Who Ate Up All the Shinga?

by Yu Young-nan

  I began to read novels in Korean. For the first time, I became curious about the Korean novels that lay among Brother’s books. Most students my age didn’t know how to read Korean and were frantically hurrying to master our alphabet. I felt pride and an odd delight in my ability to read without difficulty the posters and flyers pouring forth. My pride in what should be taken for granted—knowing one’s native script—sparked my first interest in Korean literature.

  The first book I read was Yi Kwang-su’s Love. I had been attracted by the title. Then I read his novel The Tragic Story of King Tanjong and, after that, White Flowers by Pak Hwa-sŏng and Tale of Escape by Ch’oe Sŏ-hae. I also read one of Kang Kyŏng-ae’s short stories, although I’ve forgotten the title. The works that made the strongest impression were Yi’s The Tragic Story of King Tanjong and the tale by Kang. I couldn’t fall asleep after finishing the tale of King Tanjong, while Kang’s story was so disgusting that it turned my stomach. I actually lost my appetite for several days. The story describes how a baby, whose head is covered in boils, is treated by having a rat skin placed on him, like a hat. In the end, maggots wind up swarming all over his head. I’d grown up in an environment in which soybean paste was applied to burns, but the image was so gross that I felt like vomiting.

  Until then, reading had allowed me to transcend my daily reality and immerse myself in joyful fantasies. This new experience of reading, however, was totally different. Korean literature pushed me to look at the world and its ugliness in a harsh, glaring light.

  The Tragic Story of King Tanjong may have been fiction, but I accepted it as fact and was spurred to learn about our history systematically and in greater depth. Afterward, we studied Korean history at school, and as an adult I read several history books by different authors and from various perspectives, following my whims. I acquired the knowledge purely for its own sake. As a result, it’s a mixed bag, essentially useless, like a desk drawer into which things have haphazardly been thrown. The one era I feel I have some accurate knowledge of is that between King Sejong and King Sejo, but this is probably an illusion entirely rooted in The Tragic Story of King Tanjong.

  Given the critical nature of the input kids get when they’re able to absorb everything like a sponge, I am slightly resentful about how barren my intellectual life was back then, within both my family and the larger society. Yet only after reading Kang Kyŏng-ae’s stories did I begin to feel grateful to Mother for her ability to raise us lovingly and rationally in the midst of poverty.

  Summer retreated. Light blankets became necessary early in the morning and late at night. Mother and I were at last able to leave Kaesŏng. But with the city still occupied by the Soviets, no trains were departing for Seoul. Some said we should head to Pongdong Station; others, to Changdan—all of it speculation. The only thing that was clear was that no southbound train left from Kaesŏng. Pongdong lay twenty ri distant; Changdan, fifty. There was no way we could take everything we needed, even by carrying bundles in each hand and on our heads. We were determined to walk dozens of ri if necessary and couldn’t afford to be concerned with possessions. Fortunately, the person who bought our house didn’t have a large family and agreed to hold our furniture for the time being.

  To reach Pongdong, we had to cross Yadari, Kaesŏng’s best-known bridge. The name derived from the ancient word for “camels,” yakdae, which were tied there by Arab merchants who came to trade at the height of the Koryŏ Kingdom. I imagine that few Kaesŏng children, when they were scolded, avoided the taunt that they’d been picked up as newborns under that bridge. I was something of a cry-baby since early childhood, and so adults often teased me: “Looks like they got you over at Yadari!”

  We were far from the only wayfarers with bundles heaped on heads and backs. A large crowd filed toward Yadari, similarly laden. The scene was not unexpected now that it was the only way to get to Seoul because the trains were no longer running. The spot had always been busy with traffic to the capital, as it was. Soviet soldiers guarded one side of the bridge; Americans manned the other.

