Nụ cười của Shoko

by Choi Eun-young, Kim Ngân (Translator)

Ấn phẩm truyền cảm hứng và nghị lực sống đến hàng triệu người dân xứ sở kim chi.

Năm 2013, tác phẩm đầu tay của Choi Eun Young - Nụ cười của Shoko (Shoko’s Smile) đã giành hàng loạt Giải thưởng Văn học danh giá cho các tác giả trẻ (Writer’s World New Writer Award, Heo Gyun Literary Award, Kim Jun-sung Literary Award, Young Writers’ Award).

Cuốn sách là câu chuyện về sự gặp gỡ và chia ly của hai nhân vật với quốc tịch khác nhau đi cùng với sự bất đồng về ngôn ngữ. Họ gặp nhau thông qua chương trình trao đổi học sinh trung học, Shoko từ Nhật đã đến trường cấp III ở Hàn Quốc của So Yoo và theo học tại đó một tuần, đồng thời sinh sống tại nhà So Yoo. Khi Shoko đến, không khí trong nhà So Yoo dường như thay đổi hẳn, người ông khó tính của So Yoo trở nên niềm nở với Shoko vô cùng tuy chỉ với vốn tiếng Nhật ít ỏi của mình, mẹ So Yoo cũng nhiệt tình hơn, Shoko dần trở thành một người bạn thân thiết với ông. Sau khi kết thúc chương trình trao đổi, cả hai vẫn tiếp tục liên lạc với nhau bằng thư từ, rồi một ngày, với hai lá thư ngắn gọn gửi đến cho ông và So Yoo, mọi liên lạc giữa ba người đã bị cắt đứt. So Yoo lớn lên, đi học trao đổi tại Canada, gặp lại người bạn trong khóa trao đổi cấp III năm nào, nghe kể về Shoko, liệu cô có ý định đến Tokyo để gặp lại người bạn Shoko của mình không?

“Người ta vẫn thường nói xa mặt thì cách lòng, dù yêu dù ghét gì thì cũng phải thường xuyên gặp mặt mới bồi đắp được tình cảm, nhưng trong trường hợp của Shoko thì lại khác. Phải là người tuyệt đối không thể nào bước được vào cuộc sống của bản thân, phải là người ở một chốn xa xôi không nhìn thấy cũng không nghe thấy... phải là người như vậy, Shoko mới có thể gọi là bạn được”

Với 6 phần truyện ngắn, nhẹ nhàng, tinh tế, tác phẩm một cách tự nhiên nhất sẽ để dòng chảy cảm xúc của người đọc chạm tới mọi ngóc ngách trong tâm hồn con người.

Truyện nhận được sự đánh giá cao của giới tác giả và phê bình về sự tinh tế của nó. Lắng nghe, quan sát xung quanh thật kĩ, ta sẽ để ý thấy nỗi khổ tâm của mỗi người, thứ mà ta khó có thể đoán được khi nhìn thoáng qua dáng vẻ bề ngoài của họ, có những người sinh ra đã có nhiều điểm yếu, và dễ bị tổn thương bởi chính điểm yếu của mình, đó là lý do vì sao mà Choi Eun Young, với sự quan sát nhạy bén của bản thân trong đời thường, đã đem đến một tác phẩm tinh tế, cảm xúc, được giới văn học đánh giá cao tài năng cho dù cô chỉ là một tác giả trẻ tuổi.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Asian Literature, Literary Fiction, Asia, Translated Fiction

308 pages, Paperback

First published July 7, 2016

About the author

Choi Eun-young ( 최은영) is a South Korean writer. She began her literary career in 2013, when her short story “Shokoui miso” (쇼코의 미소; Shoko's Smile) was selected for the quarterly literary magazine Writer's World's New Writer's Award. With the same work, she received the 5th Munhakdongne Young Writer's Award in 2014. She was awarded the 8th Heo Gyun Writer's Award in 2016, and was awarded the 8th Munhakdongne Young Writer's award in 2017.

Reviews

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Is being a woman really that embarassing and painful?
Women are emotional, disruptive, selfish, and therefore more likely to betray the organization; a woman's enemy is another woman. Is that sort of self-denial the healthiness you talk of?"


