The Prisoner

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  Back in Berlin, I called PEN America in New York and the Young Koreans United offices. PEN America’s Karen Kennerly gave me the news: artists’ programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin wanted to invite me. I looked up these places on the map and saw that they were in the Midwest, making me imagine endless fields of wheat and corn. If I really wanted to write and take care of my family in a quiet environment, I should have taken up those offers. But I had a clear reason to be in New York.

  My title was Spokesperson for the Pan-Korea Alliance for Reunification, but since the second Pan-Korean National Conference preparatory meeting in Berlin during June of 1991, I hadn’t really done anything for the Alliance. I held temporary roles in the Alliance overseas headquarters and general headquarters at the European regional headquarters, but it had been decided that the overseas headquarters should be in Japan, considering its “eldest sibling” place in the history of the movement. The South Korean Alliance was still in its preparatory stages, and the South’s chairperson Moon Ik-hwan was still in prison along with Lee Chang-bok, who had been on the preparatory committee. It was up to me to go to New York and set up the Alliance general headquarters.

  My passport was only for three years, and by this time I had just four months left before it expired—less than the six months that was required for me to receive a visa. To make matters worse, Myoung-su had just been diagnosed with a gallstone and needed an operation. DAAD understood our plight and extended our invitation period to three years in an effort to help, but the Korean consulate in Berlin notified me by phone that they could no longer grant me a passport extension. I requested that they state their official reason in writing, but all they could do was repeat that there was “no further guidance on the matter” from the authorities.

  As I waited for news of New York’s Young Koreans United, Dr. Chee Changboh, a sociology professor at Long Island University, sent me an invitation. He could not provide funding, but he could give us a place to stay. I was in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth. What most worried the young people at Young Koreans United who helped me was that I wouldn’t have enough time on my passport to be able to receive a visa. The paperwork for the invitation went through relevant channels in DC before arriving at Young Koreans United, who sent it on to me by express delivery, but I now had only three months left on my passport. I had all but given up, as I knew my visa would be refused, when I received a call about four days later. A man said, in fluent Korean but with a somewhat awkward accent, “I am an American. You received the invitation and papers to an American university? I can help you, Mr. Hwang.”

  He said he wanted to meet me. I was surprised and glad, and immediately agreed to see him. He told me when and where, so I called up Choi Young-sook who drove me to the appointed place. It was a bar and restaurant beside an overpass and was almost empty because it was a weeknight. The man would only say that he was employed by the US government. He had worked in Korea, and had a black belt in taekwondo. I had brought my passport and papers with me, but he didn’t even glance at them. He only asked if I was able to get to the American consulate with my family the next day to receive my visa. I said my family’s passports were fine, but I only had three months left on mine: wouldn’t that affect my chances of getting a visa? He simply answered, “Ah, that passport is the concern of the South Korean government. It has no bearing on the US government’s visa.” I got the message loud and clear. We enjoyed a drink or two and parted.

  The next day, we went to the American consulate where we passed the long lines of people and headed straight to the side entrance, as instructed. Most of the people in line had come after the fall of the Berlin Wall and were from Eastern Europe, with relatives in the US. Our man arrived, and we followed him inside to the consulate chambers on the second floor. Our visa processing did not take even a minute. The man said to someone who seemed like a consulate officer, “This is the person I told you about. And this is his family.” The officer grinned at us and immediately issued us visas. Our man escorted us to the front entrance of the consulate and said once more in Korean, “Goodbye.”

  I left Germany on November 14, 1991. Myoung-su was to follow me after she had undergone surgery under Germany’s health insurance for invitees. I went ahead to New York to make my start date on the Long Island University invitation.

  ~

  Dr. Chee picked me up at the airport and drove me to his home in a forest near the university, where he lived alone in an old wooden house that was said to be a hundred years old. Dr. Chee had argued for the peaceful reunification and political neutralization of the Korean peninsula since the Cold War, along with the former UN ambassador Lim Chang-yong and the Washington dentist and composer Noh Gwang-wook. All progressive students during the time of Liberation from the Japanese, they were unable to pick a side in the great conflict between left and right.

  Dr. Chee was born in Pyongyang and was a graduate of Kwangsung School, which had been founded by my maternal grandfather. When the division came, he was studying abroad in Chuo University in Japan, avoiding Japanese conscription by putting off his return to Korea, and wound up unable to return. By the time he was back on the peninsula, he had to cross the 38th parallel to go home. Not knowing where his family had moved, he had wandered aimlessly around Pyongyang Station until fortunately bumping into his aunt and mother, who had been going to the station every day in the hope of finding him. He crossed the 38th parallel again and entered Yonsei University, from which he was expelled for participating in the movement against the establishment of Seoul National University. He worked at a Christian nonprofit for a while before going to the US to study with the help of a Christian missionary. After he obtained his doctorate, he taught at different American universities before joining the sociology department at Long Island.

