Ko Un - Maninbo - Peace & War

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.

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?

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.

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.

Kim Gu scolded them:

This will not do.

This will not do.

The Independence Movement knows no birthdays.

Na Seok-ju soon after threw a bomb

that scared the Japanese out of their wits.

He sacrificed himself.

He became a man with no birthday forever.

The war did not spare even public cemeteries.

The public cemetery in Manguri,

was the underworld of Seoul.

On September 30, 1950,

even that site

became a battlefield.

While six thousand graves lay there,

UN soldiers

and communist soldiers

showered bullets

between the graves,

charged at each other,

stabbed one another with bayonets.

Bodies of fallen soldiers

lay scattered here and there

among the graves.

Bodies of black soldiers,

white soldiers,

bodies of communist soldiers,

were scattered all over the unmown grass.

Seventy-five minutes of deadly battle,

seventy-three dead bodies on both sides:

that was all.

Manguri Cemetery went back to being a cemetery.

Seoul belonged to the enemy for three months

under the rule of the North Korean People’s Republic.

The American air force’s bombing raids

went on day after day.

Seoul was reduced to ruins.

Grass grew

between the broken bricks in the ruins.

South Korean troops

recaptured Seoul.

The Northern flag was lowered

from the flagstaff on the Government Building,

the American flag was raised,

followed by the South Korean flag,

and the two fluttered there.

Seoul was under martial law.

Curfew lasted from seven in the evening

until five the next morning,

the time for mice.

Checkpoints stood here and there

in the ruins.

The police who had come back

set about arresting those who had collaborated during the past three months,

even children under ten

The kid of the noodle bar in Juja-dong in central Seoul,

got to know about this harsh world

from early on.

He got to know all about

the world with its beaters-up

and its beaten,

a world where there were thieves

amidst all that fear,

a world where even robbers

and thieves were arrested and beaten with clubs.

He was envious of robbers, envious of thieves.

North Korean soldiers

who drove south

of the 38th parallel

in the summer of 1950…

North Korean soldiers who supervised night operations on aerodromes.

North Korean soldiers never smoked a cigarette,

afraid of American airplanes:

‘The glow of a cigarette can be seen 5 kilometres away.’

They were sixteen,

seventeen years old.

They were carrying submachine guns as tall as themselves.

They had just been mobilised from remote villages.

They were naive,

very shy.

Boys like them were dumped out by the basketful

into the exorbitant war.

Everyone was leaving

leaving in a hurry

southward, southward, fleeing refugees

on the 4 January Retreat in 1951,

all but one.

He who refused to leave

had the notion of stopping

this immense calamity,

with his two hands

at any cost

stopping

this war,

a war in which fellow-countrymen were killing one another

left and right

South and North.

Disorder

lawlessness

thieves

ransackers of empty houses

those who had an eye on refugees’ bundles

extortionists charged with arresting collaborators