I love the writing. I feel the translation is well done. I am actually really happy when a translated book works more than I had anticipated. The stories are more of realistic fiction, slice of life kind giving the readers a realistic view of people connecting with other people of different multicultural background.

*Contents:

1. Shoko's Smile
5 🌟
This story is as sad as it's beautiful. It talks about flawed characters and those who matter in our lives.

*Mental health, self harm
*Japanese, Korean characters
*Letters play a major role in the plot

2. Xin Chào, Xin Chào
5 🌟
*Korean, Vietnamese characters
*Talks about the Vietnam war
*depicts character suffering from depression


3. Sister, My Little Soonae
4🌟
*Sisterhood
*Violence/political
The story is about how people change and how they don't. Sad and nostalgic.


4. Hanjo and Youngju
5 🌟
The story mainly talks about the effects of war, immigrants and faith.
*Complicated adult relationships
"My simplicity, keeping me from understanding him to the end."
*Disability, racism and discrimination
I loved the discussion on life and death.


5. A Song From Afar
4🌟
*Female friendships
*How upbringing matters, illness and grief, LGBTQIAP
*Feminism: let's discuss.
"Is being a woman really that embarassing and painful?
Women are emotional, disruptive, selfish, and therefore more likely to betray the organization; a woman's enemy is another woman. Is that sort of self-denial the healthiness you talk of?"

6. Michaela
4 🌟
*Faith, culture
*A story about a mother and a daughter, how one generation differs from the next
A story about women.

"But not everything that the many useful people in the world did seemed truly useful to the world."


7. The Secret
5 🌟
*Terminal illness, story about a mother and a daughter
*Gender discrimination
*Women harassing women, gender stereotypes
*Women supporting each other

A good short story collection. I enjoyed each story. They have a story to tell. Each story is different yet so similar with their underlying feelings and emotions women go through their lifetime.

If you love Murakami's writing, characters and stories you will enjoy this collection.

"For her to call someone a friend, they had to be a safe distance away, out of sight and out of earshot, with absolutely zero chance of ever intruding on her life." (She quoted my life so accurately 😅)

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not even 300 pages long, and there are like 7 stories in it, and every single one of them hits like a novel.

That's pretty cool.

Even cooler is that the first 5 stories are excellent - the aforementioned novel-level punch (which sounds like a delicious beverage), beautiful writing, brilliantly translated.

But all good things must come to an end! This would be true if this were a perfect book and I had to finish it, and it is (unfortunately) true in this case, which is that the story goodness consistency was doomed to die an untimely death.

Too much?

The last two stories are a trope I HATE - (someone has been dead the whole time) - and having them back to back was frustrating.

It's a trope I detest so intensely because I see it as a cheap and easy way of getting an emotional hit in on your reader, and having that happen twice IN A ROW after five times of seeing much more elegant and subtle ways of inspiring a significantly more complex and generally better emotional response...well, to put it eloquently, it sucked.

But the first 5! Wow.

Bottom line: Five stars for the first five, overall 3.5 stars for the tantrum brought on by the final two.

---------------
currently-reading updates

could a person in a reading slump do this? (me reading like 20 pages of every book i come across and not finishing any of them)

perhaps a buddy read with elle

[aly ☆彡 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shoko's Smile is a collection of compelling short stories illustrating the growth and shattering of women's relationships and intimacies through time; presented with reality, seriousness, and moral rectitude. From Shoko's Smile to The Secret, all of these stories depict the connections that formed when women are understood by another or seen in a way that has never been seen before.

At the same time, this novel also manages to be both intimately personal as well as having large political upheavals loom in the backdrop. Readers who are inexperienced with recent Korean history will learn something by the end. And rather than being gratuitous, these political events are used to illustrate how intimate relationships are disrupted or permanently altered by greater events.

Truth to be told, I'm not sure why I started this when I don't feel like having any literary fiction at the moment. After looking further on what the message forth, I think this book is astonishing and agonizing all the same. I find the prose to be a bit dry and monotonous which is why as much as I wanted to love the book, I couldn't find myself engaging with them. I got weary instead. I also agreed on the part where most of the characters felt one-dimensional and barely distinguishable despite it being anthologies.

