Who Ate Up All the Shinga?

by Yu Young-nan

  From then on, I was unable to hold my head high in front of her and wound up doing everything she told me to do. Milder indignities included tying a cord to a pole and making me hold one end of it for her so she could play rope-skipping games by herself without letting me have a turn. Worse, she’d doff her shoe at random moments, throw it, and order me to bring it back. I had no choice but to go and fetch it. A rumor began to circulate among the kids that I was her servant. I’m still not sure whether she lorded it over me because she thought my lie about our address was a fatal error or because my guilty conscience made me a cinch to push around. Which came first here, the chicken or the egg?

  Hierarchies among children are hard to change once they’re established. School became hell for me. At home I was bored and restless, unable to sit still. The kids in my neighborhood naturally mixed with their own school friends and looked askance at me, the arrogant hick who climbed over the hill to go to school inside the city gates.

  The path through our neighborhood traveled up toward a steep hill. If you kept following in that direction, instead of branching off along the ridge toward Maedong Elementary School, you’d reach an outcrop called Fairy Rock. By this point, all the houses had petered out. A shaman shrine lay on the right as you continued onward up a valley that had no stream, and across from the shrine soared a monolith, rising at a short distance from the cliff behind it. Everyone who gazed on it believed that it was sacred. It was called Brother’s Rock and looked like two people standing shoulder to shoulder.

  An endless procession of people prayed before this massive stone. Prior to major ceremonies inside the shrine, shamans would go there to make preparatory offerings, complete with loud ritual cries and offerings of food tossed to the rock. Pieces of rice cake always lay strewn about the ground.

  Whenever the exquisite traditional music from the shaman rites reached my ears from up the valley, I’d dash to the shrine to join in, swaying my behind in time to the rhythm. I don’t remember exactly when I got into the habit of attending these rituals, but it became a hobby of sorts, a respite from my boredom.

  Shamans were hardly a novelty for me, since they’d been part of my life in the countryside. Not far from Pakchŏk Hamlet lay Mount Tŏngmul, a celebrated shaman site. It had a shrine to the great fourteenth-century general Ch’oe Yŏng. Every three years, a major ritual was performed there, and shamans flocked to it from all over the country. The mountain’s many shaman dwellings also meant that wealthy Kaesŏng residents were constantly hosting all types of ceremonies, large and small. The rich would fawn over General Ch’oe Yŏng at his shrine in grand rituals, praying for his help in making money, even though during his lifetime he had taught that gold should be considered the same as any old stone. Rumors of a big ceremony had a magical ability to set people buzzing, whether it had anything to do with them or not.

  The shamans also did a brisk trade catering to the many families whose menfolk were traveling merchants and thus had a regular need for fortune-telling. It was taken for granted, even in the countryside, that people would have their fortunes told within a fortnight of New Year’s. Although there were no fixed district divisions, typically a single shaman cared for several particular villages. There was no shaman living in Pakchŏk Hamlet, so we had to go elsewhere.

  If you came across a throng of white-clad women with sacks on their heads, you knew that an expedition to the shaman was in the offing. The villagers would first pour two or three bushels of rice into a sack as payment and then travel en masse to hear their fortunes for the coming year. In our family, Grandmother took responsibility for learning what lay in store for us, and I tagged along.

  Women filled the shaman’s two rooms. There wasn’t a lot of variation in her predictions, though, for no matter how rich an imagination she might have, the simplicity of her clients’ lives imposed limits on what she could come up with. Grandmother would inquire about everyone in our family, adding my name as a seeming afterthought. The shaman then gave generic advice applicable to any child: “Don’t go near the water in midsummer.” “Be careful with fire in winter.”

  The grownups didn’t take their fortunes very seriously unless dramatic events were occurring in their lives. Their pleasure came from chatting with those whom they hadn’t seen for a while. The shaman’s was a place to relieve stress and exchange information—sometimes, for example, they talked about prospective marriages. No woman ever left just because she’d already received her fortune.

