Sadder by far to lose his mother at eleven
than at five.
At five, he wouldn’t have known the sorrow.
He grew up on sorrow,
here, on the earth.
Paternal aunt’s skirt,
maternal aunt’s skirt,
maternal uncle’s wife’s skirt,
as he grew, he learned that none of those
was as good as his mother’s.
In lieu of fertile earth,
he put down roots in rock,
so his life was tough.
The leaves that would dance when it rained
withered.
When he was three,
his father had died.
After that the years were all uneasy.
In January 1951 when he was eleven,
his mother was dragged off to Baksan Valley
and died with the other villagers.
She died without learning why she must die.
The noun ‘red’ –
a traitor who secretly collaborated with communist guerrillas –
that was all.
A few shards of human bone
no one could tell apart,
whether they were his mother’s –
who could never tell A from B –
or someone else’s
emerged from the ground.
Twenty-year-old Im Chae-hwa’s eyes grew moist.
This world was all wrong.
Township Head Park Yeong-bo
The official name of the Geochang Massacre of the Innocents
was the CheongYa Operation.
Some six hundred people were brought
into the classrooms of Sinwon primary school.
One officer asked if any were families of military policeman.
A few families came forward.
It was true.
A few more families came forward.
This was not true.
They claimed they were MP families
in order to survive.
Then township head Park Yeong-bo stepped forward,
brazen faced,
with a large birthmark on his face.
He dragged one man out:
‘You’re from no MP family.’
Then he dragged another one out:
‘How can you be from a policeman’s family?’
The six hundred or more townsfolk were bound and taken away.
Gunfire ran out in a gully
beneath a steep hillside.
Then
all was quiet.
Ten years later came the April Revolution.
On the day a cenotaph was to be erected
the families of the victims
went en masse to Park Yeong-bo’s house.
They dragged him a couple of miles
and made him stand before the graves.
He ran away.
People hurled stones furiously.
He fell as he fled.
One year later came the military coup of May 1961.
People were arrested
for the murder of Park Yeong-bo.
The CheongYa Operation is still on. It’s lasted a long time.
A Baby in the 4 January Retreat
On 31 December 1951
President Syngman Rhee reluctantly ordered the citizens of Seoul to evacuate.
The Chinese human wave strategy
was once again threatening Seoul.
General Ridgeway, commanding the American forces,
ordered his men to retreat to the south of the Han River.
On 3 January 1951 –
not much of a new year –
the government hurriedly left.
Three hundred thousand Seoul citizens
had to cross the frozen Han River
to head farther
and farther south.
In Waryong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul,
one newborn,
the youngest child of the owner of the Seonil Printing Company,
a baby not yet entered in the family register
so still nameless,
was just called,
Dear,
My dear,
My weevil, little rice weevil.
It crossed the Han River ice
on its mother’s back
So it began life.
They were lucky. At Suwon they got a ride on a freight train.
A Grandmother
Su-dong’s grandmother
who lived below Jinnamgwan Hall in Yeosu, South Jeolla province,
knew exactly how many roundworms
her little grandson Su-dong had in his stomach.
When I’m with my grandson
I can see the camellias on Odong Island;
more than that, I can even see
the camellias on Geomun Island over the sea.
Yeong-u, a refugee child,
was extremely envious of Su-dong.
Ah, if only I had such a clairvoyant grandmother!
The siren of the boat heading for Tong-yeong came echoing.
Or maybe it was the boat from Tong-yeong?
Age of Spies
If you did not provide a traveller with a place to sleep,
your family was disgraced.
If you offered cold food
to a traveller,
several generations of your family were disgraced.
Even sixty years ago,
even fifty years ago,
even in days when the nation was stolen from us,
even in wartime,
traces of that old hospitality remained.
Whenever you set off
carrying only a staff and a change of clothes,
each village you passed through
took warm-hearted care of you,
your food and lodging.
If you stayed somewhere for three days, then fell sick,
they’d even provide you with medicine.
Long ago, when Hamel and his companions,
Dutch survivors of shipwreck,
were being escorted from Jeju Island to Seoul
by way of Jeolla Province,
they received a warmer welcome
than they had ever received
in any Christian country in the world.
It was the hospitality given
when humans meet other human beings.
They were moved to say: on our weary journey
the generous hearts of Joseon’s people
are incomparable with those of other lands
Some centuries later,
after the war,
that hospitality vanished.
Not only were visitors treated coldly;
people began to report them to the police.
A suspicious person is a spy.
A traveller is a spy.
Anyone loitering at the seaside early in the morning,
anyone who laughs for no reason
at the sight of someone, anyone, all are spies.
Report them.
Report them and earn a reward that will change your luck.
In this country today we have no more wandering travellers.
Two Kilos of Pork
In 1926, Korea’s Provisional Government
was being pursued all the time,
starving
as it fled along the shores of the Yangtze River.
Kim Gu, the acting premier,
had abolished things like birthdays long ago.
He was stern with himself:
How can people fighting to regain their nation
celebrate a birthday?
However, Na Seok-ju found out when Kim Gu’s birthday was,
pawned his clothes
and bought two kilos of pork.
Everyone cheered up.
With that meat, they were spared for once
their usual poor breakfast.