Undeniably, the socioeconomic, cultural, and generational backgrounds in Shoko's Smile stories are varied. Naturally, some of them may strike a chord with readers more than others, particularly those whose lives were impacted by the events that these stories are based on. I usually find it hard for me to feel more connected when a book presented me with various of short stories. There’s something discontinuous about reading relationship with short stories which is probably why, again, I didn't end up enjoying this as much as I hoped to.

Overall, I only like Shoko's Smile before finding the rest of the stories tedious, but this is clearly a piece of the collection's melancholy, broken by moments of stunning insight, pain, and even joy; making all the more touching for how difficult they are. It may not continue to produce a deep impression to me as I expected but I can still see and understand why it's the best selling and award-winning book.

[sree · Rating 5 out of 5]

i need 3-4 business years to recover from this

[el · Rating 4 out of 5]

astounded by the emotional depth of a short story collection so unembellished, so uncluttered, but also so unbearably human. there's so much empathy written into choi eunyoung's worlds—endless swaths of it. it was an honest pleasure to get to sit with these stories and characters for a short while. i'm 6 for 7 (6/7 of the stories either briefly brought me to tears, or had me well and truly bawling). at once melancholy and tender, shoko's smile demands that you tunnel down to the softest, most vulnerable parts of being alive, and loving others.

(i am still thinking about hanji and youngju......making my eyes sting fr......)

[leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

a beautifully-written collection of short stories, interweaving korean history and politics through the lives of south korean women and their relationships with one another.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked how this short story collection showcased the complex lives of young women living in South Korea at the intersections of class, generational status, and mental health. However, I found the writing rather monotonous and therefore the characters difficult to connect with. Choi Eun-young includes interesting ideas throughout the collection (e.g., complexities of mother/daughter dynamics, fathers who are vocal about social justice while letting down their families, how the passage of time affects relationships) though I wish I could have felt more of an emotional pull toward these characters and their lives.

[spillingthematcha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nietuzinkowa, z wielkim ładunkiem emocjonalnym. Bardzo autentycznie i bezpośrednio napisane opowiadania zaskoczyły mnie przede wszystkich swoim refleksyjnym charakterem i wielce poruszającymi relacjami.

[farahxreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily a new favourite read of mine. Shoko's Smile is an extraordinary collection of short stories with a lot of heart that centers around woman navigating human relationships amidst grief, trauma, suffering and injustice.

In Shoko’s Smile, the author compassionately explores the feeling of isolation and estrangement from one’s own family, the youthful naivete of history and politics, the quiet uncertainty surrounding friendship and relationship and the many ways human keep hurting each other. I deeply admire how most of the stories here center around political and historical events (the Vietnam war, the Sewol sinking, the Inhyukdang Incident) and instead of focusing on these events, the author dissects the unspoken grief and suffering that these events have inflicted upon its victims.

It was no suprise that I ugly cried my way throughout the book. With simple words and precise details, Choi Eunyong paints her characters in the most realistic light and captures the very essence of human emotions that often times I feel so seen when I was reading this book. Altogether, Shoko’s Smile is simply one of the best books that I’ve read and I I’m already on the lookout for what the author will do next. I highly recommend everyone to read this. 5/5 shining stars.

Thank you Times Reads for the review copy of Shoko’s Smile in exchange for an honest review.

[Smriti · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sit in my dark room sobbing quietly as I write this 'review'. This isn't going to be coherent but WOW, this book!!

Absolutely stunning writing. The character sketches, the underlying grief and sadness of each character and the situation, the incorporation of a social/political issue of Korea in the stories - just WOW.

These stories weren't anything great, anything that felt like huge monumental stories - I feel like you'll read this book after seeing this review and expect to be wowed and maybe you will or maybe you won't, but it made me feel things. It made me feel the character's pain and love and loss and made me want to write. And for that I'm grateful.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short story collection centering on intimate lives of ordinary women, a collection that often focuses on seemingly insignificant events with very significant effects. Some stories are better than others, but I love the simplicity of the prose that somehow manages to capture the complexity of human experience. A welcome read!

[Tala🦈 (mrs.skywalker.reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

nieskończoność/5

I’m just a girl (Korean sad girl version)

I am not ok but also kinda hugged?

