Where the sun comes up

Where the sun rises (original title: The New Year) is the title of a novel published in 1968 by the American writer Pearl S. Buck about the fate of the "war children". The question arises using the example of the child of a Korean mother and an American soldier who kept his year-long affair secret during the Korean War for eleven years and who is now confronted with his past through a cry for help from his son during his election campaign for governorship responsibility, possibly with the end of a political career. The German translation by Maria Meinert was published in 1969.

overview

The novel takes place on two time levels: once in the mid-1960s at the time of the Cold War in the USA (1st and 3rd chapters) and in South Korea (2nd chapter) and, secondly, in faded-in retrospectives by Chris Winters and Kim Soonya in The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice. Using the example of the “war child” Kim Christopher, the author addresses the situation of people in the field of tension between different cultures: the exclusion in Korean society and the taboo of soldiers' children in North America.

action

1

Christopher (Chris) Winters, a successful Philadelphia attorney running for governorship, receives a letter from his Korean son, Kim Christopher, whom he last saw as a one-month baby. He asks him for help with his education, because he cannot go to a good school in Korea. Winters is reminded of his time in the Korean War about twelve years ago, which he pushed aside: As a 24-year-old, married to Laura de Witt for three days, he was called up as a soldier in 1952 and brought to Korea, where the armistice in 1953 exempt from combat operations. The soldiers stationed in Seoul are bored and have fun with local girls in dance halls. Chris meets Soonya there, who has to feed her family as a bar girl. Laura seems unreal to him. Chris and Soonya fall in love, he moves into a small hut with her, she becomes his concubine and hopes, since she does not know about his marriage, that he will marry her and take her to America. She becomes pregnant, and instead of making further commitments, he returns to America. He withholds the real reason, explains what she can understand from her tradition, that he has to look after his parents and promises her to try to come back. But he breaks off contact with her.

He does not tell his wife about his Korean relationship. Laura is a contrast to Soonya: intellectual and controlled. During his semester break, he worked as a reporter for a newspaper on a fashion show in which the budding scientist appeared as a mannequin. Only after his return from Korea does their loving marriage begin. Their careers take away their time for children: he as an economist and lawyer, she as a biologist and pharmacologist. Laura is researching the development of medicines made from seaweed. She gave up her risky diving with breathing apparatus in great depths for his love. Now she works in her own laboratory and is writing a book about her research.

Winters tells his campaign manager Joe Berman about the existence of his illegitimate son, who advises him to keep the story a secret and not to answer the letter in order not to damage his image with conservative voters. Because he and his wife have to portray the perfect couple, in appearance and morality. Affairs would be cannibalized by his opponents. Chris agrees, but feels guilty about his wife and tells her about the letter. She reacts disappointed and asks him about the Korean woman compared to her. He evokes their love, which has deepened more and more during the time of their marriage. After several discussions about her reactions to the letter, Laura decides to travel to Korea alone to learn about the situation of the boy and his mother and to speak to them.

2

In the second chapter, Laura's trip to Korea is told. In the hotel she meets Mr. Choe Yu-ren, who studied in the USA and whose company works with American pharmaceutical companies. He offers to guide her through the strange city, accompanies her to Soonya's poor house, where she lives with her mother and son, and translates the conversation. Laura learns, supported by a comparison of images, that Soonya is the mother of Chris' son. Mr. Choe quickly recognized the reason for Laura's trip, invited her to his house for tea and informed her about the living conditions of the Korean woman. Kim Soonya is a singer and runs the "House of Flowers", in which only Korean men, not foreigners, are entertained and entertained by beautiful, well-behaved girls. Choe confesses that, as a widower, he is a customer of the noble brothel himself, knows Soonya well, but has never been served by her, even though he helped her set up her establishment with a loan. She is a tough business woman. Prostitutes would be accepted in Korean society and serve as a complement to the sexual desires of men, which the wives cannot fulfill. He takes Laura to the “House of Flowers”, she listens to Soonya's singing, accompanied by her disguised son playing the lute and wonders whether this should be the child's future.

