15
Grandma's Lamp on the Pine Hill,1956
I could not get what was in my mind across to my family, to my elementary school friends and to whoever I was in contact with. The folks around me could not guess how much I was traumatized by the recent incidents, either. I had blamed myself badly over the parting with the dear cow because of my ignorance and impatience; I had flabbergasted over the sudden disappearance of my brother and my parents' silence pact; I had mulled over the nocturnal wails at Cheongdo Refugee Camp; I had sneezed and frowned on the stench of the dung fields; I had from time to time shaken my body over the gunshot noises and the images of the pitiful falls.
I was a lonely boy in Sun Valley. My grandmother Mrs. Euiseong Kim was busy chiding and scolding her poor daughter-in-law who was also busy whining and weeping. My dad was also busy plowing the fields or cutting the woods.
There was no peer pressure but peer torture. The bullies at the school village and nearby villages had a good time taunting me, alienating me, playing harsh pranks on me, and cursing me, "Let the tigers eat you up!"
I developed no skills to respond to that bullying. The boys of the peer age had to become buddies, but they always turned out to be bullies: They were predators prowling the hills for the poor prey. There were no interactions: I was plummeted into the bottom of a great reservoir onto which all the garbages had been thrown away, sunk, and deposited.
Dano sought solace in nature. Nature was all that he had depended on: She was a true friend to converse with, a mentor to consult, a mother to whisper to, a judge to appeal to and a god to pray to. Mounting any hill of the valley, reclining on a hilly grass complete with tall bushes, looking up to the clear autumnal sky, savoring the aromatic air coming up from valley creeks, pines, wild flowers, and low hill reeds, seeing iris beaming at him, he acquired peace.
No, he was not alone. All nature was his friends. Fresh air tickled his face, ears and all. Winds of all sorts were music; The blue skies were the seas on which the celestial boats were sailing; The creeks were telling him endless tales; The iries at the deep valley below the bottom of the pines were keeping him company.
Warm sun rays, which were shining celebration and consecration on him, soothed him to doze off, finally to slumber. Even in those catnaps, fairies used to take a visit to him, seducing him, whispering to his inattentive ears, "Live with me, honey!" Still, it's a mystery how the fairies had come to materialize in a eight-year-old boy's dream as mature women, not juvenile girls.
Boy Dano had had no girls in the neighborhood to talk to, much less to play with. There had been no girls about him at Sun valley. At the faraway school, there were girls, of course, but he was shy, so shy that he did not get near them nor looked at them. It's another mystery what it had meant by the pretty women's seduction remarks, "Live with me, honey!"
To me Dano, there were only two categories of women in the world: the victim and the victimizer. My mother Boolim Lee was a victim who had been nagged, reprimanded and scolded, and cursed by my heartless mother-in-law and my grandmother Mrs. Euiseong Kim was the victimizer who had been destroying every minute of her daughter-in-law. Boolim had a tough time weeping and whining. There were no men and women of understanding about her.
To me Dano, women would hurt me or be harmed by me. There were only women of extremes; There were no women in between. I despised women and was afraid of them at the same time. I did not get near the school girls, either.
To me, a major impediment to my long-distance walking commute to and from school was the weather factor. The hot and cold temperatures were an obstacle, of course, but they were a minor one. The rain and snow precipitation was a major obstacle for pedestrian commute. Regarding my long-distance commuting, my dad took a standoffish attitude and Mom did the same, too, because my grandma was the only one who could control.
When snow fell heavily, Mrs. Euiseong Kim opted to keep her grandson from attending class. But more often than not me Dano was insistent on going. On one winter day in the year 1952, at my fourth class year at the elementary school, I had had huge snows. I was looking out the classroom window anxiously while snow went on falling.
So when I hit the road back home, I had to trudge through the knee-deep white pile which had turned disastrous during the five-lesson period. And when it rained it almost always poured, and the problem was that when I got to the stream that became a river the kids of the village had already crossed it. I had almost met early death once when I had gotten hit by the running rocks while crossing for myself the rapid stream which had swollen suddenly.
Although pranksters were all around, it did not mean that all the surrounding situation was against me. Mr. Kwon, my fifth- and sixth-year classroom teacher, was a very sympathetic and compassionate gentleman, and his wife was also very nice. When blizzards struck and when rainstorms darkened the sky, the kind-hearted couple invited Student Dano to stay at their home.
But the peers were deadly against him. When dusk fell after six class lessons, the peer boys and girls hurried home where the whiffs of smoke were coming out of the house chimneys, which hinted that supper was being cooked somewhere in there. The boys jeered as they raced into their village homes, throwing curses on me Dano, saying "Tigers will eat you up!"
There was not a tiger, of course, but the curse words gave me a chill in the spine. And there had been a moment fright came on me so much so that I froze when it drizzled on the moonless valley and when I passed the roadside grave shrouded with night fogs. But I could not turn around and run. If I had done it, I knew I would not be able to return home and that actually there was not a home which would welcome me back. So I knew all that I could do was to keep going because my grandma was waiting for her dear grandson on the hilly pass, holding a kerosene lamp.
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I imagine today, and more often than not I dream, Grandma holding a lamp for her late-coming grandson, for minutes and for hours, on the hilly pass, in the still darkness, standing the night chill and the shrill cries of the wild mountain beasts. In the dream my grandma is so tall and aptly old, standing upright, holding the lamp. I wake up startled to find that I am old now and it's time I went to the bathroom.
On my sixth-year class of the elementary school, starting from early fall and ending in early winter, her grandson had to do the extra hours for the middle school examination. I had to cut them off and come home before dark. I could be excused on the grounds of the distant commute. But I didn't. Owing to my obstinacy, Grandma went through the trouble of mounting the steep uphill and I had to take a chance of being consumed by a tiger.
16
Ghosts Dance on the House Roof, 1958
Don got up early at dawn, swept the earth ground clean leading to the mountain spring which had worked as a source of drinking water for the past eight years. He washed his face and hands and dried them with an old towel. He circled "his good old house" several times, stopped for a while to hug the four wooden pillars. He then turned around, walked to the "good old pear tree" and stroked it a thousandth of times. He then turned around, walked up to the rear of the house and stroked two persimmon trees a lot of times. He then lifted his eyes to see the two frontal hills where his grandmother was buried and his father was transinterred from Danuishill Hill.
Mrs. Euiseong Kim rose and got out of the room to see what was going on. She knew what it was meant by her son's pacings. She coughed dry coughs a few times as if to let him know her presence. "Must've slept well, Mother?" Don said. She slept well, of course and inquired after his son's last night's wellbeing. It would be a busy day. It was a moving day after eight more years. They had lived long in this place.
Grandma was happy and sad at the same time over the light load of the removal. The moving work would be carried out not by vehicles of any kind but by the power of human muscles only. But the movable goods were so little and so light that would be done by the manipulative transport. Some money, if any, which might have been made by the sale of some surplus rice, beans and other dry field crops, and the mountain produce such as pine mushrooms and other herbal plants, had been invested in the purchase of a water mill and processing plant and its adjacent lot.
The plant had been introduced, recommended and arranged by Don's elder brother Bin to erect and operate for the livelihood of the brother family. Bin was always resourceful in helping his brother Don manage his family's livelihood, but he had been having a guilt feeling of some sort to his younger brother who had been taking care of their old mother, Mrs. Euiseong Kim.
There was a shift in the membership structure of the moving troops: The Don couple bereft of their grandmother and lost a son eternally during the War but got a daughter after the war evacuation who would later become a Buddhist nun.
The moving troops packed light. The belongings were packed in the form of backpacks and some loads would be moved on the women's heads. When they had gotten into the valley hut cottage eight years ago, the weather had been cloudy and cold and the mountain roadbed had been tough with piles of snow on the rocks. As they got out of the lonely cottage to a greater place, the sky was crystal clear without clouds and the mountain roadbed was tough as always but lined with wild flowers, green trees and tall bushes.
There was an odd company this time, or, a feline company for the road. Cat Nabbi was following the troops for most of the route, but at a certain moment, before anybody of the family knew, she betrayed the trust of the family, straying from the family troops. Sexually very responsive then, she opted to pursue her instinctive impulse by trespassing into a village town which had found itself at the tail end of the valley route.
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A water mill plant had been a novel landmark around Oksan-Jeomgok local district, but it turned out to be an object of interest and a target of anathema as well. The locals who had been plowing up the paddy fields regarded the presence of the water mill as a threat to their paddy farming because they thought the mill would contribute to distorting the water flow and snatching it. It was, of course, very convenient for the locals to be able to mill flour from wheat, separate the husk from rice and barley, at a place not far from their residence at a very low fee. Don converted from a tough woodcutter to a kind miller with his clothes covered with white flour.
The shallow and narrow waterway along the paddy fields, spanning several kilometers, ran with greed and disbelief. The farmers had to keep a sharp eye on the flow of the farming water, particularly during the summer season. Whenever their fields were not aptly wet, or when the drought spell was in progress, the watching eyes used to be bloodshot. They usually kept vigils all through the night with shovels, picks and scythes. If and when somebody had been caught cheating on the "rationing of the water supply," the farming tools flew to death. They had to obey the rule required for the time and mode of the rationing.
The local paddy farmers, with whom Don had been familiar or with whom Don had had clannish connections, held occasional meetings, which had been termed "Waterway Meetings," to rob him of a rein on the use of the water. So Don more often than not had to obtain permission to run the mill one or two days in advance. The operation of the water mill plant was hand-handled. It was so easy how to do it. To keep the water from rolling the wheel of the mill, you had to pull up the square wooden handle that was called the "water gate." But to get the water mill rolling and running, you had to push the slot fit watertight in with the wooden board.
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Festivities had been held at successive intervals at Danuishill in the late 1950s. The clan families at Danuishill, who were Dano's distant uncles and aunts, married their daughters as if they were a burden to be disposed of. Since marital affiliations at this small hamlet town had usually been made in the perimeter of 20 or so kilometers at least and several hundred kilometers at most, the hosts and guests had been mostly close or distant "relatives" on father's or mother's sides.
So when the would-be bridegroom and his party visited the wedding site, which then had been at the bride's, and when the guests got together, they were busy figuring out the relation knots. Dano was told by his grandmother and father to go see the sights and scenes and learn the customs and manners of the traditional weddings. Danuishill ladies were really pretty, he thought, but that the weddings could have been an anathema to the sister ladies. Dano intuited that they, the uncles and aunts, were not making ends meet, incurring losses, if the human marriages were justified to be figured out in such calculations.
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The lights, although they were flickering in kerosene lamps in the village houses across the road from the water mill, were growing by the hour. Don, smeared with the flour, was miffed at Dano's presence that should have been at the wedding of Eunshill, the second daughter of Uncle Tower, who had been so called by the origin of his wife's.
Don "wanted to know" why his son had left the place so early in which he should have gotten familiarized with the clan families and gotten himself nutrition in the gala event. The bridegroom was too short and ugly for the lily-white beauty of dear Sister Eunshill. Don questioned with strong words what the hell the short height and uncomely countenance had to do with the propriety of the bridegroom.
Dano was crazy. Dano had no answer for that. He was reading the novel titled The Story of Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanjhong. The vernacular daily newspaper Dong Ah Il Bo had been running the serialized Korean version of the ancient Chinese war romance. Dogs were heard barking as if they were in a faraway distance. Tsao Tsao's army troops must have vandalized the town, Dano shuddered.
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There were harassers who kept pestering Dano like dung flies clinging to the back of a cow. They were Oksan Elementary School graduates who went to Jeomgok Middle School, the near myon town. Although they were distanced by Dano who had gotten nearer the middle school, they still were predators who were able to harrass the poor Dano with impunity.
Thing was that a shift of some sort had taken place from individual harassment, which had been done at the time of the elementary school years, to group harrassment. The bullies used to select one dull underling or two to play the teaser who played havoc in no time on the poor victim. The pranksters watched their puppet get to Dano and kick him from behind, trample him on the feet, or nudge him in the rib from nowhere and laughed out loud or giggled away while the poor Dano was startled, shrieking.
On one early summer's day, Dano decided to put a stop to all those insanities once and for all. It was late afternoon. They were on their way home from school. He distanced himself from the bullies getting ahead of him talking, talking, talking; He figured out the stream bed which had bottomed itself out and on which gravels were all over the place after all the dry spells; He calculated the distance which would be fittest for him to attack.
He then dashed at the underling harasser and knocked him over; He mounted the fallen bully and punched him on the face hard right and left, left and right. There were the other harassers who had kept troubling Dano, watching the scene. He vanquished the real and imagined harassers for ever, with the beaten boy showing up the next day, led by his father before Don's presence, asking for Dano's punishment for his son's mangled face, and with the end of the meanspirited approach of the pranksters.
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However, another faceless and unseen harasser or harassers kept troubling him, in the depth of nights' slumber. He most of the time awoke, chased, scared and terrified by the unidentified stuff. Two small rooms, about four square meters each in width, and with clayed room floor and wall, which had been annexed to the water mill plant, on my brother's later recollections, had been haunted.
On a late autumn night, November someday, 1957, when I was on my middle school junior year, my father had been away from home, to Daegu probably for the purchase of sea fish and vegetables to be used for clannish rituals. Me Dano, chased in his dreams by gangsters or something for the whole night, who, with their guns lifting, at the last moment, were seen to aim at me, awoke startled and screaming. I, at the same moment, heard my mother shriek, crying at the top of her lung, "Cut the water off the gate!"
I kicked the room door open and raced up the slope to "the water gate." I lifted it up and let the water fall through the open slot. I then raced down the slope to the mill and tried to get what had happened.
I was in panic; The lights were not very bright because the only kerosene lamp was dangling above the machine. While I was in chaotic confusion, my brother and grandmother raced into the mill. There were yells and shrieks. Mom was in disastrous shape, got her one arm wrapped in the conveyor belt, and the other arm wrapped in the cogs of the wheel.
The disaster was caused by the loose garments of her chima and jogori. She should have worn tighter. She bemoaned. They paced up and around the brutal machine and after trials they managed to drag her out of the wheels and belt after all. The one arm of hers was in mangled state. The blood was oozing out of the also mangled wear.
My grandmother was complaining, whining and blaming herself endlessly and trying something to stop her daughter-in-law's hemorrhage. I raced out of the mill. I was still in bare feet. It was a frosty morning, which I did not care. I raced all the way to Dr. Choi's, two kilometers away, the only one-man clinic in the whole town. He did own "an office" attached to his house, but he had no nurses nor facilities which could be described as hospital or clinic. Awoken by me Dano in bare feet, he hastened to the patient's assistance, with his first-aid kit on his age-old bicycle.
Left alone, after the doctor had departed for the site of the disaster in haste, I belatedly realized my sore feet. And I felt a little cold. I limped a little and stopped to think to a shudder of last night's nightmares and my mother's accident. The tragic instant's scream gyrated in my ears all the way home from the doctor's. I shuddered to my dismay the potential ubiquity of the evil spirits which had attempted on my mother. Why, I intoned to myself, “did the devils or the demons try to attempt on my mother, while terrifying her poor son? I was really scared. I was extremely disturbed bordering on disorientation.
Boolim, who had been given a hemostatic treatment and a first-aid dressing, was transported, on board the only inter-town bus to a surgical hospital at Euiseong, the capital of Euiseong County, called Gongsaeng Hospital. Boolim's wound was severe: deep, wide and gaping. The cog wheels had pierced into her arm flesh, having torn it apart.
"Several muscle lines on the patient's right arm must have been torn off," the doctor, who was to perform the surgery, said, "so much so that the patient, even after the operation, would have some difficulty moving the hand." I was once again surprised to find my mother, who had been moved to the convalescent room, did not utter a word of pain, which reminded me, judging from my mother's utter composure, of her cold silence about the sudden death of her third son immediately after the war evacuation.
The nick of time helping hands contributed to Boolim's survival: The absence of Dr. Choi's first-aid efforts might have been fatal, and the unavailability of a swift operation by a competent surgeon might have made her limb activities incapacitated. And the good Samaritan acts by the couple of Brother West greatly enhanced a chance for Boolim's restoration of health. Brother West and his wife, Mrs. Mooshill Liu, had kept a modest residence at the capital but the hospitalities they had provided were grand.
Brother West was not an immediate nor a close relative; He was a clan brother, indeed but is a remote brother who was four times removed, which meant that Brother West was on ten-knot relation with me Dano. Husband and wife are zero knot; Parents and their offspring are one-knot relation. Brothers and sisters of the same parents are two- knot relation; And uncles and their nephews and nieces are three-knot relation. Although remote, the Wests acted as if they had been close relatives. Brother West, on Dano's terms, was a government official on the middle hierarchical ladder who worked at the county education office.
Hospitality One of the West, after having been informed of Boolim's mishap, was send a telegram to Don which notified him of her misfortune. Hospitality Two was send his wife Mrs. Mooshill Liu to arrange Boolim's hospitalization procedures with the hospital official in charge. Hospitality Three was that the couple called on the poor patient, comforting her by assuring that she would not have much difficulty using her hands. Hospitality Four was the West couple's delivering nutritional meals for Boolim by themselves.
They also took me to their home to feed me. I found that there had been two student lodgers from Danuishill who went to district high school or something. In fact, The West's house played the role of a stopover place for the clan members who would go up and come down from Seoul or the other major national cities. I remembered the amicable ambience by the merry voice of the "six princesses" of the West saying, "Nice coming, Uncle Dano!" The flashback of the later years was that the hospitality role of the house would have been impossible if somebody of the clan had heard some voice in the house raised, if somebody had watched the hostess or the princesses make face, or if some clan visitors had heard the door banged shut behind them.
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Routines were restored. Don was hard at work again at the grinding mill; Mrs. Euiseong Kim was on her routine tour of her oldest son's about one kilo meter away, talking behind her son Bin and his wife's back when she returned to the mill, with Boolim at a loss what to do about that. Boolim, after more than a month's hospitalization, managed to manipulate things with her arms but was not able to articulate two fingers of her right hand, which might have been a sheer luck after all the mishap.
What got any member of the Don family really wounded was invisible. Under the facade of the normalcy, that is, the restoration of routines, trauma was at work on Dano. What really troubled him was the mystery of the spontaneity of his shrieky nightmare with his mother's disaster in proximity to a mere few feet across the room door.
I was all nerves about people and things around me. In one reality where I moved in the sunlight with eyes and ears open, I was conscious of stares all around. In the other reality where night came and I slept in fits and starts, snipers were lurking in ambushes; and the air was about to be torn to shreds in no time by shrill cries.
Which naturally resulted in Dano's lack of attention and focus at his middle school class rooms. His distractions caused disciplinary activities by the teachers by which he was suspended several times from school. His intuition told him that evil spirits were really hard at work on his mother and him. My brother Ilseo confided to me casually one day decades later that he had watched very often at that time human shapes in white garb dance on the house roof of the water mill.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Chapter 14: The Summary Execution
14
Summary Execution, 1950
A misfortune after another occurred. Hardly had Dad, Mom, grandma, great grandma, me and two younger brothers returned from the refugee evacuation when great grandma was taken ill, very ill in bed until she died one month later. my second brother below me, who had been very active and playful, went away after his great grandma one month or so later. The poor brother disappeared suddenly overnight. That was so dreadful. I vaguely surmised my parents' sad conspiracies, in which they had, in the small hours of the night, moved and buried the sudden dead body of their son somewhere in the nearby hill hurriedly.