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wszystkie opowiadania są wzruszające, ale ostatnie, o babci przed którą rodzina ukrywa fakt, że jej ukochana wnuczka zginęła w katastrofie promu Sewol - chłopie, ja płakałam 10 minut w łóżku, poszłam umyć zęby i dalej płakałam, ten zbiór będzie mieszkał w mojej głowie rent free jeszcze dłuuuuugi czas

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀

When it comes to collections of short stories, more often than not, I find myself rather unaffected by them. While most collections do have one or two good stories in them, the remainder tends to be either forgettable or plain bad. The stories in Shoko's Smile are by no means terrible but they did strike me as rather monotonous, dull even. I liked Eun-young Choi's restrained prose and that many of her stories hone in on life's quieter moments. Most of her stories are characterised by a sense of loss: there are those who are grieving the death of a loved one, those who regret not having done more to understand a friend or a relation of theirs, and those who long to be reunited with someone they care for. Generational divides also seem to be a recurring motif within this collection, as many stories feature children/parents or grandchildren/grandparents.

The blurb's comparison to Banana Yoshimoto does seem rather fitting, although I did find Choi's tone to be slightly more sombre. I liked that the stories didn't exclusively focus on South Korean characters, as we ones are starring Vietnamese and Japanese ones.
While Choi's themes were interesting and I did like her unadorned yet polished, the stories themselves...well, they didn't necessarily move me. Take the first story for example. The dynamic between the narrator and Shoko had potential but then as the narrative progresses the story veers into melodrama. A lot of the characters also sounded very much like the same person, which didn't help to differentiate their stories. They were too 'samey' and despite their relatively short length, I found my interested waning more often than not.
I am sure other readers will find these stories more heart-rendering than I did so I recommend you check out some more positive/in-depth reviews.

[Lavelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shoko's Smile was, to me, the embodiment of what I love about Korean literature. Pure, uncomplicated prose. Beautiful, hard-hitting, mesmerising storytelling. Narratives that ooze emotion, knock the breath out of you, transport you elsewhere. And oof, WHAT a ride.

Primarily, I felt this collection is about women and the pains of almost-separation. Women who lose contact with childhood friends, lovers, family members. Ties that are messily severed. Loose threads on shirts that won't rip off properly, and when pulled, unravel the cloth even further. Lost loved ones who remain ever-present, like a phantom itch, or a chronic ache. With great thoughtfulness and care, Choi also raises questions about South Korean history, and the ripple effects it continues to have on its people. There is so much weight behind these stories, and so much to unpack.

I was also blown away by how rich and fully fleshed out every piece in this collection was. All Choi's characters were so vivid, and complex, and real, I experienced every emotion they felt as though they were my own. And every ending was so satisfying, so complete, each story felt almost like a full-fledged novel in itself.

In line with keeping things simple, I'm just going to say: I LOVED this one. One of my top reads of 2021, for sure.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whenever she felt very fortunate to live a particular moment, the woman remembered her husband, who was called to heaven thirteen years ago. Thinking about him, a heavy pendulum seemed to scrape along the bottom of her heart. He never got to see Michaela enter university or watch her grow into a fine young woman. He never saw the Holy Father holding the Mass at Gwanghwamun and no, he had never been to Jeju island either.

Shoko's Smile: Stories is Sung Ryu's translation of 쇼코의 미소 by 최은영 (Choi Eun-young).

The title story of this collection, which was the author's debut, won the 2013 Writer's World's New Writer's Award and the 5th Munhakdongne Young Writer's Award in 2014, and the expanded collection of stories won two further literary awards.

Sung Ryu is part of the Smoking Tigers collective (https://smokingtigers.com/sung-ryu/). I have previously read her translation of two sci-fi/speculative fiction works, I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories by 김보영 (Kim Bo-Young) and the brilliant Tower by 배명훈 (Bae Myung-hoon).

