Just as we spent the first half of the year marking each major resistance anniversary—March 1, April 19, May 18, and August 15—with shouting and hunger strikes, we always took time to commiserate with or congratulate those who had just come into detention, were being transferred to prison, or were being released, by singing together. Then we would drink whatever moonshine we’d managed to create, and while it wasn’t as strong as what was available outside, the rare taste of alcohol was enough to get us flushed and tipsy. This was the kind of sentimental thing that was only possible in detention, because once you got to normal prison, all bets were off.
I must have moved cells three times while in detention. They always put me into the third cell from the entrance of each block. The fourth cell was right next to the regular detainees, with whom they didn’t want me to have contact. And the first and second cells were close to the guards’ rooms, which was too close for comfort for either of us. There was a small lavatory next to the guards’ room and a fairly spacious washroom. The regular detainees had a full shower once a week. The shower room was also where the soji washed dishes and stored their cleaning implements. Next to the bathroom was the first private cell, the second one, and then mine. They normally put death row inmates into the first and second, with political prisoners in the third and white-collar crime detainees in the fourth. The remaining cells along the corridor were group cells for regular detainees. Each room had a window, high enough so that you couldn’t see into the windows of the other blocks. The regular detainees would talk to each other while doing dishes or on their way back from the exercise yard. You could also talk to the cells above and below through the window over your toilet. The guards overlooked most of these conversations, but if the jurisdiction officers showed up or it was getting too loud, they’d stick their own heads out of a window and growl at us about cell-to-cell communication being grounds for punishment.
There were so many head counts that we used to joke that doing time was just a matter of being counted over and over until you got out. There was one when you woke up, one before each shift change, and one after breakfast when that day’s court attenders had left. There was another after coming back from exercise, another after all the court attenders were back and visits had ended, and another before the night shift took over. Then the jurisdiction officer in charge would come in for a final check. My detainee number was 83, but since I was always in the third cell, I shouted “Three!” One, two, three … Everyone shouted their number; those in the group cells called out the row they were sitting in. Hanging by the door of each cell was the cell number, the number of detainees inside, and the prison number assigned to each occupant.
From my cell window, I was able to chat now and then with Hwang In-seong and Lee Chang-bok of the National Alliance for Democracy and Unification of Korea, both nice fellows who told me about their visits to North Korea and to whom I passed on what people abroad were saying. The Buddhist monk Beopta, in the end cell of the lowest block, was especially talkative. He had been the abbot of a temple in Los Angeles until his arrest for violating the National Security Act by contacting someone in North Korea about One Korea Buddhist Movement affairs. I told him about a Jindo dog I’d had in New York. My son Ho-seop, who was about five at the time, had envied our next-door neighbors for their dog. I was downtown and happened upon a pet shop that had a cute yellow puppy in the window. Hanging outside the cage was a breeding certificate typed in Korean: it was a purebred Jindo born in the States. We took the puppy home to our house in Queens and named it Dolswe. After six months it had grown into quite a handsome dog. Apparently, after I left the US, Dolswe would wander the neighborhood looking for me. When my family moved to Manhattan, they gave it to Pastor Kim Hyo shin in New Jersey. But the loyal creature could not give its heart to its new family and kept biting the other neighborhood dogs. My children’s mother had no choice but to send it to her mother in Korea, who hated dogs. I knew that Dolswe was in danger of being sent to the pound to be euthanized. When I related the story to Beopta, Dolswe was still being held in quarantine at customs. Beopta found this highly opportune, saying that the monks in his temple would be willing to take good care of the dog, this was all Buddha’s will coming to fruition. But by the time arrangements were made, my former mother-in-law had already given Dolswe away to another family. It grieved me to think about my failure as a patriarch, when I couldn’t even take care of the family dog, much less my own children. It felt like an omen, portending yet another family breakup. I was going through at least one trial a week at that point, and I was exhausted from answering the same questions over and over again, my spirit completely conquered.
A new detainee moved into the cell directly below mine, a young man, from the sound of things. I didn’t know he was on death row at first. Whenever we came back from dinner, he would stick his head out of his bathroom window and sing at the top of his lungs. He always sang “Morning Dew.” Even the best singer can ruin a song by repeating it too often, and this boy was tone-deaf to begin with. He droned straight through to “more precious than pearls is the morning dew / that clings to each leaf, awake through the long night” in a monotone, no rhythm at all. He might as well have been reading aloud from a phone book. Then, at the part where it goes “This is my trial, I go forth now into that wilderness,” his voice suddenly turned high-pitched and sappy, and from “I cast off sadness and make my way now,” it changed again into a fast-paced marching song. He got the lyrics right each time, but the tune and the beat were never the same. I’d grip my book and lie with my face buried in my bedding, just waiting for it to stop, but no sooner would he finish than he’d begin another round. At last I couldn’t take it anymore, and shouted out the window:
—Not that again! You can’t seriously be singing the same song over and over, day in, day out. At least learn how to sing. Good god, how am I supposed to live with that racket?!