Astonishing thing was that his death was not pronounced before the family, that nobody including parents questioned his sudden disappearance, and that the rest of the family did not and could not ask about his whereabouts. The unfortunate parents, Don and Boolim, did not mention their dear son's sudden death even once thereafter and did not cry even once, either. Which was really dreadful.
A third misfortune, that is, a severe infraction, was inflicted on the cow which had accompanied the evacuation route and which had taken all the trouble of carrying the heavy load. By none other than me myself.
Boy Dano was feeding the cow, which had not been on a leash. The cow was let go of his rein, keeping herself free so that she could be feeding by herself because fresh grass was afield. The sky was clear without clouds and a warm sun ray was showering on Dano's back who was sitting on the nondurong, a shallow farm road bank attached to a rice field.
The prankster in the cow might have moved. The cow, spotting me Dano dozing off sitting on the road, dashed to him and headed him, letting him fall on the grassy clearing below the elevated road. Dano was astonished and angry and he was not so mature enough as to take the cow's sudden attack as a demonstration of a friendly joke. I snitched to my father on the cow's infliction. My dad Don's temper blew over, whipped the cow with curses and sold her at a local cattle market.
On the surface, the kids of Oksan Elementary School were joyous again, cheerfully running and merrily talking. But the atmosphere of the school was subdued. The classroom windows on the main part of the school building were smashed. The classroom desks and chairs were vandalized; The floors were brutally violated. And, most of classmates were, like Dano, victimized or traumatized.
They did neither know, however, the extent of their wounds, nor have the capability to get them known and treated. The teaching staff, originally consisting of 12 male and four female teachers, were in short supply. So the students of the class, who had been incapacitated, were merged into another class with a teacher.
Many mockup classrooms were prepared on the playground with straw mats on which to sit, with no roofs, of course. Teachers of each classroom said that South Korea was repelling the Reds of North Korea that were retreating. The nation would be reunified sooner or later by the strategic wisdom of the Great General Douglas MacArthur and by the global military troops of the United Nations. The people had to help the Syngman Rhee government with vigilant alerts. They were supposed to inform the police of the "suspicious strangers."
Bad whispers circulated in town. The rumors had hopped from village to village that the summary execution of partisans was imminent. The gist of the rumors was that "the mountain people" had been nabbed and taken to the local police section and they would be killed that day. The weather was clear and warm that day but the air was heavy with somber murmurs. Kids sneezed like dogs. The time bell indicated that the three classes were just finished and another morning class was soon to be done. But boy after boy tiptoed to the school fence around which Thuja orientalis trees had grown tall and tight. Boys, who I was one of, and some daring girls were peeping through the trees.
It was being done on the dry stream bed in front of the school. You walked out of the school gate and stepped onto the road which had been used both by pedestrians and vehicles. And there was a stream, not so wide nor shallow, down below the road. Now, six or seven or some more men were lined up in a column. All of them were handcuffed and tied to the waist in a row but were not shackled.
It seemed they were blindfolded. The partisans who had been alleged to do sedition activities were made to face the firing squad who were lined in the clearing below the stream bank. It was a rapid snap procedure. There was no reading of guilty verdict; There was no protest, nor chanting of slogans, nor spitting of curses. There were gunshots which tore the air and there were falls. Some had one shot fired to the fall; The others two or more to it.
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The truncated life of my youngest (at the time) brother of four gives me a heartache. So cute and so charming. My immediate younger brother and I hadn't seen her body. I don't know where he is buried. Ignorance and silence might have been my parents' only and last resort for their son's sudden death.
Terror gradually melted down; Questions caved in to reluctant acceptance; And the eventual sympathy took place with the extreme measure for their irredeemable sorrow. My parents had had to do the discipline of suppressing their instinctive emotion toward their youngest son. They must have thought that they had had to contain sorrow for all of us.
Prejudice might have played a role in the merciless recklessness. Any protocol for the early demise for their offspring might have been considered to be improper because a child is not entitled to cherish manhood or womanhood before the child has become an adult by reaching specific age and being married.
Summary Execution, 1950
A misfortune after another occurred. Hardly had Dad, Mom, grandma, great grandma, me and two younger brothers returned from the refugee evacuation when great grandma was taken ill, very ill in bed until she died one month later. my second brother below me, who had been very active and playful, went away after his great grandma one month or so later. The poor brother disappeared suddenly overnight. That was so dreadful. I vaguely surmised my parents' sad conspiracies, in which they had, in the small hours of the night, moved and buried the sudden dead body of their son somewhere in the nearby hill hurriedly.
Astonishing thing was that his death was not pronounced before the family, that nobody including parents questioned his sudden disappearance, and that the rest of the family did not and could not ask about his whereabouts. The unfortunate parents, Don and Boolim, did not mention their dear son's sudden death even once thereafter and did not cry even once, either. Which was really dreadful.
A third misfortune, that is, a severe infraction, was inflicted on the cow which had accompanied the evacuation route and which had taken all the trouble of carrying the heavy load. By none other than me myself.
Boy Dano was feeding the cow, which had not been on a leash. The cow was let go of his rein, keeping herself free so that she could be feeding by herself because fresh grass was afield. The sky was clear without clouds and a warm sun ray was showering on Dano's back who was sitting on the nondurong, a shallow farm road bank attached to a rice field.
The prankster in the cow might have moved. The cow, spotting me Dano dozing off sitting on the road, dashed to him and headed him, letting him fall on the grassy clearing below the elevated road. Dano was astonished and angry and he was not so mature enough as to take the cow's sudden attack as a demonstration of a friendly joke. I snitched to my father on the cow's infliction. My dad Don's temper blew over, whipped the cow with curses and sold her at a local cattle market.
On the surface, the kids of Oksan Elementary School were joyous again, cheerfully running and merrily talking. But the atmosphere of the school was subdued. The classroom windows on the main part of the school building were smashed. The classroom desks and chairs were vandalized; The floors were brutally violated. And, most of classmates were, like Dano, victimized or traumatized.
They did neither know, however, the extent of their wounds, nor have the capability to get them known and treated. The teaching staff, originally consisting of 12 male and four female teachers, were in short supply. So the students of the class, who had been incapacitated, were merged into another class with a teacher.
Many mockup classrooms were prepared on the playground with straw mats on which to sit, with no roofs, of course. Teachers of each classroom said that South Korea was repelling the Reds of North Korea that were retreating. The nation would be reunified sooner or later by the strategic wisdom of the Great General Douglas MacArthur and by the global military troops of the United Nations. The people had to help the Syngman Rhee government with vigilant alerts. They were supposed to inform the police of the "suspicious strangers."
Bad whispers circulated in town. The rumors had hopped from village to village that the summary execution of partisans was imminent. The gist of the rumors was that "the mountain people" had been nabbed and taken to the local police section and they would be killed that day. The weather was clear and warm that day but the air was heavy with somber murmurs. Kids sneezed like dogs. The time bell indicated that the three classes were just finished and another morning class was soon to be done. But boy after boy tiptoed to the school fence around which Thuja orientalis trees had grown tall and tight. Boys, who I was one of, and some daring girls were peeping through the trees.
It was being done on the dry stream bed in front of the school. You walked out of the school gate and stepped onto the road which had been used both by pedestrians and vehicles. And there was a stream, not so wide nor shallow, down below the road. Now, six or seven or some more men were lined up in a column. All of them were handcuffed and tied to the waist in a row but were not shackled.
It seemed they were blindfolded. The partisans who had been alleged to do sedition activities were made to face the firing squad who were lined in the clearing below the stream bank. It was a rapid snap procedure. There was no reading of guilty verdict; There was no protest, nor chanting of slogans, nor spitting of curses. There were gunshots which tore the air and there were falls. Some had one shot fired to the fall; The others two or more to it.
-----------------
The truncated life of my youngest (at the time) brother of four gives me a heartache. So cute and so charming. My immediate younger brother and I hadn't seen her body. I don't know where he is buried. Ignorance and silence might have been my parents' only and last resort for their son's sudden death.
Terror gradually melted down; Questions caved in to reluctant acceptance; And the eventual sympathy took place with the extreme measure for their irredeemable sorrow. My parents had had to do the discipline of suppressing their instinctive emotion toward their youngest son. They must have thought that they had had to contain sorrow for all of us.
Prejudice might have played a role in the merciless recklessness. Any protocol for the early demise for their offspring might have been considered to be improper because a child is not entitled to cherish manhood or womanhood before the child has become an adult by reaching specific age and being married.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Chapter 13:The Dung Fields in Cheongdo
13
The Dung Fields in Cheongdo, 1950
There was an evident look of bewilderment on my dad's face when he returned after he had taken a look at a village beyond the valley mountain. He saw that the whole village had been evacuated. "We must leave!" he declared solemnly.
There was a melee. The whole family had to do a rush job of packing. The old cow had to carry the heaviest load in which there were packed some bedding, husked rice and barley, some utensils and salt. Don had to carry his grandma in her eighties on the wooden A-frame. Dano and his mother and grandma had their own share of the load. Dusk was around the corner when all the packings were done, them getting ready for a refuge trip.
Darkness was soon to fall. My dad decided on an overnight stay at a safer place somewhere in the valley. How sad that one had to realize that one's house was the most dangerous place in the whole world. Don took the family to the place which he had set his eyes on.
It was an old cave, of which the road leading to it was covered with overgrown thorny bushes and reeds. Don found the opening of the cave with ease. After him the refuge family stepped into the cave of which the inside was dark and deep and a little slanted downward. Rocks were so damp and air was so cool, Snails were crawling busily as if to greet the sudden visitors.
The family did not sleep well even though Don made a very cozy bedding for them with grass and bushes and even though the gunshots were not heard that night. Fitful drops of water and busy snails were an impediment to a good night's rest, of course.
Don looked up at the sky through an opening. The late spring sky was blue as ever. At dawn Don's grand mother had very low coughs. Knowing that the rest of the family were awake, Mrs. Euiseong Kim handed out jumeogbap, or rice rolls for early breakfast. Before starting the road trip, they each had their own "business" to do. But the trip was not so smooth. They walked in fits and starts. The cow with the heavy load was one factor for the slow progress and the great-grandma was another.
Hasty feet could not catch up with hasty minds. There were personal matters which, in short intervals, grandma and great-grandma had to handle. Dano needed to cool his heels often. As the mileage grew, they were mingled with more people fleeing southward. They didn't know where they were headed. Ignorance was usual responses expected of them.
But they were moving anyhow. When they got to the county capital of Euiseong, they found a train on a standby. "The train must be waiting for us," Dano exclaimed with joy. The crowds were in a stampede, coming from all corners of the town, to get aboard the train. It was getting dark. All the compartments were full, so they were desperate to step onto any train stairs. Just in time, they were desperate to climb on the roofs of the train. The whole family of us happened to climb on top, with Dad on the freight car with his cow.
All were on hold. The refugee train was stifling the urge to blow a horn, waiting maybe for the order from higher up to permit the southward journey into the night. How pathetic. A lot of children were on the verge of giving cries or blurting out screams. When the train got off to a late start into the night everybody heaved a sigh of relief, still apprehensive. Nightly winds of early summer were cool enough, but coal ashes, big and small, in the fresh air, got torturous. Whenever the train screeched to a stop at every possible station, there was a confusion, with people calling each other. Cries and screams were everywhere.
It was a blind escape. There was no destination, and no convoy, either. The refugee train was so slow that it dawned when it passed no more than three stations or so. It made an abrupt stop at a nondescript station which could be recollected later as Bongnim station or Huabon. As it disgorged thousands of refugees at once, the countryside surroundings turned into a hellish confusion. Names were called; Cries and screams tore the air to shreds.
Cows mewed, too. Mrs, Euiseong Kim held her grandson's hand tightly. Physiological releases such as urination and defecation posed a major problem to the fleeing adults as well as the kids. Everytime the kids sought a permission in a pleading and hurried tone of voice, saying, "I want to pee," the adults pointed to a certain edge of the road, saying, "over there." There were no latrines, nor cops blowing whistles, nor roadside signboards which warned of the indecencies.
I saw the soldiers as I brought a pitcherful of water from the village well, a trainful of soldiers wounded and bandaged. I was pleased at first to see the ally soldiers so soon, but I was sad that they were wounded. It was supposed to be an army train which was committed to transporting the wounded soldiers. I wondered what place they were coming from and where they were headed. They were miserable in appearance: Many were bandaged in arms; Even many others were blindfolded. I had no idea in what state their legs were because they were not visible from the outside platform.
The troublesome people, who had just gotten off the south-bound train, also found a stopped train full of wounded soldiers which appeared to be heading north, probably to Seoul or some other place which had an army hospital. "Where were they coming?" they were wondering aloud.
War was being fought in deep south? The crowds in a country railroad station were in a disarray just like the cattle without a shepherd used to be. They walked onto the road but they didn't know where to go. They were heading everywhere and still nowhere. A major portion of the crowd were heading south, with their heads lowered.
No government officials were in sight. Where was the government, the refugee people thought aloud. What was the government supposed to do anyway, they whispered themselves. But they didn't dare ask anybody else in a loud voice because such challenging questions could be interpreted as disobedient or Red-oriented.
Contrary to the government's inhumane treatment of the governed, the weather was not so cruel. The sun was aptly hot. And it showered from time to time. A large crowd of people needed to give their sore feet a rest, so much so that they chose to take a break in the shades of the riverside trees. They gave plausible excuses themselves to extend their hourly stay to the next day, saying "What was the rush?"
My great grandmother had bouts of diarrhea, with me and others having stomach troubles or something. But there were neither pharmacies nor clinics on the way, so Mrs. Euiseong Kim had a busy time searching for ikmocho, Leonurus sibiricus in a summer grass field to treat her mother-in-law's illness. Mom had to prepare pots of boiling water for her grandmother-in-law and the rest of the family. A major meal had to be barley with a rare mixture of rice, and the one and only condiment had to be salt, just salt. The tent replacement, or the assemblage of cotton cloth, had leaks.
Hunch was that "the cattle with no shepherd" were running not from the ferocious animals but stampeding into the lair of the predators. Thing was that the bone-chilling sound of the battlefield was getting noisier and the melee of bloodshed was getting messier. "The human cattle" were influenced mostly by weather elements. On days they moved on and on nights they stopped to rest. In rains, they sought shelter. Guess was that the fugitive crowds were getting nearer and nearer everyday to the fierce war zone, which would later be found to be the famous Yeongcheon Battle Field.
The shells of bombs were observed, in the distance of 20 miles or so, dropping from B-29 bombers of the United States Air Forces which had been sent to rescue the beleaguered nation from its crisis. The tanks were seen toppled battered on the roadside. The shattered bodies of the North Korean Liberation Army privates were sprawled covered with straw mats. The bean trees in the rows were seen trampled crushed probably by the other night's fierce bayonet fighting. Everytime I stopped to take a look at the brutal scenes, I was held back by my mother or grandmother.
Don's grand mother had her diarrhea more or less healed, but the cow had a new problem, She had loose bowels, too, releasing liquid shits on the road, with impunity. Stricken with minor ills and problems, and with intermittent showers and the subsequent "tent" leaks, and suffering from the scarcity of nutritions, we the family made it near a wide expanse of a beach along the Cheongdo River.
There was a communal camp of refugee tents scattered erected along the river. Don joined the camp, erecting the nominal replacement on an elevated clearing a little distanced from the river. After a simple report procedure with "the office" having been done with, Don crossed the water and went up a nearby hill to cut off some bushes which would be used to keep the family dry by spreading them on the cold and damp ground.
My dad was greatly impressed. Very greatly, indeed, by the kindness and generosity of the locals. They were out there to meet and help the poor folks in plight. They comforted the privations of refugees with kind words in soft voice. In the hillside rows of bean trees were growing, wild sesames, sweet potatoes, and peppers. Their fresh leaves, even some of them, or, a little portion of them were what the fugitive folks needed to rev up an appetite, that is, to get their taste buds alive. The natives were well aware of it and went out of their way to hand them out to those who needed them. Don was not frustrated in his attempt but returned with triumphs of some good bushes and edible leaves.
Having gotten together, the folks tended to fight among themselves. The voices were so frequently raised for no apparent reason and fists were flying on the spur of the moment. Officials from the local district office appeared from nowhere, but they didn't ask of the people what were in need. They opted to domineer, showing off armbands, waving arms and blowing whistles. They appeared mainly in nights to crack down on the draft evaders. They cracked open the tents from the outside, popped their heads into the tent, and shined flashlights on the scared faces, ferreting out the suspects.
Foods were running out. Not "night guests" but "daylight thieves" were rampant. The desperate voices that exclaimed "Catch the thief!" was heard from time to time. Still, days were better. Nights were a nightmare itself. In the riverside camp where the lighting system was not installed, night meant darkness.
When night fell, the refugee camp was trapped in darkness. Still, what was more horrorful than starvation and darkness was the fear of being drowned. When it rained cats and dogs, the stream became a river. Swollen, the water jumped any vulnerable tents, claiming the unsuspectful sleepers. The shrill cries of "Help!" tore the night air every night. The shrill cries were bone-chilling and convulsive at first and gradually weakened and drifted away. The residents of the night camp were shaking all over, with chills running on their spine.
The anonymity and absence of administration caused irresponsibility. The men and women of the camp crossed the stream and made off with leaves of bean trees and sesame. Irresponsibilities were especially evident in the acts of human waste treatment. At first, they dug holes in the fields somewhat large and deep and released “with dignity.” The holes had roofs and footholds and door shapes made of straws or something at first but days passed without them.
A huge number of people who were on edge rushed to the field and defecated on any holes with no coverings and got away with it. The air got thick with stench and dung flies festered. All the grounds turned into the dung field in which the refugees in no time couldn't find any spacious lot for their feet to step on.
-------------------
I am used to sneezing from time to time at the imagined stench of the dung field on the Cheongdo River. I shudder at the thought of the chill caused by the leak in the 'refuge tent.' Shrieks of "help" sound like tearing the midnight air.
Ear-splitting gunshots are still unnerving. I can envision vividly in my mind's eye the battered tanks on the roadside. The horrible pitched- battle scenes are an immediate reminder of the cruelties which had been done by the internecine war and the showers of bomb drops from the Yeongcheon air are a stern reminder of retaliation and punishment by the United States and the peace-loving allied forces of the United Nations.
I can recall like yesterday even six decades later the scared eyes of the adolescent North Korean army soldiers. Who sent them down to the hills and fields to be killed? What were they after and what did they accomplish? Nothing but greed to establish their own fascistic dynasty. Did Communist tyrant Kim Il Sung and his heir oppressor Kim Jong Il meet their comeuppance? Not yet.
The Dung Fields in Cheongdo, 1950
There was an evident look of bewilderment on my dad's face when he returned after he had taken a look at a village beyond the valley mountain. He saw that the whole village had been evacuated. "We must leave!" he declared solemnly.
There was a melee. The whole family had to do a rush job of packing. The old cow had to carry the heaviest load in which there were packed some bedding, husked rice and barley, some utensils and salt. Don had to carry his grandma in her eighties on the wooden A-frame. Dano and his mother and grandma had their own share of the load. Dusk was around the corner when all the packings were done, them getting ready for a refuge trip.
Darkness was soon to fall. My dad decided on an overnight stay at a safer place somewhere in the valley. How sad that one had to realize that one's house was the most dangerous place in the whole world. Don took the family to the place which he had set his eyes on.
It was an old cave, of which the road leading to it was covered with overgrown thorny bushes and reeds. Don found the opening of the cave with ease. After him the refuge family stepped into the cave of which the inside was dark and deep and a little slanted downward. Rocks were so damp and air was so cool, Snails were crawling busily as if to greet the sudden visitors.