As the title rather suggests, Shoko's Smile: Stories, is a collection of stories. The 7 stories with their English and Korean titles, and English page count, are:

Shoko's Smile / 쇼코의 미소 (58pp)
Xin Chào, Xin Chào 씬짜오, 씬짜오 (27pp)
Sister, my Little Soonae 언니, 나의 작은, 순애 언니 (29pp)
Hanji and Yeongju 한지와 영주 (58pp)
A Song from Afar 먼 곳에서 온 노래 (29pp)
Michaela 미카엘라 (30pp)
Secret 비밀 (25pp)

Each centres around the life of a young Korean woman, with political overtones in some of the stories, such as the rounding-up and torture of suspected leftists, the sinking of the Sewol ferry (see below) and the pro-democracy student movement.

An extract from the title story can be found at Korean Literature Now. The story tells off the relationship between two girls, later women, the narrator Soyu and Shoko, from Japan who she meets when she comes to Korea as an exchange student, and also their relationships with their respective grandparents, as well as their own personal traumas. Shoko's smile hints at the turmoil underneath, albeit not one the narrator picks up on until later:

She gave me a polite, that ever so polite smile.

It was the same smile she’d given me as a teenager. Yet in that smile, which had struck me as so cold and mature when I was young, I detected a vulnerable and defensive attitude. I used to think she was stronger than me. But Shoko was weak.

She must have felt it too. That I’d become mentally stronger, tougher than her. I was watching someone who’d had a piece of her mind shattered.

Although the story is only 58 pages it covers a lot of ground both in time and in the characters lives, and while well written, at times it came across as a precis of a novel rather than fully fleshed out, for example in a side-story of Soyu's abortive attempt to break into the film world:

Pure dreams were meant for talented filmmakers who could afford to enjoy their jobs. Glory was meant for them, too. Film art in general, only revealed its true face to hardworking mediocrities. I covered my face with my hands and sobbed. It was difficult to accept that fact. The moment untalented people clutch at the mirage of dreams, it slowly eats away their lives.

순결한 꿈은 오로지 이 일을 즐기며 할 수 있는 재능 있는 이들의 것이었다. 그리고 영광도 그들의 것이 되어야 마땅했다. 영화는, 예술은 범인의 노력이 아니라 타고난 자들의 노력 속에서만 그 진짜 얼굴을 드러냈다. 나는 두 손으로 얼굴을 가리고 눈물을 흘렸다. 그 사실을 인정하기가 어려웠기 때문이다. 재능이 없는 이들이 꿈이라는 허울을 잡기 시작하는 순간, 그 허울은 천천히 삶을 좀먹어간다.

Xin Chào, Xin Chào is taken from the Vietnamese greeting, and tells of the narrator's timing living in Germany. Her family befriend a family of Vietnamese immigrants, until the two families fall out over the Vietnam War and the realisation for the narrator that what she has been taught at school, that Korea has never invaded another country, isn't strictly true.

Sister, my Little Soonae concerns is a story told by the narrator of her mother, and her mother's 'sister' Soonae, but actually only a distant relative, daughter of the narrator's grandmother's cousin, sent to live with the family as a helper. When Soonae's husband is arrested, tortured and imprisoned for alleged pro-North Korean activities, the grandmother disowns her and tells her daughter to, her philosophy:

If you couldn't share someone else's pain, if you didn't have the guts to survive a difficult stretch with them, it was better to choose heartlessness over half-hearted affection.

상대의 고통을 같이 나눠 질 수 없다면, 상대의 삶을 일정 부분 같이 살아낼 용기도 없다면 어설픈 애정보다는 무정함을 택하는 것이 나았다.

Hanji and Youngju is a story of an enigmatic relationship between the narrator Youngju, and a young Kenyan man Hanji, both volunteers at a monastery in France. While as long as Shoko's Smile this story is more constrained in scope and more intense as a result.

A Song From Afar was the weakest story for me, the narrator travelling to Russia in search of her former lover (albeit this is implied rather than explicit), a woman several years her senior (sunbae) at the same university. But the story also contains a backstory about a student band and the alumni organisation at their university that I found hard to grasp, even with some knowledge of Korean culture.

Michaela is told from two third-person close perspectives, that of Michaela herself, in her early 30s, and her religious mother. The story revolves around the Pope's visit to Seoul in 2014. Michaela's mother has come to Seoul for the occasion but has told her daughter she is staying with a friend, as she wants to be invited rather than ask. The story circles back to Michaela's family, including her father, a political activist, and in the present-day touches on the
Sewol ferry disaster (a traumatic and transformative event in modern Korean history that even contributed to the impeachment of the President.)

