In the parking lot, a group of Middle Eastern men dismantling their temporary Halloween store draw Hata’s attention. A teenage boy and girl sit at chairs, working beside each other. The boy seems more naughty and fidgety, constantly talking to the girl, kicking the boxes next to him with the side of his foot. Then he even hinders and messes up the girl’s work. However, the girl is not annoyed. Instead, she keeps on working, neglecting the boy’s practical joke until he leaves. She repels the boy “by
making herself in some measure disappear. As if to provide the means of her own detachment” (A Gesture Life 222). At the sight of the girl, Hata associates her
aloofness with K’s, and evokes the memories in relation to his Koreanness. In order to aid and pacify K, Hata speaks Korean and reveals his Korean identity to K. From his defensive remarks, a sense of depression could be fathomed—“I spoke some Korean as a boy. But then no more. Such things are not easily forgotten, and so I have the ability still” (A Gesture Life 235). At first, he is reluctant to admit the fact that he is a Korean. He even does not want to speak any Korean, and always regards his
Koreanness as an abject. Nonetheless, under the influence and induction of K, Hata’s sense of depression lowers, and he seems more willing to talk about his childhood in Korea. Before long, he falls in love with K.
K indeed has affected Hata a lot. She is to humanize the man that is unable and reluctant to express emotion (Chuh 14). It is K as well who has influenced Hata enough to create a breakdown of his model minority discourse. With an eye to being trusted and identified with, Hata endeavors to be a loyal officer and just obeys the given order. He even ignores the basic human rights for the comfort women, that is, to put their clothes on after the physical examination because no one asks him to do so.
Aside from this, due to his comradeship with other Japanese soldiers, he usually follows their wishes. Hence, when Corporal Endo shares the obscene pictures with him, he takes and looks at them in spite of his lack of interest in such photos. He always caters to the commands and wishes from other people as if he were a zombie without a soul. No wonder Captain Ono criticizes him that “[t]here is the germ of infirmity in you, which infects everything you touch or attempt. . . . You, Lieutenant, too much depend upon generous fate and gesture. There is no internal possession, no embodiment” (A Gesture Life 266). Namely, Hata lacks strong will and action, which is the evidence that he has no selfhood. Nevertheless, after knowing K, Hata changes
gradually. He has a great desire to live with K for good, and readies himself to argue with Ono about their future. This is the first time that his rebellion is exposed. Later, he even becomes an accomplice to cover up the fact that K kills Ono. All of the above result in the first collapse of his image as a model minority. He breaks away from what Ono has accused him of—his “infirmity” and “too much depending upon generous fate and gesture.” Most importantly, because of K, his repressed Korean identity topples over imperceptibly. His attitude toward Korean identity alters from negativity to positivity little by little. He speaks Korean, not denying the fact that he is a Korean, which corresponds to Anne Anlin Cheng’s critique—“Hata’s intimacy with K has ensured a secret reconnection with his renounced ethnic origin” (561). However, K still cannot escape from death eventually, as unfortunately turns into another cause of trauma for Hata.
Actually, the trauma resulting from K’s death has much to do with the adoption of Sunny. Even though there does not seem to be any direct connection between K and Sunny, based on James Berger’s analysis, “[a trauma] posits that the effects of an event may be dispersed and manifested in many forms not obviously associated with the event” (572). Hata has once dreamed to form a family with K, but the wish has gone unfulfilled with her demise. For the sake of recommencing his life, he
immigrates to the US, where he adopts Sunny by chance. Nevertheless, just like what Mary Burns tells him, “it’s as if she’s a woman to whom you’re beholden, which I can’t understand. . . . You adopt her. But you act almost guilty, as if she’s someone you hurt once, or betrayed, and now you’re obliged to do whatever she wishes” (A Gesture Life 60). He raises Sunny to compensate for the death of K, and seems to
transfer his affections toward K onto his adopted daughter unconsciously. Mark C.
Jerng also mentions that “[h]is adoption of Sunny explicitly repeats his relationship with K” (52). For Hata, Sunny is thought of as K’s stand-in because she is a Korean
from Pusan, an orphan who needs help, just like K’s helplessness as a comfort woman in the barracks. He is disturbed by the death of K all the time, for he cannot save his beloved out of the tormenting abyss. Owing to the lament and regret for K’s death, as a result, he insists on adopting a girl. Kandice Chuh comes up with her perspective on this second adoption in the novel:
Doc Hata’s motivations for wanting a girl child to adopt are explained by his life as Lieutenant Kurohata, as we discover that Doc Hata feels a sense of failure about “K”—about failing to have saved her either by vanquishing her tormentors or by ending her life. (14)
By looking after the adopted girl, Hata feels free from the trauma caused by the death of K. In the meantime, only by doing so, he could really begin a new life in America, which is explicit from his words—“I thought only of the moment of her arrival, which I had hoped would serve to mark the recommencement of my days” (A Gesture Life 74). The “recommencement” here implies that he has a chance not only to compensate for the demise of K, but to carry out his lost dreams of leading a joyful life with K. To sum up, the adoption of Sunny, for Hata, can be understood as a means of healing the trauma. By doing so, he hopes to have a brand-new start in the US. However, in America, he still chooses to be a model minority, and even wishes Sunny to be one like him.