  It goes without saying that rice cake soup was served after the New Year fortune-telling was over. The shaman household didn’t do any farming. Since the rice she received from her guests made up the bulk of her family’s provisions for the year, this gesture of gratitude was understandable. In other words, the shaman’s home was a site of exchange as well. The tiny balls of rice cake were especially delicious. I followed my grandmother just to be able to eat them.

  Mother didn’t discourage me from tagging along with Grandmother, but she was very cynical about shamans and their predictions and didn’t seem to pay any attention to what Grandmother relayed about our fortune for the year. Her resentment had deep roots. Not a moment should have been lost in treating my father, but Grandmother put her trust in the shaman and tried to cure him with an exorcism. The common proverb “A novice shaman is a killer” means that pretending to know what you’re doing can lead to disaster. You could feel a real barb when Mother used the saying.

  But I was not my mother. I felt not just an affinity with shamans but awe toward them. I went to Mount Tŏngmul just once, again in Grandmother’s tow. It must have been the grand festival held only every few years, because we traveled along with a horde of fellow villagers. The excitement and amusement of a major ritual usually lasted for several days, but what left an indelible impression on me was the extraordinary, baffling General’s Rite, a ceremony held to appease the wronged spirit of Ch’oe Yŏng, whose life had been cut short.

  A rough mat was spread and a pail brimming with water placed on it. Then a wooden lid was placed over the pail, followed by a sack of rice, and two gleaming, whetted straw cutters were set side by side. I don’t remember what time of day it was, but in my mind’s eye, at least, the blades glint grotesquely in dazzling torchlight.

  Next, a shaman, attired in a general’s uniform complete with bamboo hat, took off her padded cotton socks, revealing toes contorted from binding. The soles of her feet were dainty and white, and glided over the parallel blades of the straw cutters nimbly, like butterflies. The music beat faster. Faster and faster, faster and faster it went until it climaxed in a sudden silence. The shaman vanished into thin air, leaving only two white butterflies behind. What I witnessed was not a shaman’s rite, but the sole mystical experience of my life. Just that once, I glimpsed a divine realm that can’t be explained rationally.

  The rituals on Mount Inwang were child’s play in comparison. Some shamans may have brandished swords, but none of them walked on blades. Still, I always adored watching a rite. I especially loved the spectacle of the shaman leaping up and down, wearing those enormous, pointy-toed socks and with the tails of her long blue coat flapping. I would gaze on it all, bursting with tension.

  The shaman would hold out a colorful rolled flag to her audience, and when someone took it, she’d relay a dead ancestor’s words. I didn’t know exactly what she was saying, but I always suspected that she was making up stories. I felt pity for grownups who rejoiced or fell into despair over her off-the-cuff remarks. In this, I took after Mother without even realizing it.

  After a large rite, rice cakes and rainbow-hued candies were distributed to the spectators, adults and children alike. Actually, if I hadn’t expected this payoff, I might not have felt such a thrill in watching a ceremony. At that age, I wanted to eat all the time. I never had to skip a meal because we didn’t have enough food, but I can’t even begin to describe the tedium of those long summer afternoons with nothing to snack on.

  These little windfalls,
however, were precisely what led to a ban on my going to watch the rituals. My summer uniform consisted of a short-sleeved white blouse and a blue skirt with a bodice. One day, streaks on my skirt from the brightly colored candies gave away what I’d been up to.

  Mother berated me, just as she had when I’d gone sliding in front of the prison. Out she trotted her usual lament: “When will we ever escape this damn neighborhood?” I bet she wanted to up and move, head held high, just as tradition claims that Mencius’s mother did for her son’s education. Unfortunately, we weren’t living in Mencius’s day. Mother had no money, and I was cleverer than sage Mencius. I pleaded with her, saying that I’d never do it again. And then I quickly figured out another way to amuse myself.