The last story, The Secret, contains a hidden twist, one that might be easily guessed by a Korean reader, that isn't actually revealed in the story but instead in the translator's afterword (and rather more oddly the English blurb on the book's bakc).

The overall collection was one of the book recommendations of Jisoo from Blackpink (complete list here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...) and it did feel at times aimed at a younger audience than myself. The blurb compares the collection to Sally Rooney and Marilynne Robinson, which is a rather odd pair of names to see together; Robinson's brilliance alongside Rooney's trite prose. But reading stories such as Michaela, I can see the relevance, as while focusing on young women there is a strongly moral, and at times religious, element here lacking from Rooney's self-absorbed characters, albeit the theology certainly doesn't approach Robinson's levels of depth, and in that sense the short story format doesn't always do the work justice I think.

Overall, a slightly uneven collection but worthwhile - 3.5 stars (5 for the Robinson elements, and 2 for the Rooneyesque parts).

[Mewa · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Bu­dzi­łam się rano z myślą, że lu­dzie są ni­czym. Nawet ta twar­da zie­mia, po któ­rej stą­pa­my, ko­niec koń­ców jest ni­czym wię­cej jak tylko sko­ru­pą uno­szą­cą się na stale po­ru­sza­ją­cym się ziem­skim płasz­czu. Aż trud­no mi uwie­rzyć, że pró­bo­wa­łam pla­no­wać swoją przy­szłość, stą­pa­jąc po tak nie­pew­nym grun­cie…“

[ola ✶ cosmicreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
JAKIE TO BYŁO ŚWIETNE!!! przeprawa pełna dyskursów, kontemplacji i zachwytem nad piórem autorki.
• uśmiech shoko 5/5
• xin chào, xin chào 4/5
• siostrzyczko, moja mała siostrzyczko sunae 4/5
• hanji i yeongju 5/5
• pieśń z dalekich stron 4/5
• michaela 4/5
• sekret 5/5
czytajcie!

[April (Aprilius Maximus) · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF'd page 185, halfway through the 5th story

Short stories just aren't really for me, folks.

[kamila.czyta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread 2024: warto było wrócić, bo za drugim razem odkryłam tą gamę emocji, która mnie jakby ominęła rok temu (może moje samopoczucie nie pozwoliło mi wejść w ten zbiór?). Bezsprzecznie 5/5, cudowny i nieoczywisty w swojej prostocie zbiór opowiadań, trafia do moich ulubionych tajfunów

Nie wiem czy wszystkie opowiadania zrozumiałam, bo sporo tu niedopowiedzenia, ale jestem pod wrażeniem tych małych historii. Autorka porusza wątki społeczno-polityczne (co jest ciekawym smaczkiem kulturowym), ale głównie są to proste historie, gdzie chwytają gdzieś głęboko korzeni serca

[niña · Rating 5 out of 5]

poignant and very truthful, a lot of times it felt so intimate that i found it hard to move on from one sentence to another.. it was simple but not in a way that betrays the complexity and depth that the stories have.

[Bagus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Choi Eun-yong’s short stories collection, Shoko’s Smile, brings an intimate connection between people across boundaries of time and space, redefines love and loss that easily makes me lost in the seven stories included in this volume. It is easy to take for granted the emancipation of women and how technological advance make our daily lives more bearable today. But Choi Eun-yong’s stories take us to revisit how society changed in the past few decades, with her stories that seem to take points of view from people growing up in the 1990s as political and societal changes happened in South Korea.

The titular story Shoko’s Smile remains my favourite among the seven stories. It brings the viewpoint of Soyu, a Korean teenager who received Shoko, a Japanese high school student of the same age who happened to participate in high school academic exchange to Korea. Soyu and her family members hosted Shoko during the one-week visit, during which Soyu’s grandfather and mother also interacted with Shoko. After the brief visit, Shoko remained in touch with the family, sending letters in Japanese to Soyu’s grandfather and in English to Soyu. Most of the time, the letters would contain contradictory remarks, symbolising the differences between Shoko’s smile that appears on the outside with her inner desire to escape the world she lives in. Soyu was shocked at the extent of the conversation between her grandfather and Shoko who was practically a stranger, even telling her something that she never knew about her grandfather. Sometimes, it’s easier to tell ‘sensitive’ things to strangers rather than those closest to us, for the sake of sparing the ‘awkwardness’ of confiding our secrets. Choi Eun-yong using creative sentences and symbolisation of the smile and letter exchanges could recall this usually unexplainable situation in the brief friendship between Shoko and Soyu.

