to terms with the way that mass violence impacted individual lives. It is easier for them to think of it abstractly.

“American reconnaissance planes dropped a blizzard of propaganda leaflets, leaflets that said anyone who turned themselves in wouldn’t be punished.”

The American military was involved in Korean politics as part of its global, anti-communist foreign policy campaign. During an era in Korean history in which communist factions within Korea battled nationalist groups, there was much outside meddling on the peninsula. China and the Soviet Union provided support to Korean communists, and the United States supported Korean nationalists. Throughout the novel, Kang highlights this interference to illustrate how international politics influenced Korea’s history.

“The number of Bodo League members in Gyeongbuk alone who died that year is about ten thousand.”

Kang uses this novel to draw attention to the way that individual lives become subsumed within broader historical narratives surrounding tragedy, and yet she also draws important points of connection between different mass atrocities in Korea. She thus suggests both that each person killed in acts of state violence matters and that such atrocities have commonalities and are made possible by political turmoil and societal conventions surrounding violence and the repression of dissidence.

“The article said that the survey team set off dynamite at the mouth of a vertical cave shaft. Once they blasted through the concrete that had sealed it off for more than fifty years, a staggering number of skeletal remains poured from the shaft, so many that there was no room for the group to make any sort of descent.”

When the novel begins, references to mass killings are oblique and deliberately vague. As the novel progresses, however, the author fills in historical details and tells the stories of individual lives lost to political violence. Here, at the novel’s end, Inseon and Kyungha uncover graphic details about the Jeju and Bodo League massacres. This process of discovery mimics the recovery of historical memory about Korean state violence: What was once shrouded in mystery gradually becomes clearer. When the state reverses its policy of concealment and obfuscation, Korean people have access to historical records and can begin to process their collective trauma.

“My mother never gave me straight answers, instead she told me random stories.”

Much of Inseon’s family history is presented in a jumbled, partially incoherent manner. She tells Kyungha stories out of order, leaves out details, and fills in pieces as she is reminded of them by the various documents they examine. This asynchronous, confusing narrative structure mimics the way that Inseon’s mother shared their family history with Inseon and replicates the difficulty that Inseon herself had piecing everything together and understanding it.