Meanwhile, the nursing home where she works insists that she lower her standard of care for Jen, an elderly dementia patient who traveled the world as a successful diplomat, chose not to have children, and has no family. Outraged, Green's mother begins to reconsider the unfair consequences of choosing one's own path. Además de estos dos pilares tan importantes, también nos encontramos ante una crítica brutal a la precariedad laboral, a como personas muy mayores, incluso enfermas, deben trabajar por un sueldo indigno para subsistir, a sabiendas de que tendrán que hacerlo hasta que mueran, destrozando su salud por el camino, otra cosa fácilmente reconocible en cualquier lugar. También se habla mucho, de la que para mí puede ser la razón principal de la mayoría de los conflictos de la protagonista, la incapacidad para expresarse delante de los demás, abrirse a otros y tratar de llegar a un entendimiento común. Esto último, sí que es algo cultural y que se encuentra mucho en la literatura asiática.

Concerning My Daughter – Kim Hye-jin | Full Stop Concerning My Daughter – Kim Hye-jin | Full Stop

This is an intriguing book, very simple in narrative and premise (traditional, homophobic mother struggles with how to deal with daughter), but also powerful in how it shows the impact society and tradition can have on viewpoints, and the intersection of different kinds of crises (in this case, care of the elderly and homophobia). It can be painful to read at times, repeating the protagonist's obsession with her daughter not having a 'real' relationship, and the depiction of the care of the elderly can be brutal, but there's also tenderness underneath, for example the glimpses of Green and Lane's relationship even only through the eyes of someone who won't accept it.

Prize-winning Korean author Kim Hye-Jin's debut confronts familial love, duty, mortality, and generational schism through the incendiary gaze of a tradition-bound mother faced with her daughter's queer relationship. I was born and raised in this culture where the polite thing to do is to turn a blind eye and keep your mouth shut, and now I’ve grown old in it,” explains the unnamed protagonist of Kim’s English-language debut. A widow in her early 70s, the narrator earns a modest income by caring for a dementia patient named Jen, a journalist and activist who never married or had children and has no relatives to care for her in her old age. Despite the pressure from her boss to cut corners and the suspicion that her co-workers are able to successfully “leave all sentiment and anything like it at home,” she is deeply troubled by the societal belief that the elderly—especially those who are alone—are disposable. She is less successful at challenging the societal beliefs that affect her own child. Green, a college lecturer in her 30s, has become involved in a labor dispute at the local university and is struggling to pay her bills. When Green and her longtime girlfriend, Lane, accept the narrator’s invitation to come live with her for a while, the narrator is forced to confront her self-imposed ignorance about her daughter’s sexuality. Kim is unsparing in her depictions of the indignities of old age, the corrosiveness of homophobia, and the piercing loneliness that comes from living in a culture of silence. When the daughter and her girlfriend move in with her due to monetary issues, conflicts arise, but while the mother first despises her daughter's activism for colleagues who got fired because of their homosexuality, she slowly sees that the humanist concerns that torture her in her job are not that different from what plagues her daughter: They both long for dignity. Archaeological Treasures of Uzbekistan: From Alexander the Great to the Kushan Empire” at James Simon Gallery, Berlin

Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin | Goodreads

Prize-winning Korean author Kim Hye-jin’s debut confronts familial love, duty, mortality, and generational schism through the incendiary gaze of a tradition-bound mother faced with her daughter’s queer relationship. This little novel was hyper-realistic, the simple, matter-of-fact writing contributed in a way to that realism.

The mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of this novel. Green’s partner Lane represents an ever-present antidote to the mother’s fears—if only the mother could see beyond her prejudices. Lane embodies nurturing: She has been with Green long enough to have supported Green throughout her father’s final illness. When Green was unable to be in the hospital with him, Lane was there and with Green at her father’s funeral. After Green and Lane move in with the mother, Lane cooks healthy foods and tends to the mother even as the mother openly reviles her. She is the committed family that the mother wishes for her daughter. The mother is blind to this in her obsession with what she sees as the abnormality of the relationship. But Lane and Green resist the mother’s animosity and, in their own distinct ways, persist. Pese a que tiene muchos temas principales, que ahora tocaré, creo que el más importante es el que hace relación a la homofobia de la madre hacia la hija, y creo que es el tema que más destaca, no porque sea el único central, porque lo son varios, sino porque es el único que se toca de manera diferente. Mientras que temas como el desprecio a las personas de cierta edad o el esclavitud laboral reciben una crítica directa a través de su protagonista, de sus reflexiones y sus quejas, la homofobia es criticada a través de la intolerancia e ignorancia de ella misma, fruto de su educación y de una cultura que enseña a vivir dando más importancia a la opinión social, que a la felicidad propia o de los seres queridos. Por eso choca la cantidad de comentarios horribles que la madre suelta sobre su hija, sobre su nuera o sobre la homosexualidad en general, pero la autora sabe crear bien ese personaje, para que el lector, aún horrorizándose de lo que piensa, pueda entender su circunstancia e ir asistiendo poco a poco al avance y a la apertura de su mente. No de forma tan rápida como nos gustaría y llena de contradicciones, eso sí, pero demostrando perfectamente la confusión mental por la que está pasando la madre.

