Kim Ji-young, a bland name, was born in Seoul on April 1, 1982.
She's just the average girl who's always lived around us.
In her body, we can even see our own shadow.
South Korean female writer Cho Nam-joo's novel "Kim Ji-young, Born in 1982" writes the story of how a second daughter from an ordinary civil servant family, in the process of birth, education, employment, marriage, and motherhood, was driven crazy by traditional cognition, social pressure and practical dilemmas.
On December 8, 2018, "Jin Zhiying Born in 1982" was published and distributed in Japan, and it achieved good results in only 2 days of publication - the first in the Japanese Amazon Cultural Edition.
Four days after its release, it had to be "republished" for the third time.
At the end of November of the same year, the book sold more than 1 million copies in South Korea, which is the second million-dollar bestseller in South Korea after a gap of 10 years.
In 2019, it was put on the screen and became a divine drama watched by 46.4W people and a Douban score of 8.6 points.
Some people commented that this is a movie that makes Korean men want to ban it.
Why does the story of an ordinary woman resonate so much? Let's take a look at this story!
01 Kim Ji-young around you and me
In Kim's childhood, we saw the sadness of the previous generation of women.
The grandmother, who lived with Kim's family, when she was young, "not only farmed, did business, and did housework for others, but even her own family was well taken care of, and she gritted her teeth and struggled to raise her four sons." ”
However, after many years of daughter-in-law becoming a mother-in-law, her grandmother has no understanding and respect for her daughter-in-law, Jin Zhiying's mother.
Zhiying's mother is a great woman who does her best to help her two daughters, hoping that they will not repeat their mistakes.
After Zhiying's father lost his job, the burden of the whole family fell on Zhiying's mother.
In Kim Ji-young's junior high school years, we saw the author's foreshadowing for Kim Ji-young's eventual insanity.
As a sentimental girl, Kim Ji-young is very envious of women who can bravely express their ideas and strive to achieve them.
But what about herself?
Not only does he lack the courage to face the problem and act, but he also cares deeply about the opinions of others.
In fact, this phenomenon is found in many women.
They often think twice: "If I do this, what will others think of me?" Forget it, I still don't want to do it! ”
Kim Ji-young's college and job search process is the longest span of time in the book.
We see what Kim Ji-young's college classmates do: Kim Ji-young's senior thinks that girls who have fallen in love are "chewed gum by others";
Jin Zhiying's sister, no matter how excellent, will not be recommended by the professor;
Female students fail to interview and will also encounter sexual harassment...
What kind of challenges will Jin Zhiying have after he has successfully applied for a job and started working?
Her group leader, Kim Eun-sil, forces herself into a "man" in order to keep her job.
She doesn't take maternity leave, entrusts her children to her parents and nannies, works overtime...
The final stage is Kim Ji-young's married life.
Her husband's name is Zheng Daixian.
Soon after marriage, the man's family began to give birth.
Although Jin Zhiying felt disgusted, he was powerless to resist.
She hoped that her husband would be on her side, but he advised her in turn: it is better to have one, anyway, sooner or later.
Jin Zhiying could only give in, enduring all kinds of discomfort caused by pregnancy and the great pain during childbirth.
After giving birth, she resigned.
As a stay-at-home mom, Jin Zhiying takes care of her children 24 hours a day, feeding them every 2 hours, and her wrists are inflamed from holding the child for a long time and doing housework.
02 Who drove her crazy?
In the past, when reading Lu Xun's "Blessings", we often asked: Who killed Xiang Lin's sister-in-law?
Now reading "Jin Zhiying Born in 82", I also want to ask: Who drove Jin Zhiying crazy?
After Zhiying sent the child to the nursery, she finally had time to catch her breath.
She bought herself a cup of coffee, and while sitting in the park resting, she heard a male office worker in his early 30s next to her whispering, "I would like to use the money my husband earned to buy coffee and drink, and hang around all day..."