  Meeting him made me realize that Yoon Han Bong’s ability to come to the US and create mainstream activist organizations was thanks to such elders of conscience who kept themselves impartial. Dr. Chee cooked his own meals every day and expertly served rice and side dishes to his visitors. I did not ask him why he never married. He’d painted Eastern-style ink paintings as a hobby since his younger days and had far surpassed any amateur level. I remember two paintings in particular that hung in his living room: “Tufted heron” and “Persimmon.” The lone heron standing on one leg with its head down looked like him, and “Persimmon” was inspired by a woman he’d known in his younger days. It was a long story, but she was part of the Korean Alliance for Democratic Young Patriots and was killed at Mount Jiri during the war. I used the story he told me as an episode between a father and daughter for my novel The Old Garden.

  The first thing I did was go to Long Island University to meet their president. After that was over, I came out to find a white man in his fifties with gray hair waiting for me by the door. Dr. Chee greeted him and introduced us. “This gentleman wanted to meet the famous Hwang Sok-yong.” The man gave me his card. The moment I saw it I thought, Ah! I’d realized who he was. The Korean-speaking man in Berlin who helped me get my American visa had given me a similar card. This gentleman had been part of the American education center in Berlin, the one now affiliated with the American education center in Moscow.

  He took us to a Japanese restaurant he had booked beforehand. My English was rough, so Dr. Chee helped. Unexpectedly, our conversation consisted of my experiences in the Vietnam War and the changes in Europe. He asked after my family as well. On our way home, Dr. Chee joked, “Look at Mr. Hwang, he’s such an important person now!”

  I opened a bank account and applied for a social security number, which I was later told meant I could get a job and work in the US, and that it was unheard of for someone with a temporary visa and an expired passport to receive one. Having this number meant that my family and I were guaranteed official residential status in America.

  After a long time had passed, I began to think that neither the American in Berlin who helped me with the visa or my meeting with Dr. Chee were
coincidences. It seemed that the Americans had used stealthy means to keep me under watch. I had experienced this kind of surveillance before, in Seoul, Pyongyang, and both sides of Berlin, all symbolic cities of the Cold War era. During the third Pan-Korea Alliance for Reunification conference in Berlin, I once spotted a familiar car from the South Korean embassy across the street from the Berliner Strasse house toward the Bundesplatz, as well as another car next to the entrance to a park near our house. The second car had a red license plate belonging to the East German diplomats—this meant North Koreans. There was also a van with tinted windows to the left where the subway station entrance was, and that would have belonged to the West Germans. They had probably been monitoring who went in and out of my house for the four days of the North, South, and overseas three-way meetings. A couple of days after each of my visits to North Korea, a young and cheerful German couple would visit the house and ask if we were having any problems with the gas or electricity. These were incidents that made me feel like I was under protection.

  After we had settled down in the States, I was leaving a small event at Long Island University when a young American greeted me outside the classroom. He explained in fluent Korean that he was a graduate student married to a Korean and that he lived in Flushing as well. He offered to drive me home, which I accepted. We became friends and had drinks at my house once. I asked him where he’d learned his Korean, and he said it was in the US, though he’d also served in the military in Korea. I asked him what his work had been, and he replied with honesty, “Mostly North Korean surveillance.” His wife worked in the UN; I was told she enjoyed her job very much.

  He once visited our home with his wife and brother-in-law. He said his brother-in-law was studying in the US, was one of my readers, and wanted to meet me in person. This brother-in-law, once he got drunk on the wine they’d brought, pointed at him and said to me, “Mr. Hwang, do not be friends with this person. In your situation and all, shouldn’t you be more careful?” To his brother-in-law he said, “Hurry up and finish your degree and find another job.” I smiled and said nothing. The graduate student came to see me another time, with a second-generation Korean American who had just returned from Desert Storm. But once I became busy, he gradually stopped coming over or calling.

  A few months later, the subject of the man who helped me with my visa came up when Choi Young-sook’s son came to New York to study English. Apparently Choi had met with the American one more time, right before Myoung-su left Germany. After a few beers, she had asked him outright what his job was, saying jokily, “Are you CIA?” to which he answered simply, “Department of Defense.” Our suspicions confirmed, I felt a little sad at how it went to show that the Korean peninsula was still really a war zone. They had wanted to surreptitiously show me that I, too, was under their system.

  Yoon Han Bong called me at Dr. Chee’s house and congratulated me on arriving in America, assuring me that our Young Koreans United family was doing their best to set up a place for us to live. I moved to the Young Koreans United offices a week later. I managed to find a rental house, thanks to the director in charge of the region, and bought the furniture and other household goods that we needed. The house was a little distance away from Flushing, where many Koreans lived, and the landlord was a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong. Yoon Han Bong came to visit me one day from Los Angeles.

