“Wait here for a moment,” Sangwon said. “I’ll buy a ticket, just give me the money.” I looked at him for a second. He was just a kkot-jebi, looking for food and stealing from others, but for some reason, I was sure he would come back.
He took my money and was sucked into the crowd. A few minutes passed. Did I even give him my travel permit? I checked my pocket, growing anxious. I stood on tiptoe and scanned the crowd—it was impossible to see him.
I was about to move away to look for him when I felt a tap on my back. I wheeled around to find Sangwon’s beaming face. “I got it!” he cried, holding up the ticket.
I was ashamed to have doubted him. Looking him up and down, I asked, “Are you okay? Didn’t you get hurt?”
“Sometimes a kid has an advantage,” he said, handing me the ticket and the rest of the money. “I even gave them less than the fare. They didn’t notice—they’re just trying to get rid of as many people as possible.”
While we walked to the platform, Sangwon warned me, “Even though you have a ticket, some crazy people will try to take your seat, so never leave it. Go to the restroom before getting on the train.”
The train didn’t come for four days, and in all that time we never left the platform. People complained that the trains never ran on schedule; the railway employees said fuel had run out. No one knew when the train might arrive. “Pretty soon,” the train employees said, but they didn’t know. Some people left to sleep in nearby inns. Women, young and old, walked around shouting, “Clean, warm house while you wait.” I wouldn’t go; I was afraid of missing the train. I bought food with the rest of my money, and we tried to eat as little as possible. Sangwon had a fever from the infection in his feet and was limping harder.
When the train finally arrived, it was as if war broke out. The distant whistle sounded and people jumped up and grabbed their bags, screaming and shouting; suddenly the whole place was alive with noise. The railroad police made us stand in one line, and a policeman made an announcement about civic morality. People who didn’t follow the rules would be punished severely. Nobody listened.
As the policeman was finishing his announcement, a dozen men rushed the platform and scaled the gate. Hundreds of people pushed madly after them, and the railroad police were overwhelmed. Some thieves made the most of the opportunity, cutting the bottom of one unsuspecting man’s bag with a knife and catching the corn that ran out in their own bag. A flock of kkot-jebi rushed to get their share. Finally the man realized what was going on and bawled, “Damn these hoodlums,” kicking the kkot-jebi. They didn’t budge until they had collected all the corn.
Railroad inspectors tried to check each passenger’s ticket and travel permit, but it was useless. They beat anyone they found without proper documents, but the crowd pushed past them. They shouted, “You can’t get on the train without a ticket and a card. We’ll inspect you sons of bitches again on the train!”
People dashed for it anyway, some dropping off the train like falling leaves. Those who didn’t have tickets or permits climbed up on the roof. The inspectors didn’t care about them, saying they would all die of cold or electric shock.
Sangwon and I rushed to find a seat. Finding one, he said, “Sit here and don’t move. Put your bag next to you. If people swear at you about having your backpack like that, don’t listen. And don’t be scared. If they scream, you yell at them too. Okay? I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed at his coat. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t have a travel permit. I’ll be back after the ticket inspectors pass this compartment.”
I looked at him anxiously, but he winked and said, “Don’t worry about me. I’m a professional. Be careful, some people seize this chance and steal other people’s things. Don’t take your eyes off the bag.”
Sangwon slipped through the crowd and disappeared. His tiny body could fit anywhere.
The train gave several long whistles and the employees shouted, “The train is leaving.” Those stuck on the platform tried to climb in through broken windows. The train started moving, and when I looked through the window, I saw a man running alongside. He threw his bag inside first and put his hand on the windowsill. His face distorted with pain for an instant from the shards of glass in the sill, but he didn’t give up. When half his body was through the window, a railroad policeman outside harshly grabbed him from behind and yanked him down. I stuck my face out of the window to see if he was okay, and he looked at me and shouted, “My bag! My bag! Throw it back to me.”
When I turned to find his bag, it wasn’t his bag anymore. Passengers in the train were fighting over it. A big soldier stood up and pushed away the others. He seized the bag with a threatening look.
Nobody resisted as the soldier took the bag to his seat and opened it. It was filled with bundles of clothes. I saw some tattered gray pants tangled up with yellowish underwear.
The soldier angrily sifted through the bundles. “What are these stinky things?” Then, opening a bundle, he found machine parts. The soldier’s companions grabbed the bag and began rummaging through the clothes. Several more machine parts came out. Then a rice ball, some fried tofu, and bean sprouts—the owner’s lunch.
The soldier said, “They are still hot. Let’s take care of these for him.” Looking around intimidatingly, he and his companions ate the food on the spot.
I was worried about Sangwon. The inspectors were harsh to people who didn’t have tickets, and I doubted his age would make much difference.
Finally, a good while after the ticket inspectors had passed by, Sangwon reappeared, and we shared the seat. He fit in the space where my bag was, so I held my bag to my chest.
“Where did you hide?”
His hands were black with dust. He crowed, “Those people who work here aren’t thorough enough to search between compartments. They don’t care about kkot-jebi anyway—we don’t have anything for them. If we don’t make trouble, they ignore us.”
As we rode, Sangwon spoke about how he had lost his family. It’s a common story in North Korea, and the reasons are always death by starvation or punishment by the government. He was an absolute orphan, but he smiled and said, “It’s better this way; I don’t have any pressure to take care of my family. Many kkot-jebi have to beg for food for their parents or grandparents.”
As an only son, Sangwon was adored by his hardworking parents. Both worked in a fertilizer factory in Hungnam, north of Kowon, and Sangwon remembered the chimneys shooting fat plumes of gray smoke up into the sky. The floods of 1995 and 1996 hit his hometown hard, and the polluted water brought disease and death. All the factories closed, and starving people started pillaging them for machine parts to sell on the black market or in China. Sangwon’s parents were no exception. When they left him at home to travel to the border to sell some parts, their bus tumbled into a bloated waterway and was swallowed up. Sangwon heard the news of their deaths, but their bodies were never found.
Sangwon found himself alone in his house, with no idea what to do. For the first time he could play outside with abandon; nobody controlled him, and he didn’t have to hear his mother’s nagging. It was starvation, however, that came to control him. Soon he stopped going out. A neighbor said the government would take care of him, so he waited for them. When the government finally did pay Sangwon a visit, they said they would take his house, that it belonged to them. The only place he could go was the orphanage or a camp for children in similar situations.
The day before he was to depart for the orphanage, Sangwon heard there would be a public execution. A family was accused of eating human flesh. The family had been hungry for a long time, and they decided to sell their house and use the money to buy pork for soup. They went to a butcher’s shop, bought the pork, made the soup, and ate well. Shortly thereafter, the police stormed into their house and arrested the entire family. The butcher had been selling human flesh, and they were all charged with murder, along with the butcher.