Their words made Jin Zhiying collapse: "I gambled my life to give birth to the child, and even gave up all my life, work, and dreams, just to take the child, but I became a worm in their mouths, what do you say I should do next?" ”
Can men really understand what this crying really means?
They don't understand!
Because these questions were never in their thinking, the gentle Zheng Daixian really didn't know what to say in the face of his wife's outburst.
Denied by society, Jin Zhiying lost his last dignity.
It's a time of unfriendliness to women.
It turns out that from Xianglin Sister-in-law to Jin Zhiying, the heavy shackles on women's quilts have not been untied in today's society.
At the end of the story, we return to the perspective of the psychiatrist.
His wife also had a similar experience to Kim Ji-young, who was originally better than her husband, but eventually chose to return to the family and teach her husband and children.
After listening to Jin Zhiying's story, the psychologist began to reflect:
"If I were just an ordinary man in my forties, I probably wouldn't know these things for the rest of my life."
I finally know how much bitterness is behind the original Korean women, especially the mothers of children.
Before encountering a special case like Jin Zhiying like me, it is inevitable that I will not understand. ”
Although he began to understand women and hoped that his wife would be able to do what he wanted to do in the future, in the face of female doctors who left due to childbirth, he secretly decided that if he wanted to hire female employees in the future, he must find an unmarried single.
It seems that most men still divide women into my daughter, my wife, my mother, and other women. But they didn't think about how their wives and daughters existed in the eyes of other men.
So, treat everyone equally.
Or Mencius said it well: "The old man and the old man, the young man and the young man." ”
Understand, respect, and support the women in their own families, and then spread to other women in the world.
03 Can Jin Zhiying recover?
Many female readers in South Korea read the novel "Kim Ji-young, Born in 1982" and realized that they had been treated unfairly.
Kim's husband said that when the child is born, he will also "help" together.
In the face of her husband's comfort, she was unusually out of control: "Can you stop saying help me?" ”
As can be seen from the word "help", men think that housework and childcare are the affairs of women alone.
In fact, the phenomenon of "widowed parenting" is also popular in Chinese society.
Before, it was the fault of the father that he could not be raised.
Now, it has become the "fault of the mother".
Children are not well educated, and the first thing a father thinks of is to blame his wife.
The cognitive changes in women's status and existence value have slowly evolved and occurred in the past hundred years with the human rights movement from the West to the East.
At that time, the Norwegian writer Ibsen's "Doll's House" set off a climax of the women's liberation movement.
It was 1879, and women in the West were already fighting for their rights.
More than 100 years later, South Korea finally waited for "Kim Ji-young born in 82".
The author did not give everyone an expected ending - Kim Ji-young will make a gorgeous turn, and she can finally bravely realize her dream.
Unfortunately, Zhiying is not Nala, and she did not choose to run away from home.
At the very least, Nala is already acutely aware in Doll's House: "First of all I am alone".
What about Kim Ji-young? I'm afraid what she thinks is: First of all, I am a wife, a mother.
Even if she finally recovered, she still did not have the courage to go the other way.
Ibsen said: "My job is to ask questions, and I have no answers to those questions. ”
Similarly, the author of "Jin Zhiying Born in 1982" also raised the question in the book: no matter how capable and excellent the performance, as long as the parenting problem cannot be solved, the female staff will inevitably bring these troubles.
How to solve the problem of parenting?
This is not something that novelists can do.
The problem of women's childbearing will inevitably contradict self-realization in various aspects such as physical, psychological, economic ability, social participation, and social interaction.
Even though the state has introduced policies to encourage the birth of three children, many women who work hard in big cities still choose not to have children, or even not to fall in love, not to marry.
Readers who hope to read "Jin Zhiying Born in 1982" think together and work together to help Zhiying find a solution.
Written by | Forget about it
Edit | Quit the beans of the instant noodles
Typography | Nine pin lychee officers