The family did not sleep well even though Don made a very cozy bedding for them with grass and bushes and even though the gunshots were not heard that night. Fitful drops of water and busy snails were an impediment to a good night's rest, of course.
Don looked up at the sky through an opening. The late spring sky was blue as ever. At dawn Don's grand mother had very low coughs. Knowing that the rest of the family were awake, Mrs. Euiseong Kim handed out jumeogbap, or rice rolls for early breakfast. Before starting the road trip, they each had their own "business" to do. But the trip was not so smooth. They walked in fits and starts. The cow with the heavy load was one factor for the slow progress and the great-grandma was another.
Hasty feet could not catch up with hasty minds. There were personal matters which, in short intervals, grandma and great-grandma had to handle. Dano needed to cool his heels often. As the mileage grew, they were mingled with more people fleeing southward. They didn't know where they were headed. Ignorance was usual responses expected of them.
But they were moving anyhow. When they got to the county capital of Euiseong, they found a train on a standby. "The train must be waiting for us," Dano exclaimed with joy. The crowds were in a stampede, coming from all corners of the town, to get aboard the train. It was getting dark. All the compartments were full, so they were desperate to step onto any train stairs. Just in time, they were desperate to climb on the roofs of the train. The whole family of us happened to climb on top, with Dad on the freight car with his cow.
All were on hold. The refugee train was stifling the urge to blow a horn, waiting maybe for the order from higher up to permit the southward journey into the night. How pathetic. A lot of children were on the verge of giving cries or blurting out screams. When the train got off to a late start into the night everybody heaved a sigh of relief, still apprehensive. Nightly winds of early summer were cool enough, but coal ashes, big and small, in the fresh air, got torturous. Whenever the train screeched to a stop at every possible station, there was a confusion, with people calling each other. Cries and screams were everywhere.
It was a blind escape. There was no destination, and no convoy, either. The refugee train was so slow that it dawned when it passed no more than three stations or so. It made an abrupt stop at a nondescript station which could be recollected later as Bongnim station or Huabon. As it disgorged thousands of refugees at once, the countryside surroundings turned into a hellish confusion. Names were called; Cries and screams tore the air to shreds.
Cows mewed, too. Mrs, Euiseong Kim held her grandson's hand tightly. Physiological releases such as urination and defecation posed a major problem to the fleeing adults as well as the kids. Everytime the kids sought a permission in a pleading and hurried tone of voice, saying, "I want to pee," the adults pointed to a certain edge of the road, saying, "over there." There were no latrines, nor cops blowing whistles, nor roadside signboards which warned of the indecencies.
I saw the soldiers as I brought a pitcherful of water from the village well, a trainful of soldiers wounded and bandaged. I was pleased at first to see the ally soldiers so soon, but I was sad that they were wounded. It was supposed to be an army train which was committed to transporting the wounded soldiers. I wondered what place they were coming from and where they were headed. They were miserable in appearance: Many were bandaged in arms; Even many others were blindfolded. I had no idea in what state their legs were because they were not visible from the outside platform.
The troublesome people, who had just gotten off the south-bound train, also found a stopped train full of wounded soldiers which appeared to be heading north, probably to Seoul or some other place which had an army hospital. "Where were they coming?" they were wondering aloud.
War was being fought in deep south? The crowds in a country railroad station were in a disarray just like the cattle without a shepherd used to be. They walked onto the road but they didn't know where to go. They were heading everywhere and still nowhere. A major portion of the crowd were heading south, with their heads lowered.
No government officials were in sight. Where was the government, the refugee people thought aloud. What was the government supposed to do anyway, they whispered themselves. But they didn't dare ask anybody else in a loud voice because such challenging questions could be interpreted as disobedient or Red-oriented.
Contrary to the government's inhumane treatment of the governed, the weather was not so cruel. The sun was aptly hot. And it showered from time to time. A large crowd of people needed to give their sore feet a rest, so much so that they chose to take a break in the shades of the riverside trees. They gave plausible excuses themselves to extend their hourly stay to the next day, saying "What was the rush?"
My great grandmother had bouts of diarrhea, with me and others having stomach troubles or something. But there were neither pharmacies nor clinics on the way, so Mrs. Euiseong Kim had a busy time searching for ikmocho, Leonurus sibiricus in a summer grass field to treat her mother-in-law's illness. Mom had to prepare pots of boiling water for her grandmother-in-law and the rest of the family. A major meal had to be barley with a rare mixture of rice, and the one and only condiment had to be salt, just salt. The tent replacement, or the assemblage of cotton cloth, had leaks.
Hunch was that "the cattle with no shepherd" were running not from the ferocious animals but stampeding into the lair of the predators. Thing was that the bone-chilling sound of the battlefield was getting noisier and the melee of bloodshed was getting messier. "The human cattle" were influenced mostly by weather elements. On days they moved on and on nights they stopped to rest. In rains, they sought shelter. Guess was that the fugitive crowds were getting nearer and nearer everyday to the fierce war zone, which would later be found to be the famous Yeongcheon Battle Field.
The shells of bombs were observed, in the distance of 20 miles or so, dropping from B-29 bombers of the United States Air Forces which had been sent to rescue the beleaguered nation from its crisis. The tanks were seen toppled battered on the roadside. The shattered bodies of the North Korean Liberation Army privates were sprawled covered with straw mats. The bean trees in the rows were seen trampled crushed probably by the other night's fierce bayonet fighting. Everytime I stopped to take a look at the brutal scenes, I was held back by my mother or grandmother.
Don's grand mother had her diarrhea more or less healed, but the cow had a new problem, She had loose bowels, too, releasing liquid shits on the road, with impunity. Stricken with minor ills and problems, and with intermittent showers and the subsequent "tent" leaks, and suffering from the scarcity of nutritions, we the family made it near a wide expanse of a beach along the Cheongdo River.
There was a communal camp of refugee tents scattered erected along the river. Don joined the camp, erecting the nominal replacement on an elevated clearing a little distanced from the river. After a simple report procedure with "the office" having been done with, Don crossed the water and went up a nearby hill to cut off some bushes which would be used to keep the family dry by spreading them on the cold and damp ground.
My dad was greatly impressed. Very greatly, indeed, by the kindness and generosity of the locals. They were out there to meet and help the poor folks in plight. They comforted the privations of refugees with kind words in soft voice. In the hillside rows of bean trees were growing, wild sesames, sweet potatoes, and peppers. Their fresh leaves, even some of them, or, a little portion of them were what the fugitive folks needed to rev up an appetite, that is, to get their taste buds alive. The natives were well aware of it and went out of their way to hand them out to those who needed them. Don was not frustrated in his attempt but returned with triumphs of some good bushes and edible leaves.
Having gotten together, the folks tended to fight among themselves. The voices were so frequently raised for no apparent reason and fists were flying on the spur of the moment. Officials from the local district office appeared from nowhere, but they didn't ask of the people what were in need. They opted to domineer, showing off armbands, waving arms and blowing whistles. They appeared mainly in nights to crack down on the draft evaders. They cracked open the tents from the outside, popped their heads into the tent, and shined flashlights on the scared faces, ferreting out the suspects.
Foods were running out. Not "night guests" but "daylight thieves" were rampant. The desperate voices that exclaimed "Catch the thief!" was heard from time to time. Still, days were better. Nights were a nightmare itself. In the riverside camp where the lighting system was not installed, night meant darkness.
When night fell, the refugee camp was trapped in darkness. Still, what was more horrorful than starvation and darkness was the fear of being drowned. When it rained cats and dogs, the stream became a river. Swollen, the water jumped any vulnerable tents, claiming the unsuspectful sleepers. The shrill cries of "Help!" tore the night air every night. The shrill cries were bone-chilling and convulsive at first and gradually weakened and drifted away. The residents of the night camp were shaking all over, with chills running on their spine.
The anonymity and absence of administration caused irresponsibility. The men and women of the camp crossed the stream and made off with leaves of bean trees and sesame. Irresponsibilities were especially evident in the acts of human waste treatment. At first, they dug holes in the fields somewhat large and deep and released “with dignity.” The holes had roofs and footholds and door shapes made of straws or something at first but days passed without them.
A huge number of people who were on edge rushed to the field and defecated on any holes with no coverings and got away with it. The air got thick with stench and dung flies festered. All the grounds turned into the dung field in which the refugees in no time couldn't find any spacious lot for their feet to step on.
-------------------
I am used to sneezing from time to time at the imagined stench of the dung field on the Cheongdo River. I shudder at the thought of the chill caused by the leak in the 'refuge tent.' Shrieks of "help" sound like tearing the midnight air.
Ear-splitting gunshots are still unnerving. I can envision vividly in my mind's eye the battered tanks on the roadside. The horrible pitched- battle scenes are an immediate reminder of the cruelties which had been done by the internecine war and the showers of bomb drops from the Yeongcheon air are a stern reminder of retaliation and punishment by the United States and the peace-loving allied forces of the United Nations.
I can recall like yesterday even six decades later the scared eyes of the adolescent North Korean army soldiers. Who sent them down to the hills and fields to be killed? What were they after and what did they accomplish? Nothing but greed to establish their own fascistic dynasty. Did Communist tyrant Kim Il Sung and his heir oppressor Kim Jong Il meet their comeuppance? Not yet.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Chapter 11.12:The Real Reds Come to Town
11
Mama, I Am So Sorry!
Dad was subpoenaed to appear and testify about the mountain commies by the local police often who beat him more often about the whereabouts of the partisans. He did never see any of them; Nor could he collaborate with any man or agency who had not appeared before him.
Still, the police were interested in him nonetheless. He could tell them about his huge load he was able to carry home. It was firewood mostly. Grass, weeds and bits of wood for fermented fertilizer during summer time. He could tell them about how to snare roe deers whose meat was so nice. But he didn't have any knowledge about the partisans.
There were shifts personal and social. I transferred to the 2nd grade of Oksan Elementary School. The local police called in Don and interrogated him about partisans more severely than ever before.
But Don had nothing to offer. My Mom Boolim shed more tears than ever before as my grandma "grilled" her on every gamut of trivia ranging from poor cooking skills to her daughter-in-law's mode of addressing his son. Her daughter-in-law should not have dropped honorifics. She was supposed to use them when she talked to her husband.
Whenever I saw my mom lower her head and sob with muted sounds, I hated Grandma. There was no moment allowed for my mom to sit and take a minute's break. All kinds of orders were given Mom to do this or that. She did not receive any praise for her chores done nevertheless.
Worse thing was that the widowed Mrs. Euiseong Kim did not allow her daughter_in_law to join the dining session, either. However, both her son Don and her darling grandson me Dano did not face up to her because me Dano was afraid of her too much and Don was such a filial son. Fact was that I was endeared by her so much as "my beloved puppy" that I did not and could not have any guts to reject the opportunity, not joining her dining table on which stewed and fried meat or/and fish were served from time to time.
Mom was taken to task too much too often by her mother-in-law for tons of reasons. Mom was supposed to rise earlier than Grandma of course: Tardiness was not excused. She was supposed to keep track of a lot of household things, keep the garden clean, and above all things keep fire alive.
If and when she let the fire die, Grandma chided Mom like she would do a dog. Even since the stick matches were brought in the house, Mom had to keep the fire seed in a fire pot or something. Everytime the undesirable incident broke out, Grandma's abusive words flew over the fence: "You bitch will ruin this family!"
Mom's feet were busy as well as her hands. More often than not she was supposed to husk barley using a wooden treadmill which was used to peel the husk off barley with a wooden grinder attached to it. Barley meal was so made by boiling the husked barley twice.
I wonder it might have been the only and the last moment that Mom had ever tried to address her husband on even and friendly terms, when, watched by her tigerish grandma, she was greatly reproached the rudeness, "How dare you drop honorific suffix toward your husband!" The virtues of a nice wife were carped on Mom by Grandma. Husband was sky high. No, husband was the sky itself.
-------------------------
Mom was not given a seat on the dining table, which was not understandable. She was supposed to eat something out in the kitchen which had been installed out of the room or far down on the room floor separated from the main diners whereas Grandma and her grandson dined together at the same wooden dining table. Dad occupied another separate dining table.
I pronounce Mama by myself into the air. I've sinned so much which I think is unpardonable. Sorry, Mom! I am so sorry! I have been a coward. I had to face up to Grandma and ask her to sit you together with us at the same dining table. Oh, Mama!
12
The Real Reds Come to the Sun Valley, 1950
On one winter morning of 1949, a nine-member unit of army soldiers came to the valley and bivouacked on the hilly pass. They put up a large tent and spent days and nights there. I took a visit to the tent from time to time and watched them survey large military maps and asked about them. They were treated to white rice, or pure rice. All the rice and side dishes had been served by my parents, who collaborated with the army, thinking that it was the right thing to treat the Korean army soldiers.
However, the soldiers didn't stay there long. They stayed for about a week or so. My mom got there one morning like the previous morning with the early morning's meal prepared on a large oval bamboo box to find that they were gone. Like the wind. There were no traces that they had been there. The wind filled what had been emptied by them. The sunlight was shining.
Boolim had stood there motionless for a while. A sense of security had settled in Sun Valley while they had been there. Boolim and her husband had had a joyous moment discussing the next day's menu which would go to the hill tent. But out of the blue fear and anxiety gripped them. She missed the void they had left behind. She was concerned about their security and worried about the engagements they would have to confront. In an earnest prayer they wished them a good luck.
There were no regular contacts linking to greater places of the outside. There might have been newspapers in greater places like Kilan myon town a little far away from the valley. But even if there had been ones, their deliveries might not have been available. Another impediment to the outside contact might have been their comparatively higher fees.
There were no transistor radios at the valley town. But even if they had had one, its very possession could have provided a cause for suspicion from the authorities, that is, they could have been suspected of collaboration with the Reds or something. Spring was about to go. The noise of the hilly insects was heralding the advent of the early summer.
The casual word of mouth was the only communicative vehicle by which they could be cognizant of what was going on. And the words of mouth designed to mean something played a major role in relaying the news of the outside world. We had been geographically isolated so much that it was not until the strange accents were heard and the strange uniforms were observed by our very eyes that we realized there exist the real Reds in the world.
But oops the real Reds came to the valley. With the wind. They were a contingent of a dozen or so army privates from North Korea. They were so young and so short that their rifle bodies almost touched the ground. They looked to be in their mid-teens. Their salient feature as the Reds was the red shoulder bands depicting stars.
They looked famished and fatigued. As soon as they got into the cottage ground they asked for "something to eat." My grandma Mrs. Euiseong Kim sought understanding, scared and stunned, saying, "We have barley only, husked and twice boiled." "That will do," they said, with desperation in their voices. They put water into barley bowl and ate them up with smacks of lips. After a short break of eating jobs, they left, with strange accents of "thanks for the meal" trailing behind.
A heavy engagement erupted that very night, without warning, somewhere on the hilly mountains. Probably between the South Korean soldiers and the invading North Koreans. I wondered who had shot initial rounds.
There was no moon that night. Darkness shrouded, like fogs, the valley and the surrounding hilly mountains. All through the night there were clings and clangs in the air. In between the barrages of bullets, there might have been shells flying and pounding and exploding on the places far and near the cottage.
We the family members were terrified, in heavy bedding, hugging each other and shaking all over. There were great flashes in the windows, followed by momentary hiatus of silent darkness and a boom which shook the house and which we guessed it had exploded somewhere near the house. When the next day broke and the battle was over, morning calm settled again in the valley as if nothing had happened. Had they been all dead?
There was a scream somewhere outside. It was Mrs. Euiseong Kim's. "What's that?" great-grand mother asked in a low voice, sitting up. My dad bolted out of the room. "What's up, Mother?" he shouted in astonishment. "Come and see here," she said. She was standing at an entrance of a bean row contiguous to the rear garden. She pointed to a big hole dug deep and round.
It was a crater which had been made by a mortar shell explosion last night. All the family ran to the scene and blurted exclaims, pointing to a mortar shell shrapnel just resembling a large pumpkin. Mrs. Euiseong Kim cited a secret assistance of samshin, or the three gods. "Samshin halmae duggida," (Three godly grandmothers saved our lives!), she chanted, bowing deeply with clapped hands.
Mama, I Am So Sorry!
Dad was subpoenaed to appear and testify about the mountain commies by the local police often who beat him more often about the whereabouts of the partisans. He did never see any of them; Nor could he collaborate with any man or agency who had not appeared before him.
Still, the police were interested in him nonetheless. He could tell them about his huge load he was able to carry home. It was firewood mostly. Grass, weeds and bits of wood for fermented fertilizer during summer time. He could tell them about how to snare roe deers whose meat was so nice. But he didn't have any knowledge about the partisans.
There were shifts personal and social. I transferred to the 2nd grade of Oksan Elementary School. The local police called in Don and interrogated him about partisans more severely than ever before.
But Don had nothing to offer. My Mom Boolim shed more tears than ever before as my grandma "grilled" her on every gamut of trivia ranging from poor cooking skills to her daughter-in-law's mode of addressing his son. Her daughter-in-law should not have dropped honorifics. She was supposed to use them when she talked to her husband.
Whenever I saw my mom lower her head and sob with muted sounds, I hated Grandma. There was no moment allowed for my mom to sit and take a minute's break. All kinds of orders were given Mom to do this or that. She did not receive any praise for her chores done nevertheless.
Worse thing was that the widowed Mrs. Euiseong Kim did not allow her daughter_in_law to join the dining session, either. However, both her son Don and her darling grandson me Dano did not face up to her because me Dano was afraid of her too much and Don was such a filial son. Fact was that I was endeared by her so much as "my beloved puppy" that I did not and could not have any guts to reject the opportunity, not joining her dining table on which stewed and fried meat or/and fish were served from time to time.
Mom was taken to task too much too often by her mother-in-law for tons of reasons. Mom was supposed to rise earlier than Grandma of course: Tardiness was not excused. She was supposed to keep track of a lot of household things, keep the garden clean, and above all things keep fire alive.
If and when she let the fire die, Grandma chided Mom like she would do a dog. Even since the stick matches were brought in the house, Mom had to keep the fire seed in a fire pot or something. Everytime the undesirable incident broke out, Grandma's abusive words flew over the fence: "You bitch will ruin this family!"
Mom's feet were busy as well as her hands. More often than not she was supposed to husk barley using a wooden treadmill which was used to peel the husk off barley with a wooden grinder attached to it. Barley meal was so made by boiling the husked barley twice.
I wonder it might have been the only and the last moment that Mom had ever tried to address her husband on even and friendly terms, when, watched by her tigerish grandma, she was greatly reproached the rudeness, "How dare you drop honorific suffix toward your husband!" The virtues of a nice wife were carped on Mom by Grandma. Husband was sky high. No, husband was the sky itself.
-------------------------
Mom was not given a seat on the dining table, which was not understandable. She was supposed to eat something out in the kitchen which had been installed out of the room or far down on the room floor separated from the main diners whereas Grandma and her grandson dined together at the same wooden dining table. Dad occupied another separate dining table.
I pronounce Mama by myself into the air. I've sinned so much which I think is unpardonable. Sorry, Mom! I am so sorry! I have been a coward. I had to face up to Grandma and ask her to sit you together with us at the same dining table. Oh, Mama!
