I once saw a little boy boast of his talents in a loud voice as he grabbed the clothes of passersby. He insisted he could put needles through his ears, and some people stopped in their tracks to look at him. He produced two rusty, long needles and slid one through each ear, though his face didn’t show any pain. When a young woman took a closer look, she cried out, “My God, look at them—his ears are covered with holes and scabs.” All at once, the spectators pushed forward to look at his ears, then in consternation they left without giving him any money. Some women gave him bread or rice, out of compassion. The food seemed to satisfy him.
Walking through a street market to the hotel early one morning, I saw a small kkot-jebi being dragged away by two policemen. He twisted with all his plight to get out of their hands, wailing, “Sir, I’m not kkot-jebi! I have parents waiting for me at home. I need to go back!”
The policeman holding his two legs under his arm snarled, “Cut it out, you stinky brat, I’ve been watching you for days.” The other held the boy’s neck at his waist, pressing it hard, until the boy’s face turned red and he stopped resisting. His body looked like a small tree, carried between two men. No one in the market paid the slightest attention.
A familiar voice, shouting at the top of her lungs, caught my attention. She cried out at the people passing her food stall, “Three rolls for ten won! You can’t find them cheaper!” A stain spread over the front of her grimy whitish shirt, attracting my gaze. She had been one of my teachers at the orphanage. She was nice to everyone; sometimes I even slept in her room. She had taught sex education to the girls when we gathered in her room—things we couldn’t learn from other teachers. In those days, she was pretty, passionate, and determined to bridge the distance between teacher and student.
The year I left the orphanage, she moved to a small school outside Pyongyang. The other girls and I wrote a farewell letter and shed tears because we knew we’d never see her again. I couldn’t have imagined I’d run into her in a street market; she had aged so much in just a few years.
“Excuse me, Teacher Oh?” Pushing through the passersby, I approached her and sized up her brown, oval face; I was sure who it was when I saw the small mole under her lip. Teacher Oh fell silent; I thought perhaps she hadn’t recognized me.
“Do you remember me, Teacher Oh?” I asked, getting closer to let her see my face.
She smiled. “How can I forget you? Little dancing girl…”
She grabbed my wrists and held them lightly, as she used to do whenever she asked me to dance and sing in front of my classmates. I reminded her of “Blood Sea,” the women’s emancipation song: how I would sing it in front of the class, while she sang with me from the back of the classroom with flushed cheeks.
On that day, she closed her tiny stand for several hours.
Like almost everyone, Teacher Oh had two jobs. In the morning, she taught students at a small school, where half of the students didn’t come regularly. In the afternoon, she came to the market to sell bread. She didn’t have time to bake it herself, so she bought it from old ladies who baked in their houses but couldn’t compete with the loud voices of other vendors. She didn’t make much money at the market, but it was better than just staying in the house and not even trying to escape her poverty.
Holding my hands, she smiled bitterly and said, “I had no idea that selling things to other people could be so hard. But what else can I do! I already sold all my beloved books.”
She had been an ideal teacher. She was honest and didn’t abuse her authority like other teachers. She had taught Kim Il Sung’s books passionately, and we had studied together as friends would.
“You know, Jia, life can change in a flash, or lead you in an unexpected direction. Nothing is as precious as life. Trust me, I have seen death with my own eyes…” Her eyes looked much older because of the deep wrinkles that ran from their edges.
She continued, “My husband and daughter died on the same day. How could I have imagined such a hell? My youngest daughter always clung to my skirt, complaining about how noisy her stomach was, and one day, after she came back from the school, she seemed to have no energy left. But, you know, people are all like that now, so I didn’t care. I was sick of hearing her complain—it only made me hungrier. I was tired of telling her that our Dear Leader would soon solve all the problems. The longer the situation continued, the more restless I became. When I saw my neighbors heading to the markets and not to their usual jobs, I knew I should do something too. But I couldn’t leave the country and become a capitalist merchant: my life, devoted to the Party and its ideology, would have lost all meaning. I ignored my husband’s suggestion to start selling our goods. I mocked him and told him his brain was being rotted by hunger.”
Just then, two kkot-jebi ran past us, like bullets shot out of a gun. Behind them, a young woman, who looked much younger than me, shouted, “Damn you! I’ll kill you next time I see you.”
Teacher Oh stopped speaking. Her eyes followed the kkot-jebi, who held new shoes in their hands and disappeared around a corner. She heaved a deep and long sigh.
“When my daughter came back from school, she was quiet and spoke in a low voice. ‘Mom, I’m sleepy,’ she said. ‘I slept all day in class. I didn’t know until the teacher woke me up that class already finished. On the way home, I walked half asleep. I almost sank down on the ground, and Fin still sleepy.’ Then she fell asleep in a corner of the room, and died. My husband and I realized it only after several hours. He went crazy. He cried out, “How can be this possible? My daughter just died in front of me. What a bad father I am! We killed our own daughter.” Then he fell down and died on the spot. In just one day, I had to send both my daughter and husband to the other world. I didn’t cry. I didn’t have time. I had to take care of two other kids. I decided not to be stuck in the house anymore. That’s why I came here and why I’m shouting to sell one more piece of bread every day.”
We looked at the other vendors, yelling at the top of their voices next to us.
“I would sell clothes or shoes like them if I were handy, but I can’t make them.” Teacher Oh sighed. “What’s worse, I’m not smart like the other women here, who hang around the brokers. They get goods at low prices from those brokers.”
While she spoke, she kept urging me to eat her bread.
“I’m not attractive anymore, I don’t have a smooth tongue. I know how to handle kids, not adults.”
When I was about to leave, she stuffed three pieces of bread in my pocket.
“But, I’m the luckiest and happiest woman in this place. My ex-students help me. Sometimes, they bring clothes from China and give them to me for very little. I never thought I would be obliged to my little students like this.”
Saying good bye, she gave me a wide smile. “Jia, my life hasn’t been so bad! After you leave, I will smile and think about those days. How cute you were! What a terrible teacher I was!”
I bought most of her bread, claiming that I was about to buy lunch for my coworkers in the market. On that day, my coworkers had to fill their stomachs with Teacher Oh’s bread.