  With the weather getting warmer as summer approached, Mother’s stitching orders changed to thin silk and cotton blouses. A sewing machine became essential. But because we didn’t have the money to buy one, Mother chose to incur the debt of our relatives in Sajik-dong once more. After seeing Brother and me off to school, she’d go there to sew all day long, relying on their generosity for lunch as well, and then hurry home to prepare dinner. This pattern continued for a long while.

  My first-grade lessons finished, alas, all too early. Before the clock struck twelve, school was over. Loneliness and bitter frustration would seize me when I returned home to find nothing but a lunch bowl the size of a fist waiting for me in the corner of our gloomy rented room. My bowl had been brought from the countryside, and its subtle gleam of deep bronze clashed with the poverty of our abode.

  Mother was a real pro at sowing conflict. She had brain-washed me into believing that I came from a family with a real pedigree, and so the children of our landlord and the other neighbors weren’t to my taste. I’m sure they found me just as unappealing because I went to school elsewhere and turned up my nose at theirs. Days were long, and I had no place, inside the house or out, where I felt at home.

  I can’t vouch for what other kids would have done in my situation, but to entertain myself I rummaged through Mother’s and Brother’s belongings. Stashed in that gaudy chest between layers of Mother’s socks, I discovered a wallet, or, more accurately, a coin purse. Grandfather’s pouch had been made of oiled paper, but Mother’s purse had been fashioned out of fabric.

  When Mother sent me to fetch bean sprouts or scallions, she’d take out a one-chon coin or maybe a five. In other words, it wasn’t sheer boredom that made me search through her things. I had a goal in mind. Usually she let her purse lie anywhere, but when she was going to be away all day she stuffed it in the chest. After I returned from my errands, change in hand, she’d tell me just to put it in the purse without checking too carefully to see if I’d brought back the right amount. When she had to pay a large bill, like our monthly tuition fees or our rent, she counted every note, down to the smallest crumpled denomination, and sighed, “It’s like a thief has been at my money.” I knew she wasn’t really suspicious. The expression simply reflected her frustration at being chronically short of money, despite scrimping and saving.

  I took out a copper one-chon coin. Knowing how lax Mother was about small change, I didn’t worry about being caught or think I was doing anything terribly wrong. Farther up from where we lived was a family that ran a small shop. Unlike the grocery store at the foot of the hill, where I often went to run errands for Mother, they targeted children’s snot-streaked money and specialized in cheap snacks that cost up to five chon. I headed over to them right away, having always longed to buy something there.

  A single chon bought me five toffees. Mind you, I hadn’t had to forgo satisfying my sweet tooth in the countryside. We’d make taffy in the winter that would last for several months. On special occasions, we’d also take down the molasses and honey that was stored in the loft, so I actually had more rotting, blackened teeth than the kids in Seoul. Still, the cookies and candies Grandfather brought back from Songdo were always a real delicacy. They had a more refined sweetness than our homemade taffy and didn’t leave your stomach feeling heavy and bloated. I was always left wanting more.

  My first taste of something sweet in months sent me into rapture. The five candies turned a boring afternoon when I wouldn’t know what to do with myself into luscious, thrilling hours. Mother didn’t realize that one chon was going missing daily. Once every several days, I took a five-chon coin, the kind with a hole in the middle. Five chon opened the door to a much wider range of taste sensations.

  Around this time, I think, we had a guest one day when Mother was at home. When the heat set in, ice-pop vendors would pass through even our steep neighborhood. The visitor apologized for not bringing anything, but when she heard the shouts of an ice-pop vendor, she handed me a five-chon coin and told me to go and get some.

  “A whole five chon’s worth?” Mother asked.

  “We can both have one, too,” the visitor said, wiping away her sweat.

  Thinking I’d have a hard time handling five ice pops, Mother gave me a pot to carry them in. But by the time I rushed out, pot in hand, the vendor was nowhere to be seen. I thought I could still make out his cry, but I wasn’t sure from where.