12
The Real Reds Come to the Sun Valley, 1950
On one winter morning of 1949, a nine-member unit of army soldiers came to the valley and bivouacked on the hilly pass. They put up a large tent and spent days and nights there. I took a visit to the tent from time to time and watched them survey large military maps and asked about them. They were treated to white rice, or pure rice. All the rice and side dishes had been served by my parents, who collaborated with the army, thinking that it was the right thing to treat the Korean army soldiers.
However, the soldiers didn't stay there long. They stayed for about a week or so. My mom got there one morning like the previous morning with the early morning's meal prepared on a large oval bamboo box to find that they were gone. Like the wind. There were no traces that they had been there. The wind filled what had been emptied by them. The sunlight was shining.
Boolim had stood there motionless for a while. A sense of security had settled in Sun Valley while they had been there. Boolim and her husband had had a joyous moment discussing the next day's menu which would go to the hill tent. But out of the blue fear and anxiety gripped them. She missed the void they had left behind. She was concerned about their security and worried about the engagements they would have to confront. In an earnest prayer they wished them a good luck.
There were no regular contacts linking to greater places of the outside. There might have been newspapers in greater places like Kilan myon town a little far away from the valley. But even if there had been ones, their deliveries might not have been available. Another impediment to the outside contact might have been their comparatively higher fees.
There were no transistor radios at the valley town. But even if they had had one, its very possession could have provided a cause for suspicion from the authorities, that is, they could have been suspected of collaboration with the Reds or something. Spring was about to go. The noise of the hilly insects was heralding the advent of the early summer.
The casual word of mouth was the only communicative vehicle by which they could be cognizant of what was going on. And the words of mouth designed to mean something played a major role in relaying the news of the outside world. We had been geographically isolated so much that it was not until the strange accents were heard and the strange uniforms were observed by our very eyes that we realized there exist the real Reds in the world.
But oops the real Reds came to the valley. With the wind. They were a contingent of a dozen or so army privates from North Korea. They were so young and so short that their rifle bodies almost touched the ground. They looked to be in their mid-teens. Their salient feature as the Reds was the red shoulder bands depicting stars.
They looked famished and fatigued. As soon as they got into the cottage ground they asked for "something to eat." My grandma Mrs. Euiseong Kim sought understanding, scared and stunned, saying, "We have barley only, husked and twice boiled." "That will do," they said, with desperation in their voices. They put water into barley bowl and ate them up with smacks of lips. After a short break of eating jobs, they left, with strange accents of "thanks for the meal" trailing behind.
A heavy engagement erupted that very night, without warning, somewhere on the hilly mountains. Probably between the South Korean soldiers and the invading North Koreans. I wondered who had shot initial rounds.
There was no moon that night. Darkness shrouded, like fogs, the valley and the surrounding hilly mountains. All through the night there were clings and clangs in the air. In between the barrages of bullets, there might have been shells flying and pounding and exploding on the places far and near the cottage.
We the family members were terrified, in heavy bedding, hugging each other and shaking all over. There were great flashes in the windows, followed by momentary hiatus of silent darkness and a boom which shook the house and which we guessed it had exploded somewhere near the house. When the next day broke and the battle was over, morning calm settled again in the valley as if nothing had happened. Had they been all dead?
There was a scream somewhere outside. It was Mrs. Euiseong Kim's. "What's that?" great-grand mother asked in a low voice, sitting up. My dad bolted out of the room. "What's up, Mother?" he shouted in astonishment. "Come and see here," she said. She was standing at an entrance of a bean row contiguous to the rear garden. She pointed to a big hole dug deep and round.
It was a crater which had been made by a mortar shell explosion last night. All the family ran to the scene and blurted exclaims, pointing to a mortar shell shrapnel just resembling a large pumpkin. Mrs. Euiseong Kim cited a secret assistance of samshin, or the three gods. "Samshin halmae duggida," (Three godly grandmothers saved our lives!), she chanted, bowing deeply with clapped hands.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Chapter 9.10:The Mountain Ritual
9
The Inquisitive Bullies, 1949
The lonely traveller did not just bump into road snakes but strange people who wanted to pick an argument or pick a fight. Almost everytime he hit a small country road, Dano met bullies of his peers or adults who wanted to stop him and ask useless questions or give useless pieces of advice, giggling and sneering. He met this time a group of Oksan Elementary School boys on their way back home. They were running down the slope toward the road juncture where I was about to cross the stepping stone bridge.
"Hey, there!" one boy shouted up from a hill. I kept on walking.
"Hey, you white hat!" another boy joined the shout. I didn't stop. In a minute they rushed down the bottom of the road, struggling for breath. The boys mobbed me in a boy's hat.
"Why ignore us?" an oldest-looking boy who looked to be a fourth-year student of the school, holding a school bag glared, touching my shoulder with his right hand.
"I dunno," I said. "What do you not know?" he demanded to know, with the other boys surrounding me. "I dunno what you mean,"I said, unflinching.
"You didn't reply to our calling. That means you ignored us," another boy with freckles intervened.
"I didn't hear your calling," I said, looking the boy straight in the eye.
"We shouted 'hey, you hat'. Didn't you hear that?" the boy said, looking away.
"You called the hat, not me," I said.
“The hat didn't reply also," the third giggled.
"It replied, but you couldn't hear," I insisted.
"What is your name, then? the fourth boy asked, looking to be with interest.
"I am Dano," I declared.
"Don't you go to school?" the fifth wanted to know.
"I have been to school for a half year, but I have my schooling suspended," Dano said.
"Why?" the boys asked in unison.
"Because of a thief guy," I answered.
“What do you mean by a thief guy?" a boy asked.
"He means malaria," I said.
"How long have you been sick with malaria?" the boys were curious.
"For 105 days," Dano said matter-of-factly.
"You have suffered much," one of the boys was sympathetic.
"Not much," Dano said.
"Why?"
"Because my Grandma was very instrumental in gathering herbs and in ejecting evil spirits."
"Ejecting evil spirits? How does she do it?"
"I lie on the ground and Grandma throws a knife in the mid-air and curses the evil spirits and the evil spirits run away and I am cured."
"That's been great," they agreed.
"Where are you going?" some boys wanted to know.
"To Sun Valley," Dano said.
"You must be very afraid. The Sun Valley is a fearful place."
"Not much."
They were very inquisitive. But their curiosities were hilarious to me. Though in a rugged valley, I did not live totally alone. There lived an "uncle" of no relation suffering from leprosy. He lived quite alone in a shack near our house. I called on him from time to time but the uncle often waved me off with sorrowful face. Tigers did not haunt the valley but boar hogs sometimes did. I was afraid of them, of course. I hid myself behind the big trees at the time.
When I mentioned their inquisitive or hilarious curiosities, I said it in good terms. But I can't pave it with good intentions any more. They had not been good to me after all. Their rugged or rude or virulent words and behaviors might have not been intentional at that time nor aware of the meanings of their utterances or actions. In short, they might have followed their instinctive urges to question me, badger me, and assault me physically and psychologically.
People talk about the prevalence of ijime in the Japanese society, especially pervasive in the lower echelon of Japanese schools, starting in the 1990s. It's not true. It can't have been a geographically isolated phenomenon. They had happened in any global society. They could have and they can happen now anywhere on earth, even in the jungle of Amazon.
Why? On what grounds? Because the physical assault is considered a human instinct and might have been etched in the human genes. Looking back, that is, in my flashback memory, their utterances and actions took on developmental attributes, from stage one to stage two and upwards. The kids, who had thrown incisive questions at the moment of the initial encounter, didn't attempt to inflict a physical harm, but as several years passed they wanted me to be consumed by tigers at each and every moment of parting. And as more times passed and as we went to middle school, the inquisitive kids turned out bullies and badgers, and the bullies inflicted me hard nudges and kicks.
10
The Mountain Ritual at the Mountain Hill, 1949
The geographical remoteness and isolation paid its price. Just like winds in the valley blew with the sounds of sea waves, passing along the valley in unknown time, people materialized unannounced. Local police guys came without notice and took my dad rudely and treated him with tormenting questions and torturous beatings. The usual excuse was that my dad Don must have collaborated with partisans, or commies. He refused to admit, and there wasn't anything to confess and naturally got a good beating. No suspicious people, however, came along, partisans, commies, or suspects of whatever name. Folks were few and far between. They were "as rare as beans in the drought."
Don went to the woods, Boolim went milling the grains, her mother-in-law was running nagging mills, and Dano, among the iris of every sort, was happy in the valley. I had mixed feelings about the folks. He missed grandpas, uncles and aunts, brothers and "new aunts" of the clan from Danuishill. He used to run down the hill slope whenever he spied on human shapes far down the valley in dopo or durumaggi. He was afraid of the Reds, or partisans. In actuality, he was not so much afraid of the commies as wild boars.
What originally caused my parents to move to this remote valley cottage was the autumnal harvest they could live on, although it was not so abundant. A heavy responsibility had been attached to the rental contract of the land. Don had to pay a portion of the harvest as rent which consisted of a rice harvest garnered from the tiered paddy fields and the autumnal fruits of the yards, chestnuts and pine mushrooms in the hills. Don also had to take custody of the ancestral graves in the clan-owned hills and prepare the yearly ritual of ancestor worship.
At this time of each late fall the lonely cottage of the remote valley was filled with loud talks and big laughs. Dano had a good time enjoying every minute of each mountain ritual because it was "abundant." Abundant with welcome relatives from the clan town. Abundant with autumn harvests. A persimmon tree in the backyard and a pear tree in the front yard had plump and juicy fruits on them. Sunlight was warm in the valley and wind was crisp.
The advance team of the mountain ritual arrived at the cottage two days before the ritual. The first contingent consisted of the young elder-brothers in their thirties whose mission was to purchase, according to the shopping lists, the fish, meat and other items at the bazaar which would be used for the ritual.
The second contingent came one day before the performance which consisted of the uncles and older elder-brothers in their forties and early fifties whose mission was to make raw materials into offerings. Sea fishes had to be steamed and cut into suitable lengths; Meat had to be steamed, cut or sliced; and chestnuts had to be peeled and carved. Then they made tiered arrangements of the offerings on wooden convex vessels.
The man, who greatly contributed to the animated atmosphere of the ritual preparation workforce, was the gentleman of the West Side, Tschoon. The West Side dominated every scene. He was a born story teller who could unravel the threads of a yarn. He was knowledgeable in many aspects of human interest. He was versed in citing old quotations and age-old legends. He was also good at citing famous episodes. He was an expert at picking at slips of people's tongues not to ridicule them but to make his audience laugh.
The West was the very man who could electrify his audience with his wisecracks, so much so that the job of the ritual organization might not get them bored and fatigued. When they felt they needed recharging, my Grandma Phillnam popped from the women's chamber and put out a nice table for tasty snacks.
Grandma was a good cook who came from the Euiseong Kim clan, She was as tall as a plum tree at the front garden and as thin as a young willow tree at the town creek. She literally had a natural tongue for taste. She knew a variety of recipes of gourmet foods; She memorized ingredients of every gamut of soups ranging from chicken soup to beef rib soup. She had even taken dassokpan, which was made of the jujube tree and had convex cookie patterns on them.
When the preparation works were all done, the team packed them according to the category. The grandpas, except for two or three oldest, and the youngest clan people comprised the last contingent who arrived at the valley on the very morning the ancestor worship ritual was held. The transportation of the loads, which were huge, was quite a problem. But there were no vehicles nor roads on which to carry the loads at the time. So they had to be carried on strong human backs or shoulders, specifically on jigae, wood A-frames. The shallow rough roads leading to the ancestral graves were lush with bushes which were wet with autumnal dew.
The weather on almost all the occasion was fine. The air of November was real cool enough, neither hot nor cold. The November mountain winds among the pines made sea sounds, good to hear to my ears. The participants in the autumnal ritual on the mountain hills usually reached 40, exceeding 50 at times. The grass on the grave mounds was yellow. The tiered clan hills had many tiered graves according to clannish order, with great-great-great-grand father topped the tiers. The ancestral worship event was observed on four separate mountain hills which took nearly six hours.
The mountain ritual for the clan ancestors was observed in an orderly manner. First, the offerings were arranged on each stone table before the grave. When the arrangement was done, the participants took their position in four or five standing lines according to the order of age and rank. A holggi, or a male person who was obligated to remind everyone of each requested action, took his position on the right frontal edge. When the holggi pronounced "chamshin" every participant was supposed to kneel and offer two deep bows.
Then, the jeju, or the host of the ritual, knelt and gave two bows. He knelt again and took a bronze vessel on which the steward on the left frontal edge poured jeongjong, the rice wine, who handed it to the steward who placed it on the table beside the rice bowl.
The time came in which every participant was reminded of the solemn occasion in which a participant, who was predetermined to do it, read a memorial eulogy. When he used to read it, Dano thought in prostrate position, that the doves stopped croaking and that mountain winds got serious. When it was done there followed two more performances--a tribute of long silence and a standing bow. The ritual was all done with the two deep bows.
Shortly thereafter, bokju and eumbok procedures, or the post-ritual shares with the grace and blessings, were in wait for everyone. After all the offerings were placed down, all the members, who took part in the event, soaked their tongue with the wine and partook of the offerings. They cut a slice of them and gave each and everyone the share. It always happened that the kids at a village town over the valley called Dumsan remembered the day of the Bannam Park clan ritual and paid a visit to the mountain hill. They used to hide among or behind the trees around the graves and waited for the event to end. The senior members of the Park clan saw the heads and knew what to do after the event. They were called in and all kinds of edibles were handed out to them.
The Inquisitive Bullies, 1949
The lonely traveller did not just bump into road snakes but strange people who wanted to pick an argument or pick a fight. Almost everytime he hit a small country road, Dano met bullies of his peers or adults who wanted to stop him and ask useless questions or give useless pieces of advice, giggling and sneering. He met this time a group of Oksan Elementary School boys on their way back home. They were running down the slope toward the road juncture where I was about to cross the stepping stone bridge.
"Hey, there!" one boy shouted up from a hill. I kept on walking.
"Hey, you white hat!" another boy joined the shout. I didn't stop. In a minute they rushed down the bottom of the road, struggling for breath. The boys mobbed me in a boy's hat.
"Why ignore us?" an oldest-looking boy who looked to be a fourth-year student of the school, holding a school bag glared, touching my shoulder with his right hand.
"I dunno," I said. "What do you not know?" he demanded to know, with the other boys surrounding me. "I dunno what you mean,"I said, unflinching.
"You didn't reply to our calling. That means you ignored us," another boy with freckles intervened.
"I didn't hear your calling," I said, looking the boy straight in the eye.
"We shouted 'hey, you hat'. Didn't you hear that?" the boy said, looking away.
"You called the hat, not me," I said.
“The hat didn't reply also," the third giggled.
"It replied, but you couldn't hear," I insisted.
"What is your name, then? the fourth boy asked, looking to be with interest.
"I am Dano," I declared.
"Don't you go to school?" the fifth wanted to know.
"I have been to school for a half year, but I have my schooling suspended," Dano said.
"Why?" the boys asked in unison.
"Because of a thief guy," I answered.
“What do you mean by a thief guy?" a boy asked.
"He means malaria," I said.
"How long have you been sick with malaria?" the boys were curious.
"For 105 days," Dano said matter-of-factly.
"You have suffered much," one of the boys was sympathetic.
"Not much," Dano said.
"Why?"
"Because my Grandma was very instrumental in gathering herbs and in ejecting evil spirits."
"Ejecting evil spirits? How does she do it?"
"I lie on the ground and Grandma throws a knife in the mid-air and curses the evil spirits and the evil spirits run away and I am cured."
"That's been great," they agreed.
"Where are you going?" some boys wanted to know.
"To Sun Valley," Dano said.
"You must be very afraid. The Sun Valley is a fearful place."
"Not much."
They were very inquisitive. But their curiosities were hilarious to me. Though in a rugged valley, I did not live totally alone. There lived an "uncle" of no relation suffering from leprosy. He lived quite alone in a shack near our house. I called on him from time to time but the uncle often waved me off with sorrowful face. Tigers did not haunt the valley but boar hogs sometimes did. I was afraid of them, of course. I hid myself behind the big trees at the time.
When I mentioned their inquisitive or hilarious curiosities, I said it in good terms. But I can't pave it with good intentions any more. They had not been good to me after all. Their rugged or rude or virulent words and behaviors might have not been intentional at that time nor aware of the meanings of their utterances or actions. In short, they might have followed their instinctive urges to question me, badger me, and assault me physically and psychologically.
People talk about the prevalence of ijime in the Japanese society, especially pervasive in the lower echelon of Japanese schools, starting in the 1990s. It's not true. It can't have been a geographically isolated phenomenon. They had happened in any global society. They could have and they can happen now anywhere on earth, even in the jungle of Amazon.
Why? On what grounds? Because the physical assault is considered a human instinct and might have been etched in the human genes. Looking back, that is, in my flashback memory, their utterances and actions took on developmental attributes, from stage one to stage two and upwards. The kids, who had thrown incisive questions at the moment of the initial encounter, didn't attempt to inflict a physical harm, but as several years passed they wanted me to be consumed by tigers at each and every moment of parting. And as more times passed and as we went to middle school, the inquisitive kids turned out bullies and badgers, and the bullies inflicted me hard nudges and kicks.
10
The Mountain Ritual at the Mountain Hill, 1949
The geographical remoteness and isolation paid its price. Just like winds in the valley blew with the sounds of sea waves, passing along the valley in unknown time, people materialized unannounced. Local police guys came without notice and took my dad rudely and treated him with tormenting questions and torturous beatings. The usual excuse was that my dad Don must have collaborated with partisans, or commies. He refused to admit, and there wasn't anything to confess and naturally got a good beating. No suspicious people, however, came along, partisans, commies, or suspects of whatever name. Folks were few and far between. They were "as rare as beans in the drought."
Don went to the woods, Boolim went milling the grains, her mother-in-law was running nagging mills, and Dano, among the iris of every sort, was happy in the valley. I had mixed feelings about the folks. He missed grandpas, uncles and aunts, brothers and "new aunts" of the clan from Danuishill. He used to run down the hill slope whenever he spied on human shapes far down the valley in dopo or durumaggi. He was afraid of the Reds, or partisans. In actuality, he was not so much afraid of the commies as wild boars.
What originally caused my parents to move to this remote valley cottage was the autumnal harvest they could live on, although it was not so abundant. A heavy responsibility had been attached to the rental contract of the land. Don had to pay a portion of the harvest as rent which consisted of a rice harvest garnered from the tiered paddy fields and the autumnal fruits of the yards, chestnuts and pine mushrooms in the hills. Don also had to take custody of the ancestral graves in the clan-owned hills and prepare the yearly ritual of ancestor worship.
At this time of each late fall the lonely cottage of the remote valley was filled with loud talks and big laughs. Dano had a good time enjoying every minute of each mountain ritual because it was "abundant." Abundant with welcome relatives from the clan town. Abundant with autumn harvests. A persimmon tree in the backyard and a pear tree in the front yard had plump and juicy fruits on them. Sunlight was warm in the valley and wind was crisp.
The advance team of the mountain ritual arrived at the cottage two days before the ritual. The first contingent consisted of the young elder-brothers in their thirties whose mission was to purchase, according to the shopping lists, the fish, meat and other items at the bazaar which would be used for the ritual.
The second contingent came one day before the performance which consisted of the uncles and older elder-brothers in their forties and early fifties whose mission was to make raw materials into offerings. Sea fishes had to be steamed and cut into suitable lengths; Meat had to be steamed, cut or sliced; and chestnuts had to be peeled and carved. Then they made tiered arrangements of the offerings on wooden convex vessels.
