Robert Lloyd | Los Angeles Times (TNS)

“Pachinko,” a beautifully wrought historical melodrama, is back for its necessary second season, to fill in some holes, fiddle with loose ends and extend the story even farther beyond the borders of Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel. It is a transitional season, which ends with little resolved and gaps still to fill, and while it offers all the sensual pleasures of the first season’s performances and production, its portion of love and death, it is very much the middle of a book.

Unlike the novel, which proceeds chronologically, the series, returning Friday on Apple TV+, alternates between the “present day” — 1989 Osaka — and the evolving story that gets us there. Season 1 began in 1915 before the birth of main character Sunja (Minha Kim) in Japanese-occupied Korea, then followed her through her country-girl youth into a romance with handsome, dangerous Hansu (Lee Minho). An unexpected pregnancy led to a marriage of convenience, later affection, with Isak (Steve Sanghyun Noh), a Christian preacher; together they moved to Osaka to join his brother Yoseb (Junwoo Han) and wife, Kyunghee (Eunchae Jung), where they become Zainichi, the term for Koreans living in Japan — a population much discriminated against. (Incidents of prejudice dot the current season, almost as a reminder of what the first season firmly established.)

That storyline got us to 1938. The new season picks up in early 1945 (skipping much of the novel), and times are difficult as Japan fearfully braces for an American attack; Sunja and Kyunghee eke out a living selling kimchi, and the cabbage has almost run out. Sunja’s children, Noa (Kang Hoon Kim), her son with Hansu, and Mozasu (Eunseong Kwon), her son with Isak, have grown accordingly. Noa, who is unaware of his birth father and takes after his adoptive father, is shy and studious, Mozasu brash and unsuited to study. Isak is in prison, having been arrested last season for rabble-rousing; Yoseb is working in a munitions factory in Nagasaki, which should raise an eyebrow. But a friendly new character, Mr. Kim (Kim Sungkyu), is hanging around helpfully, and Hansu, keeping an eye on them from near and far, will be back and involved.

(The Nagasaki sequence, which opens the fifth episode, is shot in black and white in standard aspect ratio, before returning to color and widescreen when the bomb drops. The title credit that follows omits the usual cheerful shots of the cast dancing to the Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live for Today” as inappropriate. Understandably.)

Nearly all the capital of the 1989 storyline having been spent in the first season, showrunner Soo Hugh has had to create fresh material to keep those characters busy while the earlier narrative catches up. (At the end of the season, they still have three decades to go.)

Older Sunja (Yuh-Jung Youn) is still living in Osaka with her successful son Mozasu (Soji Arai), who has grown up to own pachinko parlors — a sort of pinball cum slot machine — and, as a somewhat disreputable if popular business, one of the few avenues then open to Koreans. (Mozasu himself, a major character last season, is mostly absent from this one.) Mozasu’s son, Solomon (Jin Ha), college-educated in America, is in Tokyo, involved in high finance and real estate. In Season 1, he’d attempted to pry an old woman from her home in hopes of putting a golf resort on the land and impressing his bosses; in the end, he advised her not to sign the papers, but the current season finds him unfortunately back on that horse, in a complete moral backsliding. (I found the particulars of Solomon’s business dealings somewhat hard to follow, or perhaps just not worth the effort.)

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This authorial trouble making might be expressed in the old Hollywood formulation as “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets (possibly a different) girl” and so on, whether or not we are actually talking about boys and girls. It’s a problem familiar to ongoing original series, where fresh conflicts must be created each year. One expects it will build eventually to another shot at redemption — the series is too sentimental, too good-hearted not to offer him the chance.

And of course we get enough of Good Solomon to justify our interest, just as we get enough of Good Hansu to make up for his criminality. Parts of Solomon’s story, which brings in some unsavory characters, do feel constructed as a deliberate mirror of Hansu’s; perhaps not coincidentally they are played by the show’s best-looking actors. As to Sunja’s new, extra-textual adventures, she’ll strike up a friendship with a man at the supermarket that allows for an adorable scene in a Mexican restaurant, something seemingly new to 1989 Osaka.

Though historical events are acknowledged, what with World War II and the Korean War falling within the earlier timeline, and the Japanese asset price bubble and crash on the horizon in the later one, the current season focuses on family life and domestic detail, even as, or perhaps because it’s disrupted. In 1989, Sanju travels on her own from Osaka to Tokyo to check on her grandson, whom she senses is not all right. There’s a lovely scene in which she slices vegetables alongside Solomon’s Japanese love interest and former colleague, Naomi (Anna Sawai); I almost wrote “throwaway scene,” but, in fact, that naturalism is essential to the series, making something real out of the extravagant, even soap-operatic plotting.