  But the soldiers did not control passage or inspect travelers. Some young women, mindful of frightening rumors going around, covered their heads with dirty towels. They stooped deeply as they passed, but in fact both the Soviet and the American soldiers, with their brown hair and light brown eyes, merely looked amused. No line drawn in the middle of Yadari indicated the thirty-eighth parallel. Not so much as a straw rope was draped in the center of the bridge to mark a border.

  At that point, we still had no concept of how formidable the thirty-eighth parallel would come to be, but soldiers automatically provoked fear in us, a lingering remnant of Japanese rule. We passed both sets of troops with frozen expressions and racing hearts.

  Despite the absence of any official notice, a crowd had gathered at Pongdong Station. We also decided to wait there instead of traveling on to Changdan. There was no ticket booth, so we just went out to the tracks. Patiently, we waited.

  At long last, a train arrived from the south. The crowd surged toward it, boarding more through the windows than the doors. Any windows that were shut were shattered. Many had already been smashed. Mother hoisted me up and pushed me through a window as someone pulled me in. I then struggled desperately to help Mother clamber in. We certainly didn’t anticipate getting a seat, but the wreckage that greeted us was a shock: windows without glass, torn seats with twisted frames. Given the anarchy of the era, the mayhem might not have been so unexpected, but I couldn’t understand why even plush seat covers had been slit open, exposing not just dirty stuffing but frail frames. Some passengers took it upon themselves to vent self-righteous fury, demanding to know if this was the meaning of Liberation.

  The train kept stopping and arrived in Seoul only after a very long journey. Once we reached Shinch’on, people began to disembark. We followed their example. I think everyone was worried what might happen if we turned up at Seoul Station without tickets.

  We settled in with Uncle at his Japanese-style residence for the time being. Thankfully, my sister-in-law was doing much better. Her doctor said that all she needed to do now was take good care of herself. She had gone to stay with her parents in Ch’ŏnan. We had to find a place of our own in a hurry, if only for her sake.

  I couldn’t warm to Uncle’s house, although it was the sort of two-story dwelling I’d dreamed of. My shame in living there made me so uncomfortable that I might as well have been sitting on a pin-filled cushion. I had the sense that we were breaking the law, for I knew all too well from newspaper editorials and warnings issued by the American military government that there was to be no trafficking in goods or houses used by the Japanese. Enemy property belonged to the state. We were told not to cooperate with Japanese attempts to sell or to assert any form of preemptive right over property. Brother felt even more uneasy than I did. In this lay a point of difference between Uncle and my immediate family.

  Most of these Japanese houses were occupied by shrewd wheeler-dealers, and so real estate in Seoul had become extremely cheap. Adding the money from the sale of our home in Kaesŏng to the sum Uncle lent us, we were able to buy a house along Shinmunno, near downtown. Even at the time, it was the most expensive neighborhood in the city. And so, just as Mother had long wished, we now lived within the gates of Seoul itself.

  The house stood on good, flat land and was quite swanky—new and well ordered, with a gleaming tile roof. The house even came with a bath, a rarity in those days. We bought beyond our means, perhaps in part because Brother, with a new husband’s vanity, refused to give up on the dream of a happy life with his bride.

  Mother set about decorating the newlyweds’ bedroom in earnest and waited for her daughter-in-law’s arrival. Meanwhile, I returned to Sookmyung Girls’ High School. I was accepted without a problem, as though I’d just been temporarily absent; the roster for roll call still had my name on it. Since Liberation came during summer vacation, many students from the North had yet to return. Their seats were
kept vacant in expectation of their arrival. I could scarcely believe that my leave of absence had lasted just a semester—so much had happened in the meantime.

  School hadn’t changed much. The Japanese principal and teachers had vanished, of course, but astonishingly the teacher who had taught Japanese stayed on to teach Korean. In the terminology of the time, what is now middle school was actually called high school. Second-year students were busily learning the syllabic combinations of the Korean alphabet. Although the teachers scolded us, any time we had something complex to express, it was Japanese that rolled off our tongues. Other than school textbooks, our reading material was almost entirely texts written in or translated into Japanese.