On a second visit by Soonya, she explains her child's situation: The sons belong to their fathers in Korea and, as a fatherless child, Christopher has no birth certificate, so he is not part of society, is insulted and cannot go to school. Christopher is therefore unhappy, directs his anger against his mother and often runs away from home. Soonya also tells how she met Chris, lived with him and hoped to marry him in America, although he never promised her that. It becomes clear that she still loves him and has a love-hate relationship with her son that she cannot resolve in her society because of the role models. Laura then speaks to Christopher and asks him what he wants. He says he feels like a stranger in Korea, that he is treated as an unloved American because he belongs to his father and not to his mother, whom he loves and hates.

Laura's explorations are completed by the acquaintance of two American soldiers and she can understand her husband's situation better. Lieutenant Lucius Brown describes the loneliness of men who see no point in their military service and who seek simple conversation in the bars. He suppresses the rejection and abuse of the war children. Jim Traynor is more open about this and speaks of persecution and murder. But he puts the responsibility on the Koreans. He himself maintains a temporary Korean friend. In the event of pregnancy, she would have to have an abortion. Laura cannot imagine that Chris would have acted like this and after her various conversations and observations with Mr. Choe, she consults about Christopher's chance in Korea. While, like her husband, she favors an education in a boarding school in Korea, Mr. Choe warns that Christopher will not find a good school. He has no future prospects in the country, except that he will one day take over his mother's business. In the event of an upheaval in the country or an occupation by North Korea, there is even the risk that he will be killed along with many American war children. She then agreed with Soonya to take Christopher to America and to pay her compensation for the fact that she had previously had to look after her son on her own. With that money, she can buy a house, support herself, and go out of business. Laura informed her husband about all stages of her research and finally changed his mind that she would bring his son to America. He sends a declaration of paternity to the embassy in Seoul and thus Christopher is American and is allowed to leave the country. Mr. Choe takes advantage of this solution. He advises Soonya to give up the child and offers her, if this trace of the troubled past is blurred, to become his second wife, and she agrees to this care marriage without love.

3

In the third chapter, the plot alternates between two locations: from Philadelphia, Chris Winters, with the support of his wife, leads an election campaign in the state; in New Hampshire, Christopher successfully attends Waite School and longs for his father's attention.

Laura brings Christopher to the USA. Chris is waiting for them at Los Angeles Airport . You stay in California for a few days to get to know each other. Winters has decided, without consulting his wife and to her surprise , to hide his son in a boarding school, the Waite School in New Hampshire , first of all, even during the holidays , so as not to give the opposition the opportunity to do so to use weak point in his biography in the election campaign. The boy's further fate is to be decided later. In Waite they pass the headmaster James Bartlett off as a Korean orphan they want to adopt to Christopher and discuss the school program with him. They promise Christopher to visit him for Christmas, leave the disappointed boy behind and travel on to Philadelphia.

Already at the hotel in Los Angeles there was tension between Laura and Winters, which continued to disrupt their relationship until the end of the election campaign, but she gives in to his wishes because she knows about the importance of a political career for him and is committed to how provided v. a. at events for women. There she does not present herself as a successful scientist and emancipated woman with a job, but above all as a wife. With her practiced mannequin technique, she accompanies her husband to the many appointments that he routinely completes. He knows what the followers want to hear and receives a lot of applause. His manager Berman plans his appearances and recruits influential supporters. He anxiously makes sure that the press does not receive any unwanted information and he admonishes Laura to be extremely careful with the correspondence with Christopher. Chris concentrates on his political career, is convinced of himself as an energetic reformer with an eye for the necessary future projects and, after the election, would like to push through major reforms with almost dictatorial methods, unhindered by the cliques. Laura is shocked and unsettled by this new way of looking at her husband. She realizes that both of them have become actors who rush from performance to performance and play their program. When another letter arrives from Christopher asking about his visit, she carefully tries to remind him of his responsibility for his son, but he evades and wants to decide everything later. Laura knows that he has to come to a solution himself. While working in the laboratory for a few days, she got the idea to make a detour to school before going back. According to the headmaster, Christopher is developing well, has good grades, is interested in science, but is often unhappy, although Mr. Bartlett looks after him kindly and encourages him. He is artistically gifted, builds a puppet theater and carves four figures out of wood: his family with two mothers. Laura promises him that his father will ski with him over the Christmas holidays. After her return, she talks to Chris about the fact that he cannot always hide his son, otherwise, as governor or president, he will always face exposure and scandal.