And food, often in short supply in the earlier storyline, plays a part — making a meal, making a living, making a place at the table, making a home — most tangibly, out of a barn that Sanju, Kyunghee, Noa, Mozasu and Mr. Kim occupy at the end of the war. (Hansu’s tragedy is that though he provides support for the family, with or without the knowledge, he remains an outsider.) Characters speak of a “life well lived,” which is not at all the same thing as living well.

Obviously, this is not the season to start with “Pachinko,” but if you haven’t yet, it’s worth beginning at the beginning. Even if you watched the first season — which, given that you’ve read this far, I assume you have — it may be worth a look back to remember who all these characters are, what they have to do with one another, and what kind of trouble they got in and out of previously. And if the new season lacks the expositional energy of the first, if it’s more muted in tone, if Sunju is not quite the ray of sunshine she was, her older self will still have occasion to say here that hers was a life well lived.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Laura King | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

AMSTERDAM — Travel can be exhilarating or awful, and like it or not, we all leave footprints. Of course, some tourists tread more heavily than others, leaving residents swearing, slack-jawed or just shaking their heads.

In this busy European travel season, here are some things tourism professionals and local people would like you to know, so you won’t be that tourist.

Buy locally made items

“Don’t just purchase cheap souvenirs,” said Lony Scharenborg, who manages a merchants’ association for Amsterdam’s Nine Little Streets, a picturesque shopping area in the canal district.

“Remember that the people who live here need their bakeries and their grocery stores. Pick up something from there.”

You’re a guest, so act like it

“A city is not only monuments and marbles; it is people,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini, a City Council member in Venice.

“Show respect and coexist.”

In another overburdened destination, Emma Martin of Spain’s Turisme de Barcelona also said a little consideration goes a long way. She urged visitors to think of themselves as “temporary but integral” citizens.

During big events, consider an alternative locale

In Paris this summer, plenty of locals fled the Olympics influx, while some travelers deferred their visits or found last-minute bargains.

Another example: Scotland’s historic capital of Edinburgh is even more jam-packed than usual during the Festival Fringe in August, but Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland, points out that lesser-known parts of the country are “filled with hidden gems.” The moral: Whenever possible, get off the beaten track.

Think sustainability, especially with transportation

“Choose sustainable options if you can — come by train, use an electric vehicle, use public transport when in the city, use a bicycle,” said Charel van Dam, marketing director for the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions. “Stay longer in the same place — less movement is always better.”

In every big European city, and in many smaller ones, there are travel apps to help you avoid bottlenecks.

Be curious — and friendly

“I’m happy when people ask me about cheese — but very happy when they ask me about other things, about life here!” said Spyros Chalikias, 39, who works in a tourism-focused cheese shop in central Amsterdam.

When you can see you’re part of the problem …

“If you see that huge line at that TikTok place, think of the impact in a tiny street, and maybe take your business elsewhere,” said Scharenborg.

Try to help local causes

German tourist Manuela Pietsch, 52, from Heidelberg, attended a recital in Amsterdam’s Westerkerk, a 17th century church, with her voluntary donation earmarked to help with restoration of its historic Duyschot organ. “It makes me feel good to be part of this,” she said. “And it was a wonderful recital!”

In many European destinations, history is painful

“Yes, you can mention the war,” said Jan Katzmarczyk, who has been conducting walking tours in Berlin for 13 years, including of many notorious Nazi sites. He urges visitors to be direct in their queries, but not accusatory toward the current generation. “We’ll take the blame, but not the shame,” said Katzmarczyk, pointing out that virtually all of Germany’s wartime leaders are long dead.

No, it’s not like home

That’s why you’re traveling! So bear in mind: There won’t be air conditioning everywhere, especially in smaller and older European hotels. Carry small coins for public restrooms (although many will let you use a credit card for the tiny charge).

Many restaurants may expect you to order bottled water instead of providing a free glass of tap water. Ice may be hard to come by. Brush up on tipping etiquette, which varies from one European country to another — although tips are almost always less than is expected in the U.S.

Adapt! As in, bring a plug adapter to charge your devices

USB sockets are a relative rarity, especially in older accommodations, and chances are slim the hotel will have an adapter to lend you.

“I can’t tell you how often Americans ask,” said the receptionist at one moderately priced Paris hotel, who did not want her name used because her employer wouldn’t approve. “Sometimes I want to say, ‘Oh, yes — let me just go out back and pluck one off the tree where they grow.’”

Don’t take things out on service workers

They’re trying to do their jobs and help you. Try to work with them and find solutions for that canceled flight or overbooked hotel. Document what happened — save texts, emails and proof of payment. When it’s all over, write a calm note, and chances are pretty good that the airline or cruise line or tour operator will try to make it up to you.

Leave the obvious jokes alone

If a particular place name sounds hilarious to English speakers, you can bet local people are tired of having that pointed out by giggling visitors.

And don’t do pretend German accents, said Katzmarczyk — “It sounds mostly terrible.”

_________

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.