The man, who greatly contributed to the animated atmosphere of the ritual preparation workforce, was the gentleman of the West Side, Tschoon. The West Side dominated every scene. He was a born story teller who could unravel the threads of a yarn. He was knowledgeable in many aspects of human interest. He was versed in citing old quotations and age-old legends. He was also good at citing famous episodes. He was an expert at picking at slips of people's tongues not to ridicule them but to make his audience laugh.
The West was the very man who could electrify his audience with his wisecracks, so much so that the job of the ritual organization might not get them bored and fatigued. When they felt they needed recharging, my Grandma Phillnam popped from the women's chamber and put out a nice table for tasty snacks.
Grandma was a good cook who came from the Euiseong Kim clan, She was as tall as a plum tree at the front garden and as thin as a young willow tree at the town creek. She literally had a natural tongue for taste. She knew a variety of recipes of gourmet foods; She memorized ingredients of every gamut of soups ranging from chicken soup to beef rib soup. She had even taken dassokpan, which was made of the jujube tree and had convex cookie patterns on them.
When the preparation works were all done, the team packed them according to the category. The grandpas, except for two or three oldest, and the youngest clan people comprised the last contingent who arrived at the valley on the very morning the ancestor worship ritual was held. The transportation of the loads, which were huge, was quite a problem. But there were no vehicles nor roads on which to carry the loads at the time. So they had to be carried on strong human backs or shoulders, specifically on jigae, wood A-frames. The shallow rough roads leading to the ancestral graves were lush with bushes which were wet with autumnal dew.
The weather on almost all the occasion was fine. The air of November was real cool enough, neither hot nor cold. The November mountain winds among the pines made sea sounds, good to hear to my ears. The participants in the autumnal ritual on the mountain hills usually reached 40, exceeding 50 at times. The grass on the grave mounds was yellow. The tiered clan hills had many tiered graves according to clannish order, with great-great-great-grand father topped the tiers. The ancestral worship event was observed on four separate mountain hills which took nearly six hours.
The mountain ritual for the clan ancestors was observed in an orderly manner. First, the offerings were arranged on each stone table before the grave. When the arrangement was done, the participants took their position in four or five standing lines according to the order of age and rank. A holggi, or a male person who was obligated to remind everyone of each requested action, took his position on the right frontal edge. When the holggi pronounced "chamshin" every participant was supposed to kneel and offer two deep bows.
Then, the jeju, or the host of the ritual, knelt and gave two bows. He knelt again and took a bronze vessel on which the steward on the left frontal edge poured jeongjong, the rice wine, who handed it to the steward who placed it on the table beside the rice bowl.
The time came in which every participant was reminded of the solemn occasion in which a participant, who was predetermined to do it, read a memorial eulogy. When he used to read it, Dano thought in prostrate position, that the doves stopped croaking and that mountain winds got serious. When it was done there followed two more performances--a tribute of long silence and a standing bow. The ritual was all done with the two deep bows.
Shortly thereafter, bokju and eumbok procedures, or the post-ritual shares with the grace and blessings, were in wait for everyone. After all the offerings were placed down, all the members, who took part in the event, soaked their tongue with the wine and partook of the offerings. They cut a slice of them and gave each and everyone the share. It always happened that the kids at a village town over the valley called Dumsan remembered the day of the Bannam Park clan ritual and paid a visit to the mountain hill. They used to hide among or behind the trees around the graves and waited for the event to end. The senior members of the Park clan saw the heads and knew what to do after the event. They were called in and all kinds of edibles were handed out to them.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Chapter 7.8.:The Big Flash
7
The Tale of a Big Flash, 1949.
I was a solitary boy. The boy started walking down a slopy hill of Sun Valley (short for Sun Bang Valley), Baikja-dong, Andong-gun. An afternoon vernal wind was crisp enough with a faint fragrance of pines blowing from far-down valleys.
The pines were rustling with a sound of sea waves. The solitary boy of dokka-chon, that is, a mountain village consisting of the only hut cottage, stopped from time to time to inhale and savor the fragrance of pines in the valley. I was on my way from Oksan Elementary School, four kilometers from my home. The cottage was seen from the top of hill, nestled far below.
I was a loner of eight with the height of four feet and three inches in simple starched cotton wears. I saw well, heard well and smelled well. I was a mountain boy. I did not give a laugh often and did not make a face, either. My facial feature was kind of solemn with an aura of coldness.
I was the very person who had been born at Sakitoma-chi (or Sakitama-chi), Nagasaki, Japan. The boy did not know it. He did not remember it. He did not have any memory related to his childhood years from his birth to age six. Many a man and woman of the world takes a great pride on their early memory of his or her childhood years dating even to age two or three. But my memory used to be shrouded in murky fogs. Buried in the whirlpool of the black hole of amnesia.
The discontinuities were irritating, The vacuums were intolerable. There grew inquisitiveness for the quest of his identity and self-doubts about his own origin. Seemingly unrelated images were tantalizing. Murmurs...Unidentified noises...Muted footsteps....Unidentifiable cracks...Mystic crashes...What happened and how did it happen anyway?
Mom began to unravel the threads of memory on a spring afternoon when left alone with her seven-year-old son Dano who started tormenting her again about his blacked-out memory of the earliest years. Her husband had gone to a local bazaar four kilometers away to buy some items including farmland tools.
"Where am I from, Mom?" I asked my mom casually in front of the barnyard, where she was fixing a wooden feed vessel. "Was I brought away from a bridge? Grandma told me."
"You've not been brought from anywhere. You were born from me just like calves are born from mother cows," Mom said. I was not convinced.
"Where was I born, Mom?" I asked. "Here or At Danuishill?"
"You're not born here nor at Danuishill," she said. "You were born in Nagasaki, Japan."
Why did I have to ask such a silly question of Mom? The stupid boy, who has turned 68 now, is ashamed of himself, for what had tormented his mother who had been troubled by tons of chores and worries. I wish I could have exercised more apt speech.
Why was I so inquisitive about such trivial matters? Why was the origin so important? The pines were standing solemn with no question posed about nothing. The creeks of the Sun Bang Valley were running with no question posed about their origin. The crisp winds were coming from nowhere and getting over the hills.
Why couldn't I talk to my mom with tact? Why couldn't I tell her tales of more substantial nature? Why couldn't I make her laugh, or at least smile by saying to her, "I am on your side, Mom!" or, "I love you, Mom!" Why did I make her feel so lonely by siding with her scolding mother-in-law?
There used to be not so many things he could handle. He couldn't decide on the place of birth and the parents he would like to be born from, which was destiny. I had been born Japanese by the Japanese name of Masao. But now he was Korean by the proud name of Jung Cook Park. (My passport name is Park Jung Cook) Dano is another name for this book while I have long passed for in the local online sites by the name of Shimmanni (Shimmanni means a wild ginseng picker). The United States of America turned out a liberator, emancipator and savior that enabled him to live as a citizen of an independent nation.
Mom didn't go further. She would not have to mention the Big Bomb which had been dropped by the U.S. Bomber on Nagasaki City on the 6th of August, 1945. Thing is that she far later mentioned "a snap on the face" she had had on the horrible morning just like you have had a big bee sting. An instant flash which had whacked the entire town of Sakitama-chi (Sakitoma-chi) which was about 100 miles or so distanced from the tragic city. And the melee from the crash which had almost sunk the homecoming ship when she had hit a live torpedo off the shore of Busan Port.
That had been a big story about a Big Flash, which had not been verified by a second witness. The story had not been told by Mom to her son because he had been such a kid. The story of a flash had been so casually revealed to her sons decades later. There had not been any other audience at the time, too, to be so inquisitive about the validity of her revelation.
My mother had not been called in to a specific court to testify about the horrible explosion of the atomic bomb. Which was not necessary. She had been there of course at the historic moment at the small town about 100 miles far from the tragic scene and the snap shot of a sharp flash had hit her, knocking her down as a result.
As she had released an extraordinary story she had gone a step further. "I saw" this and that, she had asserted. She said she had gone to the very Nagasaki city, two or three weeks later after the tragic bombing incident, with some "friends", to make an on-the-spot expedition of the bombed-out city. "I saw the ubiquitous carcass of the burnt cattle standing erect" in the waste land shrouded with gray fogs, she said with assertive low voice.
Her attentive audience nodded as she was talking about the horror but they were harboring skepticism about the validity of her story. Her distortions, if any, could not have been deliberate. She probably might have made the tragic footage she had happened to watch, in later years, on the local television her own hands-on experience. My elder cousin Hyoseo also supported the theory by saying that his 'small mother', or his aunt might not be able to get to the place because the Japanese police had kept the people contiguous to Nagasaki City from approaching.
8
White Rice under the Layer of Barley, 1949
It was a terrific day, on a spring day, 1949, on which stick matches took the place of flints which had been used to start fire. My father bought seongnyang, or stick matches from the bazaar which used to be open at Kilan, Andong-kun. "This is it," Dad produced a small match case from which he picked out one match and started fire with it. It smelled of sulfur, which was very good. A fragrance of civilization. The boys and girls then had been chasing the exhaust fumes which had spewed from the tails of the ancient trucks, shouting with joy.
A crescent moon was going over the back hill, when Dad was heating the cattle feed with wood fire coughing in the crisp early morning air. The roosters were crowing the dawn, Grandma coming out of the anbang to empty the yogang, or the urine pot. The only mutt was whining as if he was dreaming, the only cow blowing her nose while still sleeping. The spears, which were placed on the attic of the barn, were quiet yet terrifying.
Dad was a general to me. He was almost six feet tall, as strong as and as silent as a rock, He was Herculean. He climbed and ran the steep hills with ease. He cut and carried big fire woods like nothing. My Grandma used to make a special food for my Dad once or twice a year, put it in a big urn and preserved it for later consumption, only for himself. I knew much later that it had been the dog meat brewed with liquor of high alcoholic content.
Dad was a major life provider for the seven of us family members--great grand mother, grandmother, Mom, Dad, me and my two brothers. He tilled the fields, plowed them with a cow, gathered a variety of herbs and mushrooms, collected fire woods, sold and bought farming produce. Just like he had crawled with hands and feet in the dark pit of a Nagasaki coal mine, he was hitting the fields and hills with his best regards focused on the family.
------------------
They were all worried a lot about me. I was a loner, with no friends to talk to and to play with. My grandma, as the matriarch of the family, might have thought it her obligation to exert her utmost to "educate" her grandson Dano who had been cast into a rugged valley. A prime mastermind used to be Boolim's mother-in-law and Dano's Naggingma who had been so nicknamed after her constant nagging. So Grandma and her son had made it a rule to send me Dano to Danuishill, their clan village, on every available opportunity with a view to training and enlightening me, letting me have a wide range of experiences about manners and customs of the clan.
I was a lone pedestrian traveler just like my Dad had been. The entire route from Sun Valley to Danuishill was eight more kilometers. He had no road companion for the entire journey. The mountain trail of the initial two kilometers was a creek road which had been resultingly serpentine, rocky and thorny. The road, on which the creek used to run most of the season, was pocked with rocks. Thorny bushes stood just human height long. Dangers rarely lurked that snakes attacked the traveler from the bushes. But he could hear the reptiles hiss among the bushes. He did not have a close encounter with mountain boar hogs. He could, however, see them rush up from down the creek more than once, hiding himself behind a huge pine, which was really frightful.
Words of invitations from a clan family were most of the time a lip service just like most facades used to be deceptive. The young Dano, ages 7, of course hadn't known that at that time. Hardly had he arrived at the village of the Park clan the remote "relatives" five or more times removed came to him and "invited" him to lodge at night at their home or to dine with them the next morning. There used to be many a time that he was ashamed to be there and rebuking himself for appearing there at all.
Formal coughs had been given by him, of course but the intervals between warning and opening the door must have been too short. He had more often than not run into the relatives in trouble, who had been hiding, getting some items hastily back and wearing awkward expressions on their faces. He had not known at that time but he knew later what that had been after all. They had been eating some delicacies.
I had a good supper meal at Sol Halbae's, the previous evening. I had a good night's sleep there, specifically at the halbae's (grandfather's) sarangbang, or guest room. The room was spacious enough to lodge tens of male guests at one time. I was honored to have the night‘s rest beside the halbae who had been the patriarch of the clan. Since I got the next morning's breakfast appointment "booked", I went to Daechu Ajimae, or Aunt Jujube. I was guided to the sarangbang of the house on which I found the room floored with clay and of which I also found the ceiling so low that my height almost reached it.
The room reeked of clay and dust. While a modest breakfast meal, which was served on a small portable wooden table separated from the ajae's (the uncle's), was in progress, a very perplexing scene unfolded before me. A toddler son of theirs began to defecate and the ajime called in a mutt who was playing on the front garden. Then he rushed into the room to relish the shit droppings. After he was done with the feast with smacking lips, he attacked at the butt of the child who burst out crying.
Dano thanked them for the nice treat and headed for the West, which had been named after the location of the residence, in which a distant brother five times removed, who had been reputed to hold lofty moral standards, had been living. Dano ruminated the live scene which had been disclosed before his eyes a few minutes ago. The mongrel, who had been attacking at the asshole of the child, did not look disgusting at all, which had been a usual canine-feeding practice at the time.
Guest Dano naturally did not throw up. What actually irked him then was the white rice on the ajae's spoon he had spotted in a flash of a second and the confused and awkward expressions on his face. The crux of the matter was that the granary meal on Dano's bowl mostly contained husked and steamed barley with a meager mix of steamed rice among them whereas the ajae's meal bowl contained complete rice beneath a thin layer of the crude grain meal.
----------------------
Kids, who were older than me Dano, were gathered in front of the wooden portal of the West. What a view! They did not completely understand what it meant by the scene. But Dano of 7, who had been sent by his parents, grandma and great-grandma to be trained to learn from the great places of the clan, did know the meaning of the scene of the moment. Just like he had known the meaning of the whiteness on the uncle's spoon. He could not explain in concrete words to the people around about the reifications of the scene, of course, but he intuited the context of it. Which was that the woman proprietor of the mansion was sending a woman serf away with comforting words, who was parting with her generous master. A poignant vestige in a landed gentry of a ruined country.
The Tale of a Big Flash, 1949.
I was a solitary boy. The boy started walking down a slopy hill of Sun Valley (short for Sun Bang Valley), Baikja-dong, Andong-gun. An afternoon vernal wind was crisp enough with a faint fragrance of pines blowing from far-down valleys.
The pines were rustling with a sound of sea waves. The solitary boy of dokka-chon, that is, a mountain village consisting of the only hut cottage, stopped from time to time to inhale and savor the fragrance of pines in the valley. I was on my way from Oksan Elementary School, four kilometers from my home. The cottage was seen from the top of hill, nestled far below.
I was a loner of eight with the height of four feet and three inches in simple starched cotton wears. I saw well, heard well and smelled well. I was a mountain boy. I did not give a laugh often and did not make a face, either. My facial feature was kind of solemn with an aura of coldness.
I was the very person who had been born at Sakitoma-chi (or Sakitama-chi), Nagasaki, Japan. The boy did not know it. He did not remember it. He did not have any memory related to his childhood years from his birth to age six. Many a man and woman of the world takes a great pride on their early memory of his or her childhood years dating even to age two or three. But my memory used to be shrouded in murky fogs. Buried in the whirlpool of the black hole of amnesia.
The discontinuities were irritating, The vacuums were intolerable. There grew inquisitiveness for the quest of his identity and self-doubts about his own origin. Seemingly unrelated images were tantalizing. Murmurs...Unidentified noises...Muted footsteps....Unidentifiable cracks...Mystic crashes...What happened and how did it happen anyway?
Mom began to unravel the threads of memory on a spring afternoon when left alone with her seven-year-old son Dano who started tormenting her again about his blacked-out memory of the earliest years. Her husband had gone to a local bazaar four kilometers away to buy some items including farmland tools.
"Where am I from, Mom?" I asked my mom casually in front of the barnyard, where she was fixing a wooden feed vessel. "Was I brought away from a bridge? Grandma told me."
"You've not been brought from anywhere. You were born from me just like calves are born from mother cows," Mom said. I was not convinced.
"Where was I born, Mom?" I asked. "Here or At Danuishill?"
"You're not born here nor at Danuishill," she said. "You were born in Nagasaki, Japan."
Why did I have to ask such a silly question of Mom? The stupid boy, who has turned 68 now, is ashamed of himself, for what had tormented his mother who had been troubled by tons of chores and worries. I wish I could have exercised more apt speech.
Why was I so inquisitive about such trivial matters? Why was the origin so important? The pines were standing solemn with no question posed about nothing. The creeks of the Sun Bang Valley were running with no question posed about their origin. The crisp winds were coming from nowhere and getting over the hills.
Why couldn't I talk to my mom with tact? Why couldn't I tell her tales of more substantial nature? Why couldn't I make her laugh, or at least smile by saying to her, "I am on your side, Mom!" or, "I love you, Mom!" Why did I make her feel so lonely by siding with her scolding mother-in-law?
There used to be not so many things he could handle. He couldn't decide on the place of birth and the parents he would like to be born from, which was destiny. I had been born Japanese by the Japanese name of Masao. But now he was Korean by the proud name of Jung Cook Park. (My passport name is Park Jung Cook) Dano is another name for this book while I have long passed for in the local online sites by the name of Shimmanni (Shimmanni means a wild ginseng picker). The United States of America turned out a liberator, emancipator and savior that enabled him to live as a citizen of an independent nation.
Mom didn't go further. She would not have to mention the Big Bomb which had been dropped by the U.S. Bomber on Nagasaki City on the 6th of August, 1945. Thing is that she far later mentioned "a snap on the face" she had had on the horrible morning just like you have had a big bee sting. An instant flash which had whacked the entire town of Sakitama-chi (Sakitoma-chi) which was about 100 miles or so distanced from the tragic city. And the melee from the crash which had almost sunk the homecoming ship when she had hit a live torpedo off the shore of Busan Port.
That had been a big story about a Big Flash, which had not been verified by a second witness. The story had not been told by Mom to her son because he had been such a kid. The story of a flash had been so casually revealed to her sons decades later. There had not been any other audience at the time, too, to be so inquisitive about the validity of her revelation.
My mother had not been called in to a specific court to testify about the horrible explosion of the atomic bomb. Which was not necessary. She had been there of course at the historic moment at the small town about 100 miles far from the tragic scene and the snap shot of a sharp flash had hit her, knocking her down as a result.
As she had released an extraordinary story she had gone a step further. "I saw" this and that, she had asserted. She said she had gone to the very Nagasaki city, two or three weeks later after the tragic bombing incident, with some "friends", to make an on-the-spot expedition of the bombed-out city. "I saw the ubiquitous carcass of the burnt cattle standing erect" in the waste land shrouded with gray fogs, she said with assertive low voice.
Her attentive audience nodded as she was talking about the horror but they were harboring skepticism about the validity of her story. Her distortions, if any, could not have been deliberate. She probably might have made the tragic footage she had happened to watch, in later years, on the local television her own hands-on experience. My elder cousin Hyoseo also supported the theory by saying that his 'small mother', or his aunt might not be able to get to the place because the Japanese police had kept the people contiguous to Nagasaki City from approaching.