Many of Choi Eun-yong’s stories feature women who find themselves understood in the weirdest circumstances by another woman whom they encountered by chance. In Xin Cháo, Xin Cháo, the friendship between the narrator’s mother and Mrs Nguyen found themselves due to their husbands’ shared workplace. The year was 1995, many Vietnamese families in the past moved to East Germany during the GDR era as part of Gastarbeiter ‘guest worker’ to contribute to the industrialisation of fellow socialist countries. The narrator found herself in that part of the country as her parents were both German majors and worked there after graduation. Yet in this strange context, they found themselves drawn to this situation, formed a close friendship that is bridged in a second language, German. However, the warmness of Mrs Nguyen toward the narrator’s family could not survive the argument about South Korea’s involvement to aid the US military forces during the Vietnam War, when Mrs Nguyen’s family losses were revealed as the casualties of the war. Sometimes people who understood us the most are those who were wounded and hid their wounds deeply, ‘to make the situation comfortable’.

Shoko’s Smile is an intimate collection, filled with stories that depict the raw intimate connections between people who sometimes find themselves in the worst period of their lives and encounter strange connections with other women. The stories also show how sometimes even some connection made in the shortest period of time, such as the one week of connection between Shoko and Soyu in Shoko’s Smile or the three months in Hanji and Youngju, could have long-lasting impacts on the lives of the persons involved and reveal their innermost vulnerabilities. It also shows how memories of the past could change, as some gaps are revealed to bring a clearer picture of the past, that the past could finally be seen in a different light through each new fact revealed by the characters. Translated beautifully by Sung Ryu, who also co-translated Kim Bo-young’s I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories, this collection reveals the rawness of human’s connection and brings the changing political backdrops in South Korea to celebrate those who lost their relationships and families in the turbulent tide of history.

[Nadirah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knowing how hard it is to put so many emotions into a short story, it amazes me how adept Choi Eun-young is at doing so with almost every single story in this collection. She writes from women's POV in brisk yet evocative writing, letting us experience and feel the quiet drama in each of her characters' lives. Sometimes the drama would feel larger than life—like a childhood friendship gone wrong over matters such as war and a massacre, or someone grieving over a tragedy like the Sewol Ferry incident—while at other times, the drama is something you've lived through: someone you cherished moving away and gradually growing apart from them as a result, growing ever distant from your mother or your grandparents as you grow up, and seeing too late your past mistakes which have led you to your own heartbreak.

Despite the heartbreak and tears I've experienced over some of these stories, I enjoyed the melancholic and bittersweet ones the most. There's something so relatable and beautiful in the way Choi Eun-young writes her characters and their conflicted feelings. I can't wait to read more of her stories.

[elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

buddy read with emma & leah
in a bad reading slump but buddy reads always help

————————————

finally finally finished! i sort of thought i'd like this more BUT it was still great! all the stories are so complete in their own way, although i loved the first stories more than the latter. however, it was so cool and interesting to read about korean history in a book that was already written in korean.

also, i just want to give HUGE props to the translator. i went back and forth between the original korean version and the translated version and the language and feel are almost identical. this is incredibly hard to do because korean and english are such vastly different languages but somehow the translator manages to capture the essence of the original text. just loved it so much. this is why translated books are just amazing. as a bilingual gal, this just made me so happy so i thought i should mention it.

[Marta Demianiuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐️. Cieszę się, że ta książka ma posłowie, bo po jego przeczytaniu zorientowałam się, że kilku rzeczy w tych opowiadaniach nie załapałam.