  The first thing Yoon Han Bong, who was wanted for his part in the Gwangju struggle, had done after getting on a ship to the States was to set up a Korean school in Los Angeles, which had a significant Korean population. The Korean Resource Center aimed to organize and educate full-time activists, and indeed it had produced hundreds of young members and adult sponsors in just a few years. Young Koreans United USA brought about a new era in the Korean community in the US, thanks to the volunteer work of young full-time activists who engaged with ordinary Koreans in the mainstream. First, they went beyond the initial, exiles-based activism of the Korean community in America, by valuing the dedication and day-to-day persistence of youthful contributors. Second, they promoted national education and cultural activism, traditionally ignored by older activists in the US. Third, they expanded efforts in international solidarity and maintained relations with peace and human rights activists in Asia, South America, and Europe. Fourth, they set peace as the main agenda for Korean activists in the US, working toward American nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula, the withdrawal of American troops from Korea, the signature of a peace treaty with North Korea, and lowered military spending in both North and South. Fifth, they engaged in more systematic and continuous publicity than other organizations. Yoon Han Bong brought together the Korean American mainstream in 1987 as his sponsor base and launched the One Nation Korean American Alliance. If Young Koreans United is an organization for youths, One Nation was founded for the same purpose but geared toward those who were over thirty-six years old, including middle-aged and senior citizens. Young Koreans United in the US was extremely well organized, with specialized subgroups for older activists (One Nation), publicity (One Nation US PR), culture (Binari), and education (Korean Resource Center), enabling them to put down deep roots among the Korean community in the US.

  I told Yoon Han Bong about my days in Germany and the Pan-Korean National Conference, as well as the tripartite talks. He knew some of the facts, but there was much he needed to be filled in on. I asked him if I could set up the general headquarters in New York and have the Young Koreans United run it, and he smiled wryly and said, “Everyone in Korea is busy shedding their blood and being thrown into prison, but here there is no end to these organizations. It all ends up as positions and power.”

  I knew that any movement or organization will become a bureaucracy burdened with power if it goes on long enough. The Korean Democratic Unification Union (Hanmintong) in Japan was founded in the 1970s and was, in a sense, the vanguard of overseas organizations, existing precariously between the General Association of (North) Korean Residents in Japan and the (South) Korean Residents Union in Japan. Democratic Koreans United had been founded in the US and Europe with the aid of that organization, and the North American Association for Reunification of the Fatherland, the self-designated North Korean communication channel in the US, was also primarily composed of personnel from Democratic Koreans United. At the beginning of his exile, Yoon Han Bong had been accused many times of being a South Korean spy by the older generation of activists. It followed that he could only, in his words, work hard “with steam coming out of my nose” to build out his base on his own.

  Yoon Han Bong in turn filled me in about what had happened since I last saw him, and we discussed the current state of Korean political organizing in the diaspora.

  “The other organizations will not accept it if we propose to lead the general headquarters,” Yoon Han Bong argued. “Cho Seong-wu basically shunted off the work to us before going to prison, but that’s because he’s not aware of how things are here. We can’t just do whatever we want. It’s the South Koreans who will end up suffering.”

  I said that the matter of the general headquarters had already been decided at formal meetings, meaning it had to be seen through, but Yoon Han Bong was adamant: “There are elders in One Nation who have joined the Pan-Korea Alliance for Reunification. Talk to them about it. Young Koreans United still hasn’t come to a consensus over the Alliance and have no desire to take part in the general headquarters.”

  This was followed by a long and awkward silence. Yoon Han Bong broke his severe expression with a bright smile. “But I’m glad Seong-wu got you here. I feel like someone has my back.” He said he had scolded the overexcited youth who had returned from the peace parade, and that the festival had been just that, merely a festival. “We are not a country, but weak individuals gathered according to their conscience. No matter how tough things get, we can’t allow ourselves to be used like pawns by those in power.”

  Myoung-su arrived with Ho-seop almost a month after I had come to the States. In t
he interim, I met with the One Nation people who had joined the Alliance and Lee Hang-woo, who had been at the three-way talks. They were of the same opinion as Yoon Han Bong. The North American Association for Reunification of the Fatherland people I met in LA were interested in the general headquarters and were eager to establish it in the US. But it would be in a different direction from what I had talked about with Cho Seong-wu. It made me wonder how I would ever be able to work in solidarity with these people.

  ~

  Another year went by, and it was 1992. I heard some news from Berlin. The overseas headquarters had already moved to Japan, and a meeting of the overseas leadership in Berlin, which had been the site of the Alliance overseas headquarters and general headquarters, had decided that the general headquarters would likewise be moved to Japan until it was properly established in the US. Therefore, if I failed to set it up in the US, Japan’s Hanmintong and Democratic Koreans United would naturally co-opt the Alliance’s activities. Yoon Han Bong’s prediction had come true.

  One day, Yoon Han Bong called me up, saying that he had come to participate in the Young Koreans United East Coast meetings. They boiled tofu-and-kimchi stew in the office and put out some soju for me. This modest dinner took place three months after we had last seen each other, as I had been on a lecture tour of American universities. “What did I tell you?” Yoon Han Bong said. “They’ll never allow us to open the general headquarters here. We saw it was impossible because of the situation on the South Korean side.”

  “You were right. The reunification movement should be mainstream. What’s going to happen if they continue on their radical path?”

  “Choose the mode of activism that’s right for you. You did teach us about cultural activism in Gwangju.”