8
White Rice under the Layer of Barley, 1949
It was a terrific day, on a spring day, 1949, on which stick matches took the place of flints which had been used to start fire. My father bought seongnyang, or stick matches from the bazaar which used to be open at Kilan, Andong-kun. "This is it," Dad produced a small match case from which he picked out one match and started fire with it. It smelled of sulfur, which was very good. A fragrance of civilization. The boys and girls then had been chasing the exhaust fumes which had spewed from the tails of the ancient trucks, shouting with joy.
A crescent moon was going over the back hill, when Dad was heating the cattle feed with wood fire coughing in the crisp early morning air. The roosters were crowing the dawn, Grandma coming out of the anbang to empty the yogang, or the urine pot. The only mutt was whining as if he was dreaming, the only cow blowing her nose while still sleeping. The spears, which were placed on the attic of the barn, were quiet yet terrifying.
Dad was a general to me. He was almost six feet tall, as strong as and as silent as a rock, He was Herculean. He climbed and ran the steep hills with ease. He cut and carried big fire woods like nothing. My Grandma used to make a special food for my Dad once or twice a year, put it in a big urn and preserved it for later consumption, only for himself. I knew much later that it had been the dog meat brewed with liquor of high alcoholic content.
Dad was a major life provider for the seven of us family members--great grand mother, grandmother, Mom, Dad, me and my two brothers. He tilled the fields, plowed them with a cow, gathered a variety of herbs and mushrooms, collected fire woods, sold and bought farming produce. Just like he had crawled with hands and feet in the dark pit of a Nagasaki coal mine, he was hitting the fields and hills with his best regards focused on the family.
------------------
They were all worried a lot about me. I was a loner, with no friends to talk to and to play with. My grandma, as the matriarch of the family, might have thought it her obligation to exert her utmost to "educate" her grandson Dano who had been cast into a rugged valley. A prime mastermind used to be Boolim's mother-in-law and Dano's Naggingma who had been so nicknamed after her constant nagging. So Grandma and her son had made it a rule to send me Dano to Danuishill, their clan village, on every available opportunity with a view to training and enlightening me, letting me have a wide range of experiences about manners and customs of the clan.
I was a lone pedestrian traveler just like my Dad had been. The entire route from Sun Valley to Danuishill was eight more kilometers. He had no road companion for the entire journey. The mountain trail of the initial two kilometers was a creek road which had been resultingly serpentine, rocky and thorny. The road, on which the creek used to run most of the season, was pocked with rocks. Thorny bushes stood just human height long. Dangers rarely lurked that snakes attacked the traveler from the bushes. But he could hear the reptiles hiss among the bushes. He did not have a close encounter with mountain boar hogs. He could, however, see them rush up from down the creek more than once, hiding himself behind a huge pine, which was really frightful.
Words of invitations from a clan family were most of the time a lip service just like most facades used to be deceptive. The young Dano, ages 7, of course hadn't known that at that time. Hardly had he arrived at the village of the Park clan the remote "relatives" five or more times removed came to him and "invited" him to lodge at night at their home or to dine with them the next morning. There used to be many a time that he was ashamed to be there and rebuking himself for appearing there at all.
Formal coughs had been given by him, of course but the intervals between warning and opening the door must have been too short. He had more often than not run into the relatives in trouble, who had been hiding, getting some items hastily back and wearing awkward expressions on their faces. He had not known at that time but he knew later what that had been after all. They had been eating some delicacies.
I had a good supper meal at Sol Halbae's, the previous evening. I had a good night's sleep there, specifically at the halbae's (grandfather's) sarangbang, or guest room. The room was spacious enough to lodge tens of male guests at one time. I was honored to have the night‘s rest beside the halbae who had been the patriarch of the clan. Since I got the next morning's breakfast appointment "booked", I went to Daechu Ajimae, or Aunt Jujube. I was guided to the sarangbang of the house on which I found the room floored with clay and of which I also found the ceiling so low that my height almost reached it.
The room reeked of clay and dust. While a modest breakfast meal, which was served on a small portable wooden table separated from the ajae's (the uncle's), was in progress, a very perplexing scene unfolded before me. A toddler son of theirs began to defecate and the ajime called in a mutt who was playing on the front garden. Then he rushed into the room to relish the shit droppings. After he was done with the feast with smacking lips, he attacked at the butt of the child who burst out crying.
Dano thanked them for the nice treat and headed for the West, which had been named after the location of the residence, in which a distant brother five times removed, who had been reputed to hold lofty moral standards, had been living. Dano ruminated the live scene which had been disclosed before his eyes a few minutes ago. The mongrel, who had been attacking at the asshole of the child, did not look disgusting at all, which had been a usual canine-feeding practice at the time.
Guest Dano naturally did not throw up. What actually irked him then was the white rice on the ajae's spoon he had spotted in a flash of a second and the confused and awkward expressions on his face. The crux of the matter was that the granary meal on Dano's bowl mostly contained husked and steamed barley with a meager mix of steamed rice among them whereas the ajae's meal bowl contained complete rice beneath a thin layer of the crude grain meal.
----------------------
Kids, who were older than me Dano, were gathered in front of the wooden portal of the West. What a view! They did not completely understand what it meant by the scene. But Dano of 7, who had been sent by his parents, grandma and great-grandma to be trained to learn from the great places of the clan, did know the meaning of the scene of the moment. Just like he had known the meaning of the whiteness on the uncle's spoon. He could not explain in concrete words to the people around about the reifications of the scene, of course, but he intuited the context of it. Which was that the woman proprietor of the mansion was sending a woman serf away with comforting words, who was parting with her generous master. A poignant vestige in a landed gentry of a ruined country.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Chapter 4.5.6.:Boolim Heads for Shimonoseki
4
Mother
My mother is alive. Alive is not an apt word, not a very irreverent term, either. But the term sometimes has been effective in the discourse of the local people. When this writer had been a mere child (I am 68 years now) the country folks used to ask a young stranger or strangers they met in the local bazaar about the wellbeing of their parents, saying "Are your parents alive?" Such a question had also been thrown at young men who had been unusually rude to the elderlies who used to chide them as a result. The question took on a rising intonation at the end, of course. (Are your parents alive?)
My mother is an elderly woman of 94. She lives at a rustic village far down the south of South Korea. My filial brother Ilseo has been taking care of her since my father had passed away of stomach cancer at the age of 79 in the year 1993. My mother is relatively fine with her physique. She stands erect, not stooped. She hears relatively well. She is not helped with a hearing aid whereas her eldest son needs one. Shame on him. She answers phone calls from Seoul with coherent apprehension which is directed at her grandson who has not been married yet.
I am not designed to praise her but only to introduce her to my readers to steer this story along. I know such an attempt would be futile. I have been against such a snobbish trend of certain strata of people, who, when they have risen to the world, have gone to great lengths to make their dead parents and their ancestors loom large, beautifying and eulogizing by means of erecting tombstones and epitaphs with non-existent credentials and inflated appraisals etched on. Which would be a revelation of vainglorious lunacy.
My mother had gone to Japan in 1940 in the capacity of a Mitsubishi coal miner's dependent. Two brothers, her husband and his elder brother, had gone there earlier than her. The term, my mother, of course is a misnomer because I had been nowhere and had never been formed as a human being, so the term is a retroactive one. I think I would be excused for such nomenclature, however presumptuous it may be. I was born at a small coal mining town operated by Mitsubishi in the year 1942.
The following two chapters (Chapters 5 and 6) are about a composite episode of her exodus to the Imperial Japan and a new life in there from a ruined country of Chosun. This humble plot of short length is designed to help my dear readers with the information about this writer's pre-birth by materializing the major characters involved. In the episode, Boolim is my retroactive Mom and Don and Bin are her husband and brother-in-law. Let me be excused for this weird eccentricity one more time.
5
Mom Heads for Shimonoseki, 1940
Mouths of the clan's aunts and sisters at this small hamlet village of Danuishill got busy, who were milling gossips mostly at the village well under a huge elm tree. The roosters of the village crooned and the sky in the east dawned. The "aunts" of the village got to the village well and drew water from the never-drying spring. And the never-ending yarns, too.
The yarns were not coherent altogether. They couldn't be. Mrs. Punggsan, who was from Pungsan, Andong-gun, which was 50 kilometers away, usually talked about the wellbeing of her children (Chinchin had a fever last night!) Mrs. Munkyong whispered about her husband, giggling. Mrs Andong used to put her dreams on the mill board. She was wondering whether she had dreamt taemong, a dream indicating her pregnancy and omen about an unborn baby, or something. They then couldn't wait to offer gratuitous interpretations.
There were also moments when knowledge took precedence. A semblance of it, of course. They knew it from the grapevine, or from the wind. So some aunts had made endeavors to enlighten other ignorant hyongnims, that is, elder "sisters" tied in clan relationships, by claiming that there is a big country. far across the Pacific, called miguk, or a beautiful country, named the United States of America, which is "ten times" (several times multiplied) bigger and stronger than Japan, so that the miguk would intervene in the Pacific War and vanquish ilbon, or the Imperial Japan, sooner or later.
The notification at the wellside was also made of the marginal default or impoverishment when one aunt or the other's house was running out of the food grain. The aunts subsequently chipped in to fill in the empty ssaldok, that is, the urn of rice for emergency. More often than not episodes of over-the-fence camaraderie occurred in which a big bowl of steamed rice crossed over the other aunt's fence.
Good tidings arrived via sea mail to my Mom's and her clan's delight that the two advance departures, my Dad and my elder uncle, had been admitted to the miners' apartments at Sakitoma-chi, Nishisonoki-kun, Nagasaki-ken. In the letter my Dad was honored to have been recruited, through rigorous fitness tests, as one of the Industrial Warriors of the Emperor, and elated at the prospect that the esteemed company Mitsubishi had permitted the Chosun miners to have their dependents at the residence.
"Honored? The Industrial Warriors of the Emperor your asshole!" some of the listeners thought aloud as the most knowledgeable middle-school graduate in the village read the missive aloud. As if to detect the cerebration, some of the audience chimed in to defend my Dad, saying, "Mail censorship must be harsh!" The rest of the audience began to argue about the toils and hardships the brothers were doing now.
The great uncles and the great fathers or, the elderlies of the village were sitting on the hottest part of a spacious ondol room floor, one of whom coughed discomforts over the proceedings of the conversations. Great Uncle Hui coughed a solemn remark, saying, "Don't be sarcastic. Why make a mockery of Nippon and things Nipponese?" The eyes of the audience in the room were rivetted on "the Uncle of the West", which had been named after the location of the residence of the patriarch.
The monarch and the ruling class were responsible for the colonial nation. The ordinary people were not. The subjects of the humiliated country had to survive. Whatever hard elements they were in, they had to carry on. So they were not excused to idle away, merely lamenting the sorry state of the country.
She prayed...And prayed. She just prayed before the altar in the small hours before dawn. Taking a bath and offering a bowl of the fresh well water she had drawn at the earliest hour before all the others in the new day, Boolim prayed that her husband Don might keep safe and sound in the deep pits of a Japanese coal mine.
“The altar" was not particularly built. Any elated place, on which a doenjangdok, or a big jar containing soybean paste was placed, would do. No psalms, nor mantras, nor prayer books were available to her. She used to just kneel in the direction of the Big Dipper and prayed to the sky for her husband's good luck.
Prior to the nightly routine, she took a wash of her face and a bath, not a serious one, got her teeth brushed, and hair combed. Before she exited her room for the altar at the backyard, she faced the north wall and offered three deep bows, two for the fallen Chosun monarch and one for her husband.
Don had said in the letter his elder brother would send for Boolim (I need you here!), with Don's elder brother Bin coming back home to pick her up. He said she would have to keep her brother-in-law company all through the journey to Nippon. Boolim's mother-in-law grudgingly let go of her daughter-in-law. That left three out of a six-member family: Don's mother, his younger brother and youngest sister.
People and things were new to country woman Boolim of 23 with no issue, who had never gone out of Danuishill, her husband's local residence. Cars were rare; old classic General Motors trucks, which had been ignited by hand-held starters, were spotted one in a mile fashion. Long and huge hulks of trains were also new to her. The howling of locomotive trains was a happy surprise; Even the scent of smokes from burning coals was not a nuisance.
Boolim and Bin hit the road early in the morning. The distance from Danuishill to Euiseong-up railroad station was some 16 kilo meters. Bin's paces were so brisk Boolim had a hard time catching up gasping for air, so he stopped from time to time and waited for her to join him.
It was the day set for the local bazaar which had been scheduled to open in the interval of five days starting the second of the month like 2.7.12.17.22.27. The visitors to the bazaar lined the roads to Euiseong-up (the capital of Euiseong), carrying the farming produce on carts driven by cows. Or, carrying the merchandise on chigae, or the wooden A-frame. Or, taking the load up on top of the woman's head.
Boolim's feet were sore. She tripped on the way over a rock and almost fell, not limping, however. She was not a stout build nor a frail type. She was rather strong inside. Although she got left behind a few paces almost all the time, she did not turn out a burden to his brother-in-law.
Once in the precinct of the town capital on the day of the bazaar, they found it rather subdued. Gloom was in the air. The uniformed Nipponese policemen in twos were patrolling the street, carrying the bayonet rifle on the shoulder. They were on the prowl; They threw suspicious glances toward the crowd whenever it was formed and got near to them and whistled furiously, propping them to disperse.
Excitement heightened when the train blew ear-splitting horns as it pulled into the station. Boolim was so nervous she almost tripped as she stepped on the train. Bin was behind her, warning her to watch her steps. People with their loads high on their shoulders shoved their way onto the stairs.
Hardly had they gotten onto the landing to the compartment third class they found the crowd stampeding for passenger seats of the deck, which were up for grabs. The unlucky folks, finding no place to sit down, were milling about in the aisles. Bin managed to take a seat for his sister-in-law, who uttered thanks and regrets for him time and time again.
How could the shift of emotional cataclysm happen? And that just in an instant. All that the train and its whistle had evoked in Boolim was so sweet she might have painted the compartments and the passengers in them in fairy tale colors. But expectations turned into disappointment as time wore on. Nostalgic anticipations, which she had harbored whenever she had heard faraway whistles of trains when skies had been overcast with clouds and when the hamlet had been shrouded with fogs, turned into irritating boredom. Overwhelming stench of urine and odor emanating from unwashed men around got her sick.
A man in his seeming thirties across Boolim's seat showed curiosity about Boolim's destination, giggling and reeking of cheap liquor. Boolim was silent for a while, not knowing how to respond. Bin interrupted, saying it was none of "your goddamn business." The man, piqued by Bin's blunt remarks, spitted obscenities. Then Bin collared him by the neck and push pressed him to the back of the seat, staring at him sternly.
The man quieted down. Bin did not slap him or something. Fist fights did not erupt. In spite of a small stir of the place, the passengers around Boolim and her company were nodding off as if nothing had happened. Some passengers across the aisles were engaged in small talks. Some others ate steamed eggs or other edibles. The other passengers seemed to try to keep wits for the long and slow journey.
A staff of the station was hawking by with a cart rolling full of steamed eggs, peanuts, cookies and non-alcoholic beverages. Liquors and beers were not allowed on the train. Ilbon Gongahn, or Nipponese security officers, kept a tight rein on some lousy people on the booze.
Tunnels meant darkness. Hails of coal grain struck the faces of almost all the people in the train as the iron horse went through the subterranean passageways. The clickety clack of the mighty wheels rolling sounded "haebang! haebang!""(Emancipation! Emancipation!) to the muted riders. Horns shouted "Dohngnip! Dohngnipo!" (Independence! Independence!)
New arrivals took the seats which had been emptied by those who had disembarked the train. The conductor came and punctured the tickets. Security officers came and checked the travel passes of the Bin party. Finding that the couple were bound for a Mitsubishi Company in Nagasaki, Japan, they saluted, saying "Gokouuno inorimasu." (Good luck to your journey!)
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The seas didn't sit quiet. They rocked and rolled. They roared. The amazement she had had when Boolim first saw the great waters bordered on shock, which couldn't be compared to the excitement she had had when he took a first sight of the locomotive train. "What an irony that a misfortune of the nation has given me a welcome chance of a poet!" a minstrel had lamented.
Although she was not a poetess, her heart was full of emotions at the sight of the high seas, especially at the time of the ruined nation. Tears welled up in her eyes, with her throats choked with emotion. She imagined the seas in the know how to beat the hell out of the proud swordsmen. They would only await a proper time when they would be able to quake and tilt the bizarre hunk of land to the far brink of the perdition, she thought.
Her momentary thoughts were riotous, or seditious. All the sights and sounds were lively and encouraging, nevertheless. The sea waves striking the Busan-Shimonoseki ferry boat made a primordial hue and cry. Although the dialogues, which were being conducted by the Japanese themselves and between the people who were bound for the country, were not getting across to her, they sounded melodious. What a beautiful language, she thought aloud. She hated the very thought that the foreign language enlivened her. She shot a guilty glance at her brother-in-law who shot back in a nonchalant and mischievous way.
Before they knew, a panic took place where the passengers on the deck were doing the leisurely talks. A rabbit appeared from nowhere, startled and shaking all over. He was sitting still on a patio, not knowing what to do, and where to go. Murmurs of surprise arose. Some people shouted and clapped their hands, laughing loudly. Then the rabbit was running all over the place. A guy, dressed in a cook uniform, making an appearance from the cabin, appeared to look for the prey. He ran to the pitiful animal and picked it up and turned down stairs, with the onlookers on the deck looking away.
Horizons in almost every direction, especially the horizon in the west, drummed up clouds, threatening to pour in any minute. The sea winds were getting shorter and stronger. Boolim, getting seasick and advised by Bin, got down to the third class cabin, of which the floor was public. The moniker of "the third class" did not irk her at all. Amenities were mutual and even, which got her to think that the Japanese were fair and generous.
The cabin was full, of which the passengers were mostly laborers from the late Chosun kingdom volunteering to work in the Archipelago proper and a small number of the Chosun young men garbed in the university students' uniforms studying in the Imperial Japan. The students were partly from Tokyo Imperial and mostly from Waseda or something. They put on imperial airs, forming peer groups and talking with each other in loudly fluent Japanese. A while later, a group of students came over from the second class cabin and took the peers in the lowest class pathetically as if their presence were an insult to themselves.
Boolim thought that her sickness would calm down as she got downstairs to take a rest. Since an afflicting nuisance of nausea had not been a common occurrence in the past, she did not care a bit about it. But all of a sudden she found herself vulnerable; She had her stomach so messy she rushed to the bathroom and threw up and up what little food she had taken for the day. Bin showed up with looks of apprehension behind the toilet door. In minutes, Boolim had gone to the ship's infirmary, staying for the rest of her journey, tended by a doctor and two ship nurses.
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"We got here at long last," Bin said in a low voice. After eight more hours' interminable cruise, including some intermediate procrastinations for technical reasons or other, Ship Bukuanmaru docked at Shimonoseki Harbor. There was a little quiver in a ship body. Boolim heard like in a dream that they had reached the terminal port. (If it had been the present, the itinerary of the Busan-Shimonoseki ferry might have far more shortened.)
The terminal was bright like a sunny day. Bin was near at her side. She found her feet so weak and her head so dizzy that she was standing still for quite a while, stunned, not knowing what to do next. Bin asked worriedly whether she was all right. As if drugged or hit hard on the head, she felt herself in a daze. After a slow take she realized that she had been thrown into the wild, into the dark stillness of the imperial country proper, in which her husband had been "voluntarily" commandeered to dig the coal. Out of the nadir of despair, stateless and penniless. a ray of indescribable hope erupted onto her spine that her husband was waiting for her somewhere nearby.