  I was able to own a set of literary works for the first time. I’d long dreamed of possessing all thirty-eight volumes of The Complete Collection of World Literature put out by the Japanese publisher Shinjo. One day, Brother had the set delivered for me. The books had, of course, been discarded by Japanese who’d fled in haste. Market vendors were awash with daily necessities and books that had been likewise sold off dirt-cheap or left behind. Common as these books may have been, owning the complete collection seemed like a fantasy come true. But I also felt burdened. I don’t know where it came from, but a sense of mission weighed on me. I felt compelled to read them all, from beginning to end. And although Quo Vadis and The Count of Monte Cristo were so much fun that I could barely put them down, The Divine Comedy and Faust were so difficult that I’d never have made it through them if it weren’t for this blind zeal of mine. I don’t think that it did me much good to force myself to plod through, however. Even though I didn’t understand those books, at least I felt I’d read them, and so I never bothered with them again. When people say they like such books, I always wonder whether they really understood them. I’m left torn between doubting others and doubting myself.

  Next I received The Complete Works of Tolstoy, which Brother bought at a used-book store. My first impression on seeing the solemn brown jackets was that I couldn’t possibly read them all. But over a long period, I did read Tolstoy’s major novels—Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection. And read them again and again. They became very important to me. I rarely reread books, even if I really enjoyed them or found them too difficult to fully comprehend the first time through, but Tolstoy’s works were an exception. Although they were initially hard to understand, there was something compelling about them and they piqued a growing interest within me. I think it’s because, above all, for the first time I was enthralled by the power of excellent characterization. Besides, the atmosphere at home had turned somber once again and pushed me to lose myself in books.

  Despite Mother’s and Brother’s concerted preparations to welcome my sister-in-law into the house, she was unable to go through the motions of being a young bride with us for even a month. Her parents hadn’t sent her furniture and belongings. Although I know this left Mother feeling self-conscious before her acquaintances, she never let on. Later, she would profess that she’d done well to be patient and say nothing, as she’d been plagued by ominous premonitions. Brother’s in-laws knew that his wife’s condition was far worse than we assumed. They must have decided that it would create problems to leave so many personal items behind in the event of tragedy. Once more, my sister-in-law was admitted to Severance Hospital. This time she never returned.

  One morning, I woke early to the sound of wailing. Both my mother and the mother of my sister-in-law burst into sobs as soon as they entered the front gate, for they had been unable to cry freely at the hospital. Her mother had come to our house to weep without restraint. To describe how heartbreaking her wailing was would be pointless. I had known that my sister-in-law’s death was imminent, but the pain was overwhelming nonetheless. How could someone die so young? I was filled with dread, as though the loving world I inhabited was plunging into an abyss.

  My sister-in-law’s death occurred in the spring following Liberation, less than a year after her marriage. Brother and Mother had done all they could for her, and more. Their efforts were enough to bring tears to anyone’s eyes. Our relatives were concerned but also criticized Mother. Why did she devote herself so to caring for the bride, instead of separating the couple out of consideration for Brother’s health? Mother’s answer was that she had failed to separate them before they got married; once the young woman became a member of our family, she wanted to do as much for her as if she were her own child. I’m told that before closing her eyes forever, my sister-in-law expressed moving, heartfelt thanks to Mother.

  This side of Mother was new to me and thoroughly unexpected, and it became an important watershed in my developing pride in and respect for her. At the same time, because my sister-in-law received such devoted care, I longed for and romanticized tuberculosis even after I was old enough to know better. As an adolescent, I harbored the dream of falling passionately in love with a consumptive.

  10. Groping in the Dark

  AS A TEENAGER, I’D SEEN HOW PASSIONATELY devoted Brother was to his bride, but love between a man and a woman remained a mystery to me. Normal, natural sexuality was even more puzzling. I’d grown up with a mother who’d been widowed young, so I’d never witnessed parents acting affectionately or the birth of siblings. What’s more, Mother’s extreme views on propriety meant that any time a remark with the tiniest sexual connotation was made in my presence, she’d leap to her feet in horror: “How can you say that in front of a child?”