Tajfuny testują moją niechęć do krótkiej formy. Tu kilka opowiadań było naprawdę niezłych, a w kilku się pogubiłam. Nie ma wielkiego zachwytu całokształtem, ale nie ma też rozczarowania. Nie żałuję jednak lektury, bo było to przy okazji liźniecie koreańskiej historii.

[Tylkotrocheczytam · Rating 5 out of 5]

full stars, bo płakałam i bardzo mi się podobała. na pewno do niej kiedyś wrócę.

1. uśmiech shoko i xin chào, xin chào
2. siostrzyczko, moja mała siostrzyczko sunae
3. hanji i yeongju
4. pieśń z dalekich stron
5. sekret
6. michaela

Mało się różni mój ranking od kolejności w książce, ale niech będzie.

[The Reading Potato · Rating 5 out of 5]

United by relationships, love and loss, this collection of short stories seamlessly incorporates Korean history and politics with the exploration of human connection through the lens of different South Korean women.

Wow. This collection is amazing. I typically don’t enjoy short stories, but I loved these. There was not a single story that I didn’t enjoy. Each one felt complete and kept me thinking long after I finished the last page.

Heartbreaking and moving with great characterization, many of the stories contained an unexpected twist that would make me view the story in a whole new light. The majority of them also emphasized how when differences collide (albeit through upbringings, perspectives or cultures), it can unite others or tear them apart. The translation into English was very well done, and I especially enjoyed how certain Korean characters and honorifics were kept.

Intersecting the personal and the political, these beautifully-written stories are compelling and thought-provoking, and I will be eagerly awaiting more from this author. This book hits the shelves on June 1, so go check it out!

A huge thanks to Penguin Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Tomasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tytułowe opowiadanie wspaniałe, idealnie melancholijne, subtelne i emocjonalne, ale z pozostałych chyba tylko jednemu udało się wzbudzić we mnie podobne odczucia. Mimo to jednak zdecydowanie warto przeczytać, bo chociaż ogólne odczucia mam mieszane, tak już sam „Uśmiech Shoko” stanowi perełkę. 3,5

[Liz • りず · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Memory is a talent. You were born with it,” my grandma told me when I was young. “But it’s a painful one. So, try to make yourself a little less sensitive. Be extra cautious with happy memories, my dear. Happy memories seem like jewels when, in fact, they’re burning charcoal. You’ll hurt yourself if you hold on to them, so let go and dust off your hands. Child, they are no gift.”
📸 💌 ☕️
Shoko's Smile interweaves challenges of squandered youth, melancholy, family strife, and grief with kindness, hope, and love. 
Choi introduces a cast of characters in seven short stories that vary in age, occupation, and motive, but all long for connection, typically with themselves, as well as those around them. The desire for intimacy and to be understood intensifies as relationships eventually deteriorate or become estranged from one another.

Shoko's Smile is an exceptionally touching collection of realistic, profound, and tender stories. Each is impassioned and complex but never bleak. They depict the reality of the female experience and human connections in their truest form. Each story portrays ordinary life's complexities and challenges in an authentic, untarnished narrative. The end effect is a lingering and poignant kaleidoscope of women and their resilience in the face of the uncertain future. 

Infamous political upheavals, such as dictatorships, the sinking of the Sewol ferry, and the Vietnam War, are woven throughout these stories, serving as a contextual backdrop to each character's experiences and worldviews. Reference to these events is not extraneous; rather, they serve to illuminate how these broader happenings disrupt or irreparably damage private relationships.

Choi Eunyoung portrays intimate depictions of the lives of young women in South Korea in straightforward, honest writing, striking a balance between the political and the personal. Shoko's Smile is a beautifully told collection sure to make you teary-eyed.

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

i know i have other five star reviews on this account, but i’ve been here since i was like, eleven, so i don’t think any five star review i’ve made in 2013-2015 still stands today. this book, however, does hold a special place as it’s the first short story collection/novel that i’m giving full stars for in adulthood.

there’s so much to say about the stories compiled into this book. empowering, introspective, something to learn from. the stories feel human, in all their best and worst and just… the way they’re intended to be short as well also contributed to how it’s grounded in human emotion; those fleeting moments that can define your life but seem so small in the grander scheme of things. choi eunyoung executed that perfectly, and the translation was done well that the prose was still so lovely. my heart is so warm.