Melodious and merry Japanese dialects were all around. There were no inactivities. Everyone was on the move. But no Mitsubishi people presented themselves. It was a welcome thing, though, that there were no people out there to try and take advantage of unwary and innocent new arrivals.
The midnight train from Shimonoseki to some place else was not crowded. It was cleaner, quieter, more comfortable, and less smelly. The atmosphere in the passenger compartment seemed tense just like both edges of swords. The passengers shared few conversations, if any, dozing off or pretending to sleep.
Even for the moment, her impression was that the native Nipponese (Japanese) didn't shake each other's hands. They didn't shake their legs, and they didn't shake their eyes, either. They didn't shake their heads. Their voices were full of confidence and optimism, casting off self-doubt or skepticism. Their footsteps were brisk and stable. Their gazes were fixed, not shivering. Their shoulders were firm. They didn't shrug their shoulders. They didn't shake their bodies; All the parts of their bodies were in place, in well-organized fashion. The reason might have been that their land had been shaking them all along the way, off and on.
Gloom was falling like drizzle in whatsisname fields. You might call it Fukuoka, Sasebo, or Nagasaki Plains or something, which was shrouded in the dark. Boolim looked out the window at the pitch-dark expanse, death-like stillness of which enveloped like a huge bed spread. Glimmers of light, which were seen in the faraway places presumed to be the people's villages, through the one- hundred deep wall of darkness, looked to beckon the nocturnal passengers to their place of peace and rest. The wayward imagination of a colonial country woman was running wild. She was wondering aloud whether the dear sons of the villagers were chasing the preys in uniform in rain forests in the Pacific, or being gunned down by the warring predators, or desecrating the captive women, or beheading the prisoners' heads.
6
The Boolims' Days at Sakitoma-chi, 1940~1945
There was no empire and no colony, either. There were only people there, greeting with handshakes and friendly talks. There were smiling human faces, melodious human voices and brisk human steps. The transmarine travel pair, who could have turned scandalous if their true relationship had been bared to the cruise passengers, arrived safely at last after one night and two days, with the travel shifts of foot to train to ship and lastly to train, in one late spring afternoon of 1940 at a Mitsubishi Mining Company at Sakitoma-chi, Nishisonoki-kun, Nagasaki-ken, Japan.
"Anatawa ri san deska?" (Are you Mrs. Lee?) a woman in her thirties in kimono dress asked Boolim, looking up and down at her as if to size her up. "Hai," Bin came forward and responded on behalf of her. He had already familiarized himself in the community because he had been made a clerk at a Mitsubishi mining town of Sakitoma-chi. Michiko-san led Boolim to her "house" in the miners' quarters.
"Mr. Park has gone to the coal pit," the woman said to Boolim at the threshold of her room, handing her a room key, with a female dependent of a miner's family acting as an interpreter. The room was small, with a low ceiling and two glass windows, one to the corridor and the other to the outside, or land side. Though unfurnished, it had room enough for two.
Left alone, with the door closed, she put the hand-held pack, which she had carried all the way from Danuishill to Nagasaki using both hands and shoulders, down on the room floor and unpacked it. She picked out tuck (rice cakes) first of all the wrappings and smelled them to see whether they were all right. To her expected disappointment, they were going bad but she minded dumping them right away. She then sorted out her husband's sweatshirts and underwears, which she had cleaned and starched, folded them and put them in the closet.
The room was neither hot nor cold. It was adequately warm, floored with tatami mats and warmed with air-tight windows. She took a slow glance around the room, with her eyes focused on a pants on a clothes hanger on the wall. She got to it, touched it and got her nose to it. Although cleaned, it sort of smelled of coal. She got it off the hanger and sat down with it, putting it on her knee. She closed her eyes and pictured her husband far down the pit, crawling on his legs.
Bin's wife Kwon called on Boolim and invited her to a lunch treat. But there were no familiar flavors scented of kimchi and toenjang (fermented soybean paste). There were no bowls of rice, either. Kwon instead got bowls of hato mugi, or pressed barley steamed with a small amount of beans to be set out on a small dining table along with lukewarm vegetable soup. There also were plates of steamed sweet potatoes. Kwon roasted the bad rice cakes which Boolim had handed her into the edible ones, which turned out a real treat.
The flamboyant words such as the allegiance to the High Emperor or the subjects' obligation did not pass their lips. The situation was that almost all the available resources human and material had been sent into the barracks at war. So, rice for the civilian use was in short supply. Other staples had been being rationed, of which pressed barley was one of them.
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Nocturnal lives posed a problem. They had not been "smart" from the start. But after a lot of trials and errors, they had adjusted themselves to "a smart mode." An old Oriental wisdom had it that the wife of a man should deserve the designation of a "smart" wife in so far as she did not "extract", or drain energy from her spouse. The very woman, who was destined or trained to deplete male stamina from amorous relationships with her counterpart, for the sake of satiating her own sexual impulses, should deserve the moniker of "a bad woman."
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Communal was the exact term which could categorize the life patterns of Sakitoma-chi coal miners. Three major modes of life at the coal mining town had been done communally: the distribution of food grains, laundry and bathing. Pressed barley and something were rationed; The washing of miners' work wear was done at communal laundry houses; And the miners and their dependents took baths at the town bath houses. The miners changed into their work clothes which had been cleaned and starched at communal laundry houses at men's locker rooms before going down the pits.
The scarcity of the farmland foods could be supplemented and made whole by foods from the waters. Boolim and her sister-in-law Kwon frequented the shallow beaches off Sakitoma Island to collect various sea foods including brown seaweeds, seaweed laver, abalones and all assortments of shellfish.
The sea was really generous in offering and asked for nothing in return. She did not discriminate against the women from a ruined country, nor deride them. The sea winds were aptly fresh and the sea water was crystal blue. Boolim had a guilt feeling from time to time about having the luxury of peace and tranquility as a subject of a ruined kingdom while her husband was crawling on his hands and knees in the dark pits in the imperial country proper.
Boolim's guilty feeling about the bizarre or reverse euphoria, which she had had while gathering shellfish and strolling on the insular beaches of the Japanese mining town, was juxtaposed with her husband Don's elation and the subsequent guilt feeling he had experienced during routine commutes to and from the office, commanding the fine view. He took one and half miles' walk everyday to the office from which he descended to the pits by cable car.
Whereas they had been privately ashamed of the unexpected joy of life, which Boolim had found out from the tranquil seascapes and which Don had done from idyllic commutes, a quiet inner protest had erupted, which had dared to justify the jubilation by a supposition that they would have otherwise been working the harsh fields at a rough village and sawing far into the night.
The excuses for the irony might have also stemmed from the history that the most recent ruined monarch and most of the monarchs before him had been incompetent and unsympathetic toward their subjects; That the elites of the ruling class had fought among themselves; That the lower officials had domineered over the common people, extorting them; And that the land owners had squeezed rents from the peasants.
It's not certain that the Mitsubishi Mining Company had aptly reimbursed for the labors of the miners. In fact, Boolim had not ever received envelopes of her husband Don's salaries because Don had gotten his paychecks mailed to his mother at home. The Don couple lived off rations and the hospitality of the neighborhood people.
The kindnesses of the Sakitoma-chi neighborhood seemed and sounded real; There had not occurred even once that the Boolim couple had suspected the towners might have been indoctrinated on the behavior modification toward the miners and their dependents from the colonial country. Their behaviors had been so sincere: Their attitudes and words had been so genuine.
The communal congeniality, or companionship had not come from wealth. A specific neighbor had not been rich enough to offer philanthropy, let alone throw a gorgeous town party. The folks of the small town had been prepared to share, or to divide among themselves, which had been the root of the communal camaraderie. There had been mutual concerns, considerations and worries about every gamut of human incidents ranging from kid ailments to births to scarcity of foods. Michiko-san, Saori-san, Hatori-san, Akiko-san, and somebody else had stopped by from time to time, popping their heads into the room to know whether everything was all right.
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Virtually every other hour did not get passed without getting noticed by his or her concerned neighbors. It was not into two years until Boolim ran into a shower of Japanese hospitalities. In the second year of Boolim's entry into the mining town, she had come to bear an offspring. Hardly had she entered labor when Saori-san stopped by to see what was going on in there. Seeing that Boolim started labor just alone, she jump startled at the pitiful scene. She intoned the impossibility of the condition. She turned into a town crier, rallied the neighborhood to help Boolim, called for a mid-wife, turning the town into a stampede.
The rescue party began to set in. Individual contributions were briskly "commandeered" to help ease off her labor; Blankets were collected to help warm the room floor; A portable fireplace was installed to heat the room; A middle-aged mid-wife got prepared for the emergency; The women of the neighborhood took every possible measure for after-birth treatment and nutritions. Whispers of surprise erupted when someone brought rice, though meager in quantity. Meat was rare like rice at the time: The sea fish would do.
Although her husband had gone to the pits and her sister-in-law Kwon had not been available because the Bins had been away from the island, the repeated assurances from the kind-hearted neighborhood sisters and mothers gave Boolim a sort of peace and consolation. Surges of pain were swept away in the melodious soothing words. As noon passed and neared two in the afternoon, Boolim got her first child and son born. There was a momentary hustle and bustle. "Musuko desne!" (It's a son!), the women in the room shouted in unison.
The rescue people went back to their places at dusk. Kwon returned to the town in the early evening and rushed to the scene in trouble, keeping vigilant all through the night. Don joined the scene late at night, excusing himself for the tardiness. He saw a cute little thing lying beside his wife and beamed a broad smile. “Meet your son," his wife said, still lying and smiling weakly. She did not say "our son." He did not get the reason that she said in such a mode of speaking.
"I am so sorry and thank you for the trouble," Don held her by the hand weak and wet with sweat, caressing her shoulders. "How do you like your son?" she asked, still lying and looking up with meek smiles. He threw a glance at his son but the little thing did not look him back, its eyes still closed. He did not know whether his son was sleeping or got his eyelids still shut.
Kwon got all prepared for the Boolim fare and told her brother-in-law to serve it every other hour as she went back to her house. "See to it that you keep the exact hour," she asked of him as she exited the door. She also wanted to know whether Don would be able to get a few days off from the company. He answered in the positive.
With their two and a newly-born son left alone, Boolim rattled off Aunts' extraordinary efforts. "Let's keep in mind we‘ve owed them a great debt!" they vowed to each other. Even to her own surprise, Boolim ate out every soup and grainy meal offered with a great gusto. "I eat too much, don't I?" she said ashamedly. "Yes, you became a big eater, of course, but don't be sorry for that. Rather, I thank you for that," Don said, grinning ear to ear at his wife's enormous consumption.
Don dozed in fits and starts. Tried to keep himself awake. And sat up with starts and rushed to prepare bowls of soup for her. She was sorry for his lack of sleep. The newly born had fits and starts, too. Then and there she started reaching for it to feed. It did not cry, in a true sense of the word. The little thing cried, of course, but gave little noise so much so that his parents did not get on nerves.
Her breast was really good. Her breast milk was always superfluous at a feeding. Her breast milk could feed her son to his full content and made a leftover. She pumped all that had been left and collected it on a big bowl and made his husband "eat" it. "Eat," she said. He hesitated at first, saying "How can I?" But she insisted, saying "It's very good for you, darling."
Months passed. Don didn't know what made him think so suddenly. He didn't know why anyway. If asked, he wouldn't know, either. He was tempted to have a conversation with his newly born nevertheless. A confession session, that is. So, using a comparatively long interval in which his wife had gone out to release, he briskly started having "heart-to-heart talks" with his fresh new son, baring his bosom.
The young confessoree, who would accept the session, appeared to be at ease. On the confessor's part, too, the initial shyness was replaced by chutzpah. He dared to raise his face, yet with lower voice. Look him straight in the eye.
Sure. He was sorry for the gloomy condition which his son would be put in anyway but he had to carry on a karma on which his parents had had to become his mom and dad. The people of a ruined country could not and didn't have to commit mass suicide.
There was a profound and calm stare which struck him as a sort of infantile insouciance. The confessoree appeared to be smiling albeit faintly. There was an inquisitive gaze, too. The little son seemed to be asking unfathomable questions. Seemed to say that the precious encounter of theirs couldn't have been a mere accident but an inevitable predestination.
He didn't have to be sorry. He didn't have any idea why his dad let himself down. He had had a long journey from a far-away land through whirlpool by whirlpool of what you don't know, cliffs and valleys. He appreciated the light his dad had enabled him to see. He didn't get distressed by what had happened. He would have to face the music. Thanks, Dad.
Mother
My mother is alive. Alive is not an apt word, not a very irreverent term, either. But the term sometimes has been effective in the discourse of the local people. When this writer had been a mere child (I am 68 years now) the country folks used to ask a young stranger or strangers they met in the local bazaar about the wellbeing of their parents, saying "Are your parents alive?" Such a question had also been thrown at young men who had been unusually rude to the elderlies who used to chide them as a result. The question took on a rising intonation at the end, of course. (Are your parents alive?)
My mother is an elderly woman of 94. She lives at a rustic village far down the south of South Korea. My filial brother Ilseo has been taking care of her since my father had passed away of stomach cancer at the age of 79 in the year 1993. My mother is relatively fine with her physique. She stands erect, not stooped. She hears relatively well. She is not helped with a hearing aid whereas her eldest son needs one. Shame on him. She answers phone calls from Seoul with coherent apprehension which is directed at her grandson who has not been married yet.
I am not designed to praise her but only to introduce her to my readers to steer this story along. I know such an attempt would be futile. I have been against such a snobbish trend of certain strata of people, who, when they have risen to the world, have gone to great lengths to make their dead parents and their ancestors loom large, beautifying and eulogizing by means of erecting tombstones and epitaphs with non-existent credentials and inflated appraisals etched on. Which would be a revelation of vainglorious lunacy.
My mother had gone to Japan in 1940 in the capacity of a Mitsubishi coal miner's dependent. Two brothers, her husband and his elder brother, had gone there earlier than her. The term, my mother, of course is a misnomer because I had been nowhere and had never been formed as a human being, so the term is a retroactive one. I think I would be excused for such nomenclature, however presumptuous it may be. I was born at a small coal mining town operated by Mitsubishi in the year 1942.
The following two chapters (Chapters 5 and 6) are about a composite episode of her exodus to the Imperial Japan and a new life in there from a ruined country of Chosun. This humble plot of short length is designed to help my dear readers with the information about this writer's pre-birth by materializing the major characters involved. In the episode, Boolim is my retroactive Mom and Don and Bin are her husband and brother-in-law. Let me be excused for this weird eccentricity one more time.
5
Mom Heads for Shimonoseki, 1940
Mouths of the clan's aunts and sisters at this small hamlet village of Danuishill got busy, who were milling gossips mostly at the village well under a huge elm tree. The roosters of the village crooned and the sky in the east dawned. The "aunts" of the village got to the village well and drew water from the never-drying spring. And the never-ending yarns, too.
The yarns were not coherent altogether. They couldn't be. Mrs. Punggsan, who was from Pungsan, Andong-gun, which was 50 kilometers away, usually talked about the wellbeing of her children (Chinchin had a fever last night!) Mrs. Munkyong whispered about her husband, giggling. Mrs Andong used to put her dreams on the mill board. She was wondering whether she had dreamt taemong, a dream indicating her pregnancy and omen about an unborn baby, or something. They then couldn't wait to offer gratuitous interpretations.
There were also moments when knowledge took precedence. A semblance of it, of course. They knew it from the grapevine, or from the wind. So some aunts had made endeavors to enlighten other ignorant hyongnims, that is, elder "sisters" tied in clan relationships, by claiming that there is a big country. far across the Pacific, called miguk, or a beautiful country, named the United States of America, which is "ten times" (several times multiplied) bigger and stronger than Japan, so that the miguk would intervene in the Pacific War and vanquish ilbon, or the Imperial Japan, sooner or later.
The notification at the wellside was also made of the marginal default or impoverishment when one aunt or the other's house was running out of the food grain. The aunts subsequently chipped in to fill in the empty ssaldok, that is, the urn of rice for emergency. More often than not episodes of over-the-fence camaraderie occurred in which a big bowl of steamed rice crossed over the other aunt's fence.
Good tidings arrived via sea mail to my Mom's and her clan's delight that the two advance departures, my Dad and my elder uncle, had been admitted to the miners' apartments at Sakitoma-chi, Nishisonoki-kun, Nagasaki-ken. In the letter my Dad was honored to have been recruited, through rigorous fitness tests, as one of the Industrial Warriors of the Emperor, and elated at the prospect that the esteemed company Mitsubishi had permitted the Chosun miners to have their dependents at the residence.
"Honored? The Industrial Warriors of the Emperor your asshole!" some of the listeners thought aloud as the most knowledgeable middle-school graduate in the village read the missive aloud. As if to detect the cerebration, some of the audience chimed in to defend my Dad, saying, "Mail censorship must be harsh!" The rest of the audience began to argue about the toils and hardships the brothers were doing now.
The great uncles and the great fathers or, the elderlies of the village were sitting on the hottest part of a spacious ondol room floor, one of whom coughed discomforts over the proceedings of the conversations. Great Uncle Hui coughed a solemn remark, saying, "Don't be sarcastic. Why make a mockery of Nippon and things Nipponese?" The eyes of the audience in the room were rivetted on "the Uncle of the West", which had been named after the location of the residence of the patriarch.
The monarch and the ruling class were responsible for the colonial nation. The ordinary people were not. The subjects of the humiliated country had to survive. Whatever hard elements they were in, they had to carry on. So they were not excused to idle away, merely lamenting the sorry state of the country.
She prayed...And prayed. She just prayed before the altar in the small hours before dawn. Taking a bath and offering a bowl of the fresh well water she had drawn at the earliest hour before all the others in the new day, Boolim prayed that her husband Don might keep safe and sound in the deep pits of a Japanese coal mine.
“The altar" was not particularly built. Any elated place, on which a doenjangdok, or a big jar containing soybean paste was placed, would do. No psalms, nor mantras, nor prayer books were available to her. She used to just kneel in the direction of the Big Dipper and prayed to the sky for her husband's good luck.
Prior to the nightly routine, she took a wash of her face and a bath, not a serious one, got her teeth brushed, and hair combed. Before she exited her room for the altar at the backyard, she faced the north wall and offered three deep bows, two for the fallen Chosun monarch and one for her husband.
Don had said in the letter his elder brother would send for Boolim (I need you here!), with Don's elder brother Bin coming back home to pick her up. He said she would have to keep her brother-in-law company all through the journey to Nippon. Boolim's mother-in-law grudgingly let go of her daughter-in-law. That left three out of a six-member family: Don's mother, his younger brother and youngest sister.
People and things were new to country woman Boolim of 23 with no issue, who had never gone out of Danuishill, her husband's local residence. Cars were rare; old classic General Motors trucks, which had been ignited by hand-held starters, were spotted one in a mile fashion. Long and huge hulks of trains were also new to her. The howling of locomotive trains was a happy surprise; Even the scent of smokes from burning coals was not a nuisance.
Boolim and Bin hit the road early in the morning. The distance from Danuishill to Euiseong-up railroad station was some 16 kilo meters. Bin's paces were so brisk Boolim had a hard time catching up gasping for air, so he stopped from time to time and waited for her to join him.
It was the day set for the local bazaar which had been scheduled to open in the interval of five days starting the second of the month like 2.7.12.17.22.27. The visitors to the bazaar lined the roads to Euiseong-up (the capital of Euiseong), carrying the farming produce on carts driven by cows. Or, carrying the merchandise on chigae, or the wooden A-frame. Or, taking the load up on top of the woman's head.