  Both my uncles may as well have been immediate family. They shared all their possessions with us and every experience, good or bad. Yet when we were together, they treated their wives with complete indifference. Only after I grew up did I understand that, in keeping with the manners of the day, consideration for my widowed mother affected the way they acted.

  But I must have been quite young when I realized that making a baby required intercourse. No particular incident stands out in my mind; I assume I just picked up this information naturally. I saw animals at it often enough when I was little, and my countryside playmates were quite precocious. Still, I was loath to admit that that was how I’d been conceived, and I refused to imagine my uncles having such a side.

  Even now, at times I blame Mother for my tone deafness and my unusually poor motor coordination. Her pride in my being a poor singer and gymnast obviously played a formative role. Likewise, I’d bet that my great shame in my teen years of erotic thoughts and even the rudimentary knowledge I had about the birds and the bees stemmed from Mother’s wish that I remain a child in terms of my sexuality.

  My uncle’s concubine was said to be a widow as much as ten years his elder. Rumors of their relationship surfaced only after Liberation. It was easy enough to understand how they’d become close, as she lived with a daughter in an isolated village between the township seat and Pakchŏk Hamlet. Everyone thought she’d seduced him, for a position like his—the local director of labor affairs—would have offered her a substantial safety net. Auntie even tried to be magnanimous and show pity for the woman. The issue, however, proved more complicated than that.

  After Liberation, Uncle lost his job as a matter of course. But our home had been handed down from generation to generation, and to have it ravaged left him feeling wronged and resentful of the other villagers. He was unable to accept coming back home and farming. Auntie had quickly patched up relations with our neighbors and could even ask for their help in repairing our home despite the pro-Japanese stigma it was tainted with. Uncle, however, became aloof and kept his distance from our village. He didn’t stay with the widow, since in the countryside, nobody’s business was secret. What limited power he’d wielded as a civil servant evaporated when he was dismissed, and he’d never amassed a substantial sum. I think Auntie was secretly pleased with Uncle’s misfortune—a pity he’d lost his job, to be sure, but she assumed the concubine would now turn her back on him.

  However, the widow had some land and was taking in some interest through small loans she made.
She left the countryside and its gossip and bought a small house in Kaesŏng, openly becoming Uncle’s concubine once she settled in the city. This stirring of the hornet’s nest turned our household upside down. We were shocked. Furious. We bad-mouthed her for wantonly taking in a man, although we’d been as charitable as could be when we thought she’d become Uncle’s concubine to support herself. My own dirty imaginings, gathering steam amid the family’s barrage of crude abuse and lewd conjectures, jolted me.

  The woman refused to live in hiding. She boldly allowed her identity to be known and over time started to assert her position even more brazenly. Uncle was now living with her in Kaesŏng, and anyone who wanted to see him had to go to her home. But she soon began to win over his visitors with her warm hospitality. Eventually, she was appearing in Pakchŏk Hamlet on important occasions like Grandmother’s birthday. And when it came to chipping in materially and with her own labor, she was twice as filial as Grandmother’s formal daughters-in-law. She stole Grandmother’s heart. An old proverb says it’s the concubine daughter-in-law who gets offered the embroidered cushion. And such proved to be the case in our family. Tension between Auntie and Grandmother hung in the air.

  But this bleak development didn’t prevent me from going back to Pakchŏk Hamlet during vacations. Once confirmation came that Kaesŏng indeed lay south of the thirty-eighth parallel, travel to Seoul was allowed, even though the Soviets had replaced the Americans as the occupying force. I went home partly to see Grandmother, but partly because I hated to even imagine spending my entire holiday in Seoul. I no longer had to have Mother accompany me, but just like when I was a young girl, my heart soared with the approach of vacation. Pakchŏk Hamlet offered me a physical and spiritual lifeline. Going to the countryside governed the rhythms of my body and soul.