After winning the election, the winters visit Christopher, get to know each other better while skiing and celebrate Christmas together. Chris still doesn't seem to have made up his mind. At the end of the year a big New Year's Eve party is celebrated in the Philadelphia house. Chris Winters gives a speech and tells his audience about his engagement in the Korean War, his relationship with a Korean woman and his son, whom he suddenly lets into the room and who sings "My country, 'his and thee" with his beautiful voice. Laura, like everyone else, is surprised and moved to tears, she joins the two of them in a group of three, in front of which the guests fille past and welcome the boy. "A new year lay ahead of them."

shape

Like most of Buck's stories and novels, the plot of "Where the Sun Rises" is broken up by retrospectives and structured chronologically. In “personal form” , the story is told primarily from Laura's perspective: the reader follows her actions and gets an insight into her thoughts. You can learn the opinions of the other characters from their dialogues. In small sections this main line changes to other scenes and there Soonya, Mr. Choe, Christopher or Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett are the reflector figures , i. H. you follow the conversations from their point of view.

The message of the novel in relation to Buck's commitment to Asian orphans

The literary works of Buck are mostly closely related to their educational social and cultural work, their commitment to marginalized groups of society, for women's rights, against war, violence and racism. Based on this motivation, “Where the Sun Rises” also contains an appeal to free oneself from social prejudices against other ethnic groups. Long before this was considered fashionable or politically opportune, Buck called on the American public to raise awareness of gender discrimination and the plight of Asian war children, as was the case in “Where the Sun Rises”. In 1949 she criticized some adoption services for finding Asian and multiracial children unacceptable and, together with friends, founded the first international interracial adoption agency "Welcome House". In almost five decades of work, “Welcome House” has found new parents for over five thousand children. In order to help poor and discriminated children not eligible for adoption in Asian countries, Buck founded the "Pearl S. Buck Foundation" in 1964, from 1999 "Pearl S. Buck International" and in 1964 opened the "Opportunity Center" and the orphanage in South Korea. Offices were later set up in Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. When founding the Opportunity House, Buck said: “The purpose [...] is to publicize and recognize the injustices and prejudices of children who, because of their birth, are not allowed to enjoy the educational, social, economic and civic privileges normally granted remove."

reception

The author's literary works met with different responses. While Buck's popularity increased with readers and her books are still available in bookshops today, most critics in the USA classified their novels in the category of trivial literature because of their traditional structure and narrative style. When Buck surprisingly received the Nobel Prize in 1938, the renowned writer William Faulkner, who would not be honored until 11 years later, wrote to a friend that he would rather not win the prize than join “Mrs. Chinahand Buck ”. The devaluation by the literary establishment also meant that some of her works appeared on high school reading lists, but were not included in college curricula.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Perl S. Buck: "Where the sun rises". Scherz Verlag Bern Munich, 1969. Droemer Knaur, Munich and Zurich, 1973.
2. ^ "Welcome House: A Historical Perspective." Pearl S. Buck International.
3. ^ "Pearl S. Buck International, Our History" 2009.
4. ^ Sheila Melvin, "The Resurrection of Pearl Buck." In: The Wilson Quarterly, Washington DC Wilson Quarterly Archives, Spring 2006.