Boolim's feet were sore. She tripped on the way over a rock and almost fell, not limping, however. She was not a stout build nor a frail type. She was rather strong inside. Although she got left behind a few paces almost all the time, she did not turn out a burden to his brother-in-law.
Once in the precinct of the town capital on the day of the bazaar, they found it rather subdued. Gloom was in the air. The uniformed Nipponese policemen in twos were patrolling the street, carrying the bayonet rifle on the shoulder. They were on the prowl; They threw suspicious glances toward the crowd whenever it was formed and got near to them and whistled furiously, propping them to disperse.
Excitement heightened when the train blew ear-splitting horns as it pulled into the station. Boolim was so nervous she almost tripped as she stepped on the train. Bin was behind her, warning her to watch her steps. People with their loads high on their shoulders shoved their way onto the stairs.
Hardly had they gotten onto the landing to the compartment third class they found the crowd stampeding for passenger seats of the deck, which were up for grabs. The unlucky folks, finding no place to sit down, were milling about in the aisles. Bin managed to take a seat for his sister-in-law, who uttered thanks and regrets for him time and time again.
How could the shift of emotional cataclysm happen? And that just in an instant. All that the train and its whistle had evoked in Boolim was so sweet she might have painted the compartments and the passengers in them in fairy tale colors. But expectations turned into disappointment as time wore on. Nostalgic anticipations, which she had harbored whenever she had heard faraway whistles of trains when skies had been overcast with clouds and when the hamlet had been shrouded with fogs, turned into irritating boredom. Overwhelming stench of urine and odor emanating from unwashed men around got her sick.
A man in his seeming thirties across Boolim's seat showed curiosity about Boolim's destination, giggling and reeking of cheap liquor. Boolim was silent for a while, not knowing how to respond. Bin interrupted, saying it was none of "your goddamn business." The man, piqued by Bin's blunt remarks, spitted obscenities. Then Bin collared him by the neck and push pressed him to the back of the seat, staring at him sternly.
The man quieted down. Bin did not slap him or something. Fist fights did not erupt. In spite of a small stir of the place, the passengers around Boolim and her company were nodding off as if nothing had happened. Some passengers across the aisles were engaged in small talks. Some others ate steamed eggs or other edibles. The other passengers seemed to try to keep wits for the long and slow journey.
A staff of the station was hawking by with a cart rolling full of steamed eggs, peanuts, cookies and non-alcoholic beverages. Liquors and beers were not allowed on the train. Ilbon Gongahn, or Nipponese security officers, kept a tight rein on some lousy people on the booze.
Tunnels meant darkness. Hails of coal grain struck the faces of almost all the people in the train as the iron horse went through the subterranean passageways. The clickety clack of the mighty wheels rolling sounded "haebang! haebang!""(Emancipation! Emancipation!) to the muted riders. Horns shouted "Dohngnip! Dohngnipo!" (Independence! Independence!)
New arrivals took the seats which had been emptied by those who had disembarked the train. The conductor came and punctured the tickets. Security officers came and checked the travel passes of the Bin party. Finding that the couple were bound for a Mitsubishi Company in Nagasaki, Japan, they saluted, saying "Gokouuno inorimasu." (Good luck to your journey!)
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The seas didn't sit quiet. They rocked and rolled. They roared. The amazement she had had when Boolim first saw the great waters bordered on shock, which couldn't be compared to the excitement she had had when he took a first sight of the locomotive train. "What an irony that a misfortune of the nation has given me a welcome chance of a poet!" a minstrel had lamented.
Although she was not a poetess, her heart was full of emotions at the sight of the high seas, especially at the time of the ruined nation. Tears welled up in her eyes, with her throats choked with emotion. She imagined the seas in the know how to beat the hell out of the proud swordsmen. They would only await a proper time when they would be able to quake and tilt the bizarre hunk of land to the far brink of the perdition, she thought.
Her momentary thoughts were riotous, or seditious. All the sights and sounds were lively and encouraging, nevertheless. The sea waves striking the Busan-Shimonoseki ferry boat made a primordial hue and cry. Although the dialogues, which were being conducted by the Japanese themselves and between the people who were bound for the country, were not getting across to her, they sounded melodious. What a beautiful language, she thought aloud. She hated the very thought that the foreign language enlivened her. She shot a guilty glance at her brother-in-law who shot back in a nonchalant and mischievous way.
Before they knew, a panic took place where the passengers on the deck were doing the leisurely talks. A rabbit appeared from nowhere, startled and shaking all over. He was sitting still on a patio, not knowing what to do, and where to go. Murmurs of surprise arose. Some people shouted and clapped their hands, laughing loudly. Then the rabbit was running all over the place. A guy, dressed in a cook uniform, making an appearance from the cabin, appeared to look for the prey. He ran to the pitiful animal and picked it up and turned down stairs, with the onlookers on the deck looking away.
Horizons in almost every direction, especially the horizon in the west, drummed up clouds, threatening to pour in any minute. The sea winds were getting shorter and stronger. Boolim, getting seasick and advised by Bin, got down to the third class cabin, of which the floor was public. The moniker of "the third class" did not irk her at all. Amenities were mutual and even, which got her to think that the Japanese were fair and generous.
The cabin was full, of which the passengers were mostly laborers from the late Chosun kingdom volunteering to work in the Archipelago proper and a small number of the Chosun young men garbed in the university students' uniforms studying in the Imperial Japan. The students were partly from Tokyo Imperial and mostly from Waseda or something. They put on imperial airs, forming peer groups and talking with each other in loudly fluent Japanese. A while later, a group of students came over from the second class cabin and took the peers in the lowest class pathetically as if their presence were an insult to themselves.
Boolim thought that her sickness would calm down as she got downstairs to take a rest. Since an afflicting nuisance of nausea had not been a common occurrence in the past, she did not care a bit about it. But all of a sudden she found herself vulnerable; She had her stomach so messy she rushed to the bathroom and threw up and up what little food she had taken for the day. Bin showed up with looks of apprehension behind the toilet door. In minutes, Boolim had gone to the ship's infirmary, staying for the rest of her journey, tended by a doctor and two ship nurses.
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"We got here at long last," Bin said in a low voice. After eight more hours' interminable cruise, including some intermediate procrastinations for technical reasons or other, Ship Bukuanmaru docked at Shimonoseki Harbor. There was a little quiver in a ship body. Boolim heard like in a dream that they had reached the terminal port. (If it had been the present, the itinerary of the Busan-Shimonoseki ferry might have far more shortened.)
The terminal was bright like a sunny day. Bin was near at her side. She found her feet so weak and her head so dizzy that she was standing still for quite a while, stunned, not knowing what to do next. Bin asked worriedly whether she was all right. As if drugged or hit hard on the head, she felt herself in a daze. After a slow take she realized that she had been thrown into the wild, into the dark stillness of the imperial country proper, in which her husband had been "voluntarily" commandeered to dig the coal. Out of the nadir of despair, stateless and penniless. a ray of indescribable hope erupted onto her spine that her husband was waiting for her somewhere nearby.
Melodious and merry Japanese dialects were all around. There were no inactivities. Everyone was on the move. But no Mitsubishi people presented themselves. It was a welcome thing, though, that there were no people out there to try and take advantage of unwary and innocent new arrivals.
The midnight train from Shimonoseki to some place else was not crowded. It was cleaner, quieter, more comfortable, and less smelly. The atmosphere in the passenger compartment seemed tense just like both edges of swords. The passengers shared few conversations, if any, dozing off or pretending to sleep.
Even for the moment, her impression was that the native Nipponese (Japanese) didn't shake each other's hands. They didn't shake their legs, and they didn't shake their eyes, either. They didn't shake their heads. Their voices were full of confidence and optimism, casting off self-doubt or skepticism. Their footsteps were brisk and stable. Their gazes were fixed, not shivering. Their shoulders were firm. They didn't shrug their shoulders. They didn't shake their bodies; All the parts of their bodies were in place, in well-organized fashion. The reason might have been that their land had been shaking them all along the way, off and on.
Gloom was falling like drizzle in whatsisname fields. You might call it Fukuoka, Sasebo, or Nagasaki Plains or something, which was shrouded in the dark. Boolim looked out the window at the pitch-dark expanse, death-like stillness of which enveloped like a huge bed spread. Glimmers of light, which were seen in the faraway places presumed to be the people's villages, through the one- hundred deep wall of darkness, looked to beckon the nocturnal passengers to their place of peace and rest. The wayward imagination of a colonial country woman was running wild. She was wondering aloud whether the dear sons of the villagers were chasing the preys in uniform in rain forests in the Pacific, or being gunned down by the warring predators, or desecrating the captive women, or beheading the prisoners' heads.
6
The Boolims' Days at Sakitoma-chi, 1940~1945
There was no empire and no colony, either. There were only people there, greeting with handshakes and friendly talks. There were smiling human faces, melodious human voices and brisk human steps. The transmarine travel pair, who could have turned scandalous if their true relationship had been bared to the cruise passengers, arrived safely at last after one night and two days, with the travel shifts of foot to train to ship and lastly to train, in one late spring afternoon of 1940 at a Mitsubishi Mining Company at Sakitoma-chi, Nishisonoki-kun, Nagasaki-ken, Japan.
"Anatawa ri san deska?" (Are you Mrs. Lee?) a woman in her thirties in kimono dress asked Boolim, looking up and down at her as if to size her up. "Hai," Bin came forward and responded on behalf of her. He had already familiarized himself in the community because he had been made a clerk at a Mitsubishi mining town of Sakitoma-chi. Michiko-san led Boolim to her "house" in the miners' quarters.
"Mr. Park has gone to the coal pit," the woman said to Boolim at the threshold of her room, handing her a room key, with a female dependent of a miner's family acting as an interpreter. The room was small, with a low ceiling and two glass windows, one to the corridor and the other to the outside, or land side. Though unfurnished, it had room enough for two.
Left alone, with the door closed, she put the hand-held pack, which she had carried all the way from Danuishill to Nagasaki using both hands and shoulders, down on the room floor and unpacked it. She picked out tuck (rice cakes) first of all the wrappings and smelled them to see whether they were all right. To her expected disappointment, they were going bad but she minded dumping them right away. She then sorted out her husband's sweatshirts and underwears, which she had cleaned and starched, folded them and put them in the closet.
The room was neither hot nor cold. It was adequately warm, floored with tatami mats and warmed with air-tight windows. She took a slow glance around the room, with her eyes focused on a pants on a clothes hanger on the wall. She got to it, touched it and got her nose to it. Although cleaned, it sort of smelled of coal. She got it off the hanger and sat down with it, putting it on her knee. She closed her eyes and pictured her husband far down the pit, crawling on his legs.
Bin's wife Kwon called on Boolim and invited her to a lunch treat. But there were no familiar flavors scented of kimchi and toenjang (fermented soybean paste). There were no bowls of rice, either. Kwon instead got bowls of hato mugi, or pressed barley steamed with a small amount of beans to be set out on a small dining table along with lukewarm vegetable soup. There also were plates of steamed sweet potatoes. Kwon roasted the bad rice cakes which Boolim had handed her into the edible ones, which turned out a real treat.
The flamboyant words such as the allegiance to the High Emperor or the subjects' obligation did not pass their lips. The situation was that almost all the available resources human and material had been sent into the barracks at war. So, rice for the civilian use was in short supply. Other staples had been being rationed, of which pressed barley was one of them.
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Nocturnal lives posed a problem. They had not been "smart" from the start. But after a lot of trials and errors, they had adjusted themselves to "a smart mode." An old Oriental wisdom had it that the wife of a man should deserve the designation of a "smart" wife in so far as she did not "extract", or drain energy from her spouse. The very woman, who was destined or trained to deplete male stamina from amorous relationships with her counterpart, for the sake of satiating her own sexual impulses, should deserve the moniker of "a bad woman."
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Communal was the exact term which could categorize the life patterns of Sakitoma-chi coal miners. Three major modes of life at the coal mining town had been done communally: the distribution of food grains, laundry and bathing. Pressed barley and something were rationed; The washing of miners' work wear was done at communal laundry houses; And the miners and their dependents took baths at the town bath houses. The miners changed into their work clothes which had been cleaned and starched at communal laundry houses at men's locker rooms before going down the pits.
The scarcity of the farmland foods could be supplemented and made whole by foods from the waters. Boolim and her sister-in-law Kwon frequented the shallow beaches off Sakitoma Island to collect various sea foods including brown seaweeds, seaweed laver, abalones and all assortments of shellfish.
The sea was really generous in offering and asked for nothing in return. She did not discriminate against the women from a ruined country, nor deride them. The sea winds were aptly fresh and the sea water was crystal blue. Boolim had a guilt feeling from time to time about having the luxury of peace and tranquility as a subject of a ruined kingdom while her husband was crawling on his hands and knees in the dark pits in the imperial country proper.
Boolim's guilty feeling about the bizarre or reverse euphoria, which she had had while gathering shellfish and strolling on the insular beaches of the Japanese mining town, was juxtaposed with her husband Don's elation and the subsequent guilt feeling he had experienced during routine commutes to and from the office, commanding the fine view. He took one and half miles' walk everyday to the office from which he descended to the pits by cable car.
Whereas they had been privately ashamed of the unexpected joy of life, which Boolim had found out from the tranquil seascapes and which Don had done from idyllic commutes, a quiet inner protest had erupted, which had dared to justify the jubilation by a supposition that they would have otherwise been working the harsh fields at a rough village and sawing far into the night.
The excuses for the irony might have also stemmed from the history that the most recent ruined monarch and most of the monarchs before him had been incompetent and unsympathetic toward their subjects; That the elites of the ruling class had fought among themselves; That the lower officials had domineered over the common people, extorting them; And that the land owners had squeezed rents from the peasants.
It's not certain that the Mitsubishi Mining Company had aptly reimbursed for the labors of the miners. In fact, Boolim had not ever received envelopes of her husband Don's salaries because Don had gotten his paychecks mailed to his mother at home. The Don couple lived off rations and the hospitality of the neighborhood people.
The kindnesses of the Sakitoma-chi neighborhood seemed and sounded real; There had not occurred even once that the Boolim couple had suspected the towners might have been indoctrinated on the behavior modification toward the miners and their dependents from the colonial country. Their behaviors had been so sincere: Their attitudes and words had been so genuine.
The communal congeniality, or companionship had not come from wealth. A specific neighbor had not been rich enough to offer philanthropy, let alone throw a gorgeous town party. The folks of the small town had been prepared to share, or to divide among themselves, which had been the root of the communal camaraderie. There had been mutual concerns, considerations and worries about every gamut of human incidents ranging from kid ailments to births to scarcity of foods. Michiko-san, Saori-san, Hatori-san, Akiko-san, and somebody else had stopped by from time to time, popping their heads into the room to know whether everything was all right.
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Virtually every other hour did not get passed without getting noticed by his or her concerned neighbors. It was not into two years until Boolim ran into a shower of Japanese hospitalities. In the second year of Boolim's entry into the mining town, she had come to bear an offspring. Hardly had she entered labor when Saori-san stopped by to see what was going on in there. Seeing that Boolim started labor just alone, she jump startled at the pitiful scene. She intoned the impossibility of the condition. She turned into a town crier, rallied the neighborhood to help Boolim, called for a mid-wife, turning the town into a stampede.
The rescue party began to set in. Individual contributions were briskly "commandeered" to help ease off her labor; Blankets were collected to help warm the room floor; A portable fireplace was installed to heat the room; A middle-aged mid-wife got prepared for the emergency; The women of the neighborhood took every possible measure for after-birth treatment and nutritions. Whispers of surprise erupted when someone brought rice, though meager in quantity. Meat was rare like rice at the time: The sea fish would do.
Although her husband had gone to the pits and her sister-in-law Kwon had not been available because the Bins had been away from the island, the repeated assurances from the kind-hearted neighborhood sisters and mothers gave Boolim a sort of peace and consolation. Surges of pain were swept away in the melodious soothing words. As noon passed and neared two in the afternoon, Boolim got her first child and son born. There was a momentary hustle and bustle. "Musuko desne!" (It's a son!), the women in the room shouted in unison.
The rescue people went back to their places at dusk. Kwon returned to the town in the early evening and rushed to the scene in trouble, keeping vigilant all through the night. Don joined the scene late at night, excusing himself for the tardiness. He saw a cute little thing lying beside his wife and beamed a broad smile. “Meet your son," his wife said, still lying and smiling weakly. She did not say "our son." He did not get the reason that she said in such a mode of speaking.
"I am so sorry and thank you for the trouble," Don held her by the hand weak and wet with sweat, caressing her shoulders. "How do you like your son?" she asked, still lying and looking up with meek smiles. He threw a glance at his son but the little thing did not look him back, its eyes still closed. He did not know whether his son was sleeping or got his eyelids still shut.
Kwon got all prepared for the Boolim fare and told her brother-in-law to serve it every other hour as she went back to her house. "See to it that you keep the exact hour," she asked of him as she exited the door. She also wanted to know whether Don would be able to get a few days off from the company. He answered in the positive.
With their two and a newly-born son left alone, Boolim rattled off Aunts' extraordinary efforts. "Let's keep in mind we‘ve owed them a great debt!" they vowed to each other. Even to her own surprise, Boolim ate out every soup and grainy meal offered with a great gusto. "I eat too much, don't I?" she said ashamedly. "Yes, you became a big eater, of course, but don't be sorry for that. Rather, I thank you for that," Don said, grinning ear to ear at his wife's enormous consumption.
Don dozed in fits and starts. Tried to keep himself awake. And sat up with starts and rushed to prepare bowls of soup for her. She was sorry for his lack of sleep. The newly born had fits and starts, too. Then and there she started reaching for it to feed. It did not cry, in a true sense of the word. The little thing cried, of course, but gave little noise so much so that his parents did not get on nerves.
Her breast was really good. Her breast milk was always superfluous at a feeding. Her breast milk could feed her son to his full content and made a leftover. She pumped all that had been left and collected it on a big bowl and made his husband "eat" it. "Eat," she said. He hesitated at first, saying "How can I?" But she insisted, saying "It's very good for you, darling."
Months passed. Don didn't know what made him think so suddenly. He didn't know why anyway. If asked, he wouldn't know, either. He was tempted to have a conversation with his newly born nevertheless. A confession session, that is. So, using a comparatively long interval in which his wife had gone out to release, he briskly started having "heart-to-heart talks" with his fresh new son, baring his bosom.
The young confessoree, who would accept the session, appeared to be at ease. On the confessor's part, too, the initial shyness was replaced by chutzpah. He dared to raise his face, yet with lower voice. Look him straight in the eye.
Sure. He was sorry for the gloomy condition which his son would be put in anyway but he had to carry on a karma on which his parents had had to become his mom and dad. The people of a ruined country could not and didn't have to commit mass suicide.
There was a profound and calm stare which struck him as a sort of infantile insouciance. The confessoree appeared to be smiling albeit faintly. There was an inquisitive gaze, too. The little son seemed to be asking unfathomable questions. Seemed to say that the precious encounter of theirs couldn't have been a mere accident but an inevitable predestination.
He didn't have to be sorry. He didn't have any idea why his dad let himself down. He had had a long journey from a far-away land through whirlpool by whirlpool of what you don't know, cliffs and valleys. He appreciated the light his dad had enabled him to see. He didn't get distressed by what had happened. He would have to face the music. Thanks, Dad.
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