One should not confuse basic knowledge of the dates and facts and stats of the history of hostility between Korea and Japan with understanding of the mindset — the fears and hopes, the complexes — of Koreans under Japanese rule in the colonial period and in Korean communities in Japan to this day. 

For real comprehension, a breathtaking novel, “Pachinko,” by Min Jin Lee, now streaming in a series on Apple TV, takes readers through four generations from the hardships of Japanese colonialism to the indignities of life as perpetual “foreigners” in Japan. Even tycoons who’ve grown rich off pachinko, the arcade game that’s a cross between pinball and the slot machines that soak the suckers in  Las Vegas and Atlantic City, are not immune. They too are relegated to a niche in Japanese society.