There was silence for a moment and then he started up again. The guard on shift must have heard me, because he stuck his head out of his window.
—Something wrong?
—That guy downstairs, he won’t stop singing “Morning Dew,” and it’s annoying as hell because he can’t even sing properly.
—He’s a red tag. Probably has a lot on his mind.
I understood immediately. Death row inmates had their prisoner numbers stamped on a red patch of fabric, to distinguish them from the regular detainees. Next door to me was a heavyset man with a thick beard, and beside him was a pale young man as delicate as a woman. They had both been sentenced to death. The former, who was in his midforties with the last name of Hur, had been awaiting execution for the past eight years.
Funds were tight at the detention center, and so we had no heating, let alone air conditioning. The painted cement walls were a burning hell in the summer and a freezing hell in the winter. The hot-water radiators, which were little more than a formality, were only run on the coldest days, lending the cell block a tiny bit of warmth. On bath day, the regulars took showers in the shower room, while the private-cell detainees took turns bathing in the guards’ bathroom at the entrance to the cell block corridor, where two large rubber tubs made from recycled tires had been filled to the brim with hot water. Hur and I shared the same bath time. He’d been around longer than me and taught me the trick of keeping the tub lids open so we could enjoy the steam. The steam would turn the tiny room so hot that we could barely breathe. We’d throw towels over our heads to work up a sweat and then open the windows to let fresh air in and begin to bathe. We scrubbed each other’s backs. Hur was so strong that he did a good job on mine. I did my best scrubbing away at the wide expanse of his back, but he sometimes seemed dissatisfied, turning to reposition the scrubbing towel wound around my hand. Then, before we soaped up, we soaked for a bit in our respective tubs. Hur chanted Buddhist scripture every morning when he woke, and sometimes he chanted while he bathed. As spring approached, he grew quieter and more depressed. There was a rumor that exe
cutions would be carried out once winter had passed. He’d told me that he wasn’t worried about death so much as about his daughter, whom he’d left in the care of a Buddhist temple. I tried to comfort him, saying,
—They’ve waited this long, don’t you think they’ll end up pardoning you?
His sad face broke into a smile and he murmured casually, as if talking about someone else:
—It’s time to be off. Best not to be such a burden on everyone. The other death row inmate, Choi, was a well-mannered and clever young man. His mother, a widow, had come to visit one time and left him a bracelet of Buddhist prayer beads that she had carved herself from sacred fig wood. I will never forget Hur and Choi, because I learned of their executions only a day before they happened. I was called to one of the offices for something, so I went during my exercise period and found the chief inspector sitting with his chair turned away from his desk, staring at some documents. He was so intent on them that he didn’t notice me approach. I glanced over his shoulder and saw a list with two names. The chief inspector suddenly sensed I was there and quickly flipped the papers over and swiveled his chair to face me. I asked him what was up. His face was still tense as he looked around the room before quietly raising one hand. He made his hand stiff as a blade and mimed it coming down on his neck. I understood what he meant. When? I mouthed. Tomorrow, he mouthed back.
My heart was heavy as I returned to my room. Choi called out to me from his window, wanting to talk, and I reluctantly went to the window next to my toilet. He babbled about the future that he had put together for himself from a fortune-telling book. He went on about the things that would happen in decades to come, and all I could think of was how he had only hours to live. That moment lingered for a long time in my heart. The following dawn, at wake-up time, Hur struck his wood block as usual as he did his morning chanting. I had my morning exercise first, while the others had theirs just before lunch. Maybe it was the mood of the guards, or maybe just a very human premonition, but everyone, the condemned men included, gave off a strange anxiety as silence settled over the whole block. Lunch passed quietly. There were no bustling cross-cell conversations, no friendly urgings to each other to eat their fill. Only silence filled the air.
As soon as lunch was over, a special team wearing red caps marched in. The rooms kept their hush. I could hear Hur complaining as he was brought out:
—You’re going to hang me with my stomach full. If I’d known this would happen I would’ve just drunk water.
He stood at the inspection slot in front of my room.
—Mr. Hwang, I’m going first. I hope to see you on the other side.
Hur disappeared, and now Choi stood before my door.
—Sir … please take this. And write my mother a letter if you can.
He held out his prayer beads carved from sacred fig wood. I still have them to this day.
Their executions were the first at the center in years. Afterward, all of the private-cell detainees were made to change rooms. I was moved closer to the administrative center. It was still a private cell, and I didn’t think much of the change, but once I turned in bed to face the wall, I saw a line of writing along the white cement: “To exist is to be happy.” The cell had belonged to a death row inmate.
A month later I rode next to a guard in a van on the way to court. Apropos of nothing, he started talking about executions. He told me about Hur and Choi’s final moments. The scores of prison employees drew lots, and he along with a few other guards were the unlucky ones. “Unlucky” was his choice of word. Korean executions are done by hanging. The prosecution, the head of the detention center, and religious representatives, among others, come in to observe. Behind a lattice stands the gallows, about two stories high, while the device that operates the trapdoor is in a control room at the back—the execution cannot be seen from that spot. Three people are posted there. The guard had wanted to be in the control room but was assigned to a front seat instead. The condemned man was brought in, handcuffed and tied, a black sack put over his head, and the noose hung around his neck before the curtain was drawn before him. That was all the observers saw, even after the floor opened up and the prisoner dropped, as the lower part was blocked from sight by a wall. They waited for about twenty minutes before a guard, a doctor, and the religious representative went to the lower room to confirm his death.