  I wasn’t about to let this golden opportunity slip, though. Clutching the pot, I bolted down to the streetcar terminus, where I knew there was a good-size ice-pop stand. I asked for five chon’s worth, and they even gave me an extra. But the return home was not easy. I huffed and puffed my way up those damn steps under a relentless sun. When I finally arrived, panting, about all that remained in the pot were ice-pop sticks and some reddish-brown water. The visitor tut-tutted in disbelief.

  “Why didn’t you eat them yourself instead of letting them melt?”

  Mother rebutted her guest’s dismay in no uncertain terms: “My daughter is honest to a fault.”

  Nonetheless, this daughter in whom Mother put such adamantine trust was siphoning off one coin after another from her purse—and without the slightest pang of guilt. But as a proverb says, “The longer the tail, the easier to catch.”

  At the time, corner stores kept their candies and biscuits lined up in long rows of wooden containers with glass lids. One day, I tried to open a container in the back row, but as my hand pressed against a lid in front, I broke it.

  The owner was a brusque man who holed up in a dark room attached to his shop and just collected payment without helping to take the candy out. He showed no emotion despite my shock and tears, but simply told me to take my candies and go home. I thought he might take the money and not let me have the candies, so I assumed he’d forgiven me. I fled.

  That evening, while Mother was cooking by the gate and Brother was studying in our room, I heard a sudden ruckus outside and a sharp retort from Mother. My heart pounded with foreboding. As I dreaded, Mother called me outside. There I saw the owner of the store, his wife and children in tow, waving an accusing finger at Mother. Their expressions showed that they were fully prepared to resort to their fists. The boy, who was a little bigger than me, was holding the container lid. All that remained of it was the frame.

  Mother asked quietly whether it was true that I’d broken the lid. I nodded in confession, more frightened and humiliated about being caught stealing than breaking the glass. My shame made me feel faint. I wanted to die on the spot, but Mother readily agreed to pay for the glass. The family left behind a hollow frame and demanded that it be refitted before another day passed.

  And that could have been that for the incident—an unusually civil denouement for our dirt-poor neighborhood, where everyone was ready to plunge into a do-or-die show-down over half a chon. As they turned to go home a bit abashed, however, Mother spoke loudly from behind, “Now I’ve seen everything. Of course I’d pay for the glass if my own child broke it. What kind of a man is he, bringing along his family and making a scene like that? He’s raising his kids really well, really well.”

  Having the husband and wife gang up on my mother for something so insignificant must have really wounded her pride. But they wer
en’t the sort to pretend not to have heard a taunt. They spun round, as if waiting for just such an opportunity, and the quarrel blew up out of control. The man grabbed Mother by the throat. Instead of fending him off, though, she called my brother, probably wanting to show off that she too had a son. I’m sure that Brother, prudent and retiring as he was, had been hoping that everything would be settled without his having to intervene.

  He ran out after Mother’s plea for help, intending to tear the man away from her, but in the confusion of the moment wound up knocking him over. The man’s wife helped him up and yelled that a young lout had hit an adult. Spectators gathered. Encouraged, the woman straight away got a dig back in at Mother. “You’re raising your kids really well, really well!” she shouted. This put an immediate end to Mother’s retorts. Brother bowed his head, and the battle concluded with great embarrassment for my family. The three of us withdrew without a peep.

  We retreated to our room and waited, with heavy hearts, for the woman’s raving to end. In the meantime, I set about concocting my alibi, since Mother was sure to ask where my pocket money had come from. I made up my mind to lie that I’d found it on the street and picked it up. Better to die, I thought, than admit my theft.

  But Mother didn’t ask where the money had come from. It had shocked her for Brother to be insulted as an ill-bred lout. She remained despondent for a long time. She apologized to him, and he lowered his head, repeatedly saying how sorry he was. It was clear what their mutual apologies were about, even though neither said so explicitly.

  The insult left Mother so heartbroken that she apparently forgot to investigate why it had all happened in the first place, and I avoided the feared interrogation. Nor did she bring it up the next day when she went down to the shops to have the glass refitted, and, in fact, never mentioned it afterward.