Book Review: ‘Concerning My Daughter,’ by Kim Hye-jin - The

The mother finds Jen’s choices as incomprehensible as her daughter’s choices, but at the same time admires Jen for her travels and independence. Still, Jen has ended up in care and as her memory and connection with the present fades, the nursing home’s commitment to her care fades. The mother feels a strong responsibility toward Jen despite being pressured by the nursing home to cut corners in ways that affect Jen’s health. Kim is unsparing in her depictions of the indignities of old age, the corrosiveness of homophobia, and the piercing loneliness that comes from living in a culture of silence. A heavy but tentatively hopeful look at the struggle for intergenerational understanding through one mother’s eyes.” But when Green turns up with her long-term girlfriend in tow, her mother is enraged and unwilling to welcome their relationship into her home. Having centered her life on her husband and child, her daughter’s definition of family is not one she can accept. Green’s involvement in a campus protest against unfair dismissals of gay colleagues throws her into deeper shambles.Kızım Hakkında Her Şey’e başladığımda bir ebeveyn hikayesi okuyacağımı düşünmüştüm ama okudukça şunu gördüm: hepimiz her gün bir savaşın ortasına çekiliyoruz. Çalışıyoruz, koşturuyoruz üstelik sürekli izleniyoruz, eleştiriliyor ve yargılanıyoruz. Kızım Hakkında Her Şey’de de bu savaşlar var. Kızından beklentilerini topluma ve yargılarına göre şekillendiren bir anne ama bunun yanında şefkatini hiç bağı olmayan birine daha çok gösteren bir kadın.. Catherine Taylor, Irish Times An admirably nuanced portrait of prejudice . . . one that boldly takes on the daunting task of humanizing someone whose prejudice has made her cruel. Despite its short length Concerning my Daughter is by no means a breeze to read. It is a candid and stark study of a fraught mother-daughter relationship. In Concerning my Daughter Kim Hye-Jin examines generational differences, cultural conservatism, and the realities of being an lgbtq+ person living in a heteronormative and traditionalist society.

Concerning My Daughter, Hugs and - NPR In translation; Concerning My Daughter, Hugs and - NPR

In the meal that opens the novel, the distance between Green and her mother is apparent and growing wider. At Jen’s funeral, as the three women—Green, Lane, and the mother—become family, the mother looks at the unappetizing funeral food, tastes it, and, significantly, finishes her entire bowl. She urges the girls to join her. Like the moment of communion earlier in the novel, this moment again reflects the Biblical last supper. But for the mother and her daughters, it is not the last supper, but a first. The mother will continue to struggle with Lane and Green’s relationship. She imagines that acceptance will take a miracle: “[M]aybe what lies ahead is a life of endless fights and tolerance. Will I be able to take such a life? Will I get through it?” At the very least, the mother now has the desire to understand and to accept. She has stepped into the midst of their lives. And the world that she will reach, that I won’t be around for – what will it look like? Better than this? Or more relentless?

Award-winning Korean novelist Kim Hye-jin’s Concerning My Daughter is a clear-eyed character study of the fraught relations among biological and found families alike…. Kim’s keen attention to character reveals the nuance of her narrator’s pragmatic brand of empathy…. Concerning My Daughter manages to capture a societal need for both accepting collective complicity and practicing enduring empathy.” But when Green turns up with her girlfriend Lane in tow, her mother is unprepared and unwilling to welcome Lane into her home. In fact, she can barely bring herself to be civil. Having centred her life on her husband and child, her daughter’s definition of family is not one she can accept. Her daughter’s involvement in a case of unfair dismissal involving gay colleagues from the university where she works is similarly strange to her. And then, her only daughter, now in her thirties, has to move in with her, as she's broke and can't find a permanent job. She shares her room with her long-term partner, another woman. Ya da belki. Korkağın tekiyim. Hiçbir şey duymak istemeyen, risk almaktan kaçan, başkasının meselesine burnunu sokmayan biriyim. Etliye sütlüye karışmayan, kıyafetleri kirlenmesin diye hep kenarda duran biriyim. Duyulmak istenenleri söyleyen, görülmek istenen ifadeyi takınan, çaktırmadan geri adım atan kişiyim. Yine de iyi biri olmak mı istiyorum? Peki ya konu kızım olduğunda?’