Choi was so scared that he was unable to walk to the gallows and had to be supported by a guard on either side. Hur was calm in comparison and started loudly reciting Buddhist scripture even before they put the black sack on him.
While in college, Choi had taken a job tutoring an elementary school student. He’d just completed his mandatory army service and was renting a room downtown while preparing to return to school. The mother of the child he tutored had borrowed money from him, promising to pay it back with interest. When the new semester was about to begin, he asked for the money back several times, but the woman said that he had no proof that he had ever loaned her any money. When the child stopped showing up for tutoring sessions, he went to the child’s school, picked him up in his car and drove around, demanding that the mother pay her debt. It turned into a full-blown hostage situation that ended with Choi taking the child out to a quiet country road, killing him, and burying his body in the mountains.
Hur was a produce dealer. During kimchi-making season, he would drive his truck out to the countryside and buy up entire fields of cabbage to resell in bulk at the market. One day, he went to a field where he had prepaid for a load only to discover that the cabbages had been sold off to another bidder. The farmer said he had sold it at a higher price and would pay Hur back, but that meant Hur would miss the all-important kimchi-making season. They got into an argument and, in a fit of frustration, Hur swung a pickax that had been lying around on the ground and accidentally killed him. When he came to his senses, he loaded the body into the back of his truck and buried it on a hill. He had thought no one else was around, but it turned out there was a witness to the argument and Hur was quickly apprehended.
I heard these stories from the guards as if they were legends from the distant past. Yes, both men had committed dreadful crimes, but they weren’t evil people to begin with. Circumstances had conspired against them. That winter Hur and I spent scrubbing each other’s backs would stay with me always. Whenever I rubbed the prayer beads Choi left me, I always thought of his pale face and the love he had for his widowed mother.
The Kim Young-sam administration executed fifty-seven people over three rounds. Since the last one in 1997, South Korea has not carried out another death sentence.
~
I was sentenced on October 25, 1993. The court still ruled that North Korea was an anti-government or terrorist organization under the National Security Act, but what interested me was how they redefined what “national secrets” meant. The court went against a previous Supreme Court ruling on this point. Of my alleged disclosure of the personal information of leftist activists and discussion of activism with North Koreans (a completely fabricated claim in any case), they declared that national secrets needed to have some degree of actual value as secrets and hence the allegation against me did not apply here, acquitting me of this charge at least. As I mentioned before, this supposed information had come from me falling for an ANSP trap, and the trumped-up charge had persisted despite my protests. I sensed it was a highly sensitive matter as, under the National Security Act, accusations of spying stemmed from leaking intelligence. The prosecution had also tried to frame me for espionage by insisting that the 200 million won from the South and the 250,000 dollars (about 200 million won at the time) from the North—payment for my North–South collaboration movie deal for Jang Gil-san—were my operative fees.
At the end of my first sentencing I received eight years in prison and eight years of suspension of qualifications. The prosecution and defense both appealed, the former because my sentence was too low, even if some of the charges had been dismissed, and the latte
r because the court had ruled on the grounds that North Korea was a terrorist organization.
The PEN America president, Louis Begley, sent a letter to South Korean President Kim Young-sam protesting my continued incarceration. He urged President Kim to deliver on his promised democratic reforms by immediately releasing me, and by recognizing the National Security Act as a tool used to suppress free speech. He further argued that my incarceration and my restriction from writing were inevitably damaging South Korea’s international image as a rising democracy. He added that the cruel treatment I’d received during the initial interrogation should also be investigated. The letter criticized the fact that I was being punished for visiting North Korea, because any law that indiscriminately penalizes someone’s freedom of movement would never be up to the international standards of human rights.
My first winter in detention felt especially cold and long. As I despaired over how many more winters I would have to spend under lock and key, the new year began. On January 18, 1994, Pastor Moon Ik-hwan passed away. He had been a friend of both the poet Yun Dong-ju, who died in a Fukuoka prison during the Japanese occupation, and the activist Chang Chun-ha, who had died in suspicious circumstances during the Park Chung-hee administration. Chang’s death had inspired him to become an anti-dictatorship activist. Pastor Moon used the pen name Neutbom (“late spring”) to symbolize his late entry into the national democratization movement. He was jailed six times during the military dictatorship and spent a total of ten years in prison. I couldn’t help the wave of regret I felt upon hearing of his death, as I recalled the last time I had seen him when we met in North Korea. He could have led a life of placid contentment, guiding a congregation, but he dedicated his life to the cause and was met with a heartbreaking ending. But he wasn’t the first, nor the last, to suffer such a fate in this country.
The Prisoner Page 8