Ko Un - Maninbo - Peace & War

Then he gave up begging

and ran errands for a grogshop,

then for a shoe-shiner,

bringing him shoes to be polished,

before he became a shoe-shiner himself.

He bought a wooden shack.

Fifteen years after leaving his northern home

he was president of the Actors’ Academy in Chungmu-ro, Seoul.

He had his parents’ photo enlarged

and hung it on his wall.

Somebody asked:

‘What period are those film stars from?’

When the Communist army came South,

fourth- and fifth-year middle-school students

were summoned en masse

and forced to enlist.

Fourth and fifth years of middle school!

On 4 January 1951,

when the Northern forces came down again,

first-year high-school students

were summoned at random en masse :

and forced to enlist.

Boys in their later teens,

those early plums,

those early apples,

those early jujubes

died in battle at Pohang,

died on the central front.

The land the South recovered, wherever the battle ended,

was all graves.

She had many stories in her.

Millipedes dropped from the rotten thatched roof of her hut.

Falling raindrops

were part of her family.

Hard times were her strength.

Neither cholera

nor other common diseases visited her.

Even the ghosts

disliked poverty. The daytime moon was one of her family.

Drinking a cup of water,

she tried to forget a host of stories

in the Japanese colonial period,

when moonlit nights were bright in the ruined nation

and then again in the age of a divided Korea.

Once, Eon-nyeon from the village opposite,

came by after gathering greens and said:

‘When you die

we’ll make the memorial offerings for you.’

‘I don’t need that,’ she said

with a smile, her first in a very long time.

If she had no teeth

she still had gums.

Her gummy smile was all she had.

There were children laughing in the Pyeongtaek fields,

and girls singing, too.

In that hallucinatory world,

there were tender yellow-green

baby rice plants

in the freshly planted paddy-fields.

Now it was the turn of sunlight,

of water.

After three rounds of weeding the rice would ripen.

They were the fields of the Republic of Korea,

fields of the People’s Republic,

then of the Republic of Korea again,

then of the People’s Republic again,

then of the Republic of Korea again.

After American jets flew over, the fields were quiet.

Don’t be sad.

Your descendants will continue forever because of these fields.

The rice is ripening in the scorching heat.

On the dirt bank of one field, homeless dogs are coupling.

Gwon Pyeong-geun, aged 47.

Yi Seok-u, aged 26.

Gwon put on the suit long left hanging unworn:

now he was a gentleman of the harbor.

Yi appeared wearing a clean shirt

without his usual People’s Guard’s armband: a lovely young man.

On September 8, 1948

they joined the crowd out to welcome the American military

landing at Incheon harbour,

a zone still being guarded by Japanese police.

There, Gwon Pyeong-geun

and Yi Seok-u were shot dead by a Japanese policeman.

Rejoicing at Liberation,

and gone out to welcome

the liberating army, the allies,

they were killed by the last tatters of Japanese imperialism.

Nay, it was liberation that killed them.

Gweon Pyeong-geun had been chairman of the central committee

of the Incheon branch of the Korea Workers’ Union;

Yi Seok-u had been a guard in the people’s militia.

Regarding their corpses, the Americans said

that the Japanese police were right to fire.

That evening, the Korea Workers’ Union

shouted anti-American slogans

along with anti-Japanese slogans

and tore down from the wall

the Stars and Stripes.

In prehistoric times, forty thousand years ago,

as people were moving their homes

one by one from caves to huts,

when a father was killed while hunting

his son

brought him home on his back,

put the body up in a tree

then offered flowers on the ground beneath.

Forty thousand years later

in Jinan, North Jeolla Province,

a family made a grave for a man who died in the war

then a four-year-old boy offered flowers.

Behind him, his mother wept.

A few wild chrysanthemums.

Today, again, General de Gaulle was sitting in the café.

The faces around the stove in Café Geosang

behind the old Hwasin department store in Jong-ro, Seoul

turned red

around the hot stove.

His name was Kim Cheol-sun;

his nickname, General de Gaulle;

his occupation, none;

his marital status was unclear –

sometimes he was said to have a son, sometimes not.

More than once every day

the words ‘General de Gaulle’ were sure to come tumbling

out of his mouth, which looked like a turtle’s.

‘In France, General de Gaulle got rid of every traitor,

those who fawned upon Hitler,

those who fawned upon the Vichy government.

He executed some,

sentenced others to life imprisonment,

deprived more than 600,000 of civic rights.

But in this bloody Republic of Korea,

pro-Japanese people have become patriots,

while patriots are blamed as traitors,

as reds.

Where on earth is our national spirit?

Of what country is Dr Syngman Rhee president?’

A few days after,

General de Gaulle failed to appear in the café.

An outstanding bill of eight hundred hwan

began to gather dust.

Humanity became a tool of barbarity.

Humanity was a sacrificial offering.

During the Japanese colonial period

talented Lee In-su studied English literature

at the University of London,

then came back. After Liberation

he was the pride of Korea University’s English department.

One English teacher from Mokpo,

eager to meet him,

even made the two days’ train journey up to Seoul.

Lee In-su was the pride of Korea’s English studies,

he looked cool after he’d shaved,

he was laconic at all times.

Lee In-su had a wife and children.

He moved between home and school.

War broke out.

He was not able to leave Seoul.

During the three months under the People’s Republic

Kim Dong-seok, who had previously gone North, came back down.

At his urging

Lee In-su made English broadcasts aimed at the American forces.

Even Byeon Yeong-tae, the future premier who had taught English in China,

could not match his English.

After Seoul was recaptured

Lee was arrested.

Kim Seong-su, the founder of Korea University,

addressed a petition to President Syngman Rhee.

Many people

tried to save his life.

Defence minister Shin Seong-mo had him swiftly executed.

Lee In-su was a brilliant scholar

when he was in England.

Shin Seong-mo had been a ship’s captain amidst wild seas.

He always considered Lee In-su his rival.

From early days,

small Shin Seong-mo

had thought only of getting rid of tall Lee In-su,