Ko Un - Maninbo - Peace & War

Jin Mu-gil’s cousin in Okjeong-ri, a tall girl,

locked herself in her room

and huddled all night in the closet, a cripple, a hunchback.

In January 1911

having lost their nation,

the people left, fleeing from the Japanese:

the first exodus.

In 1912

more people left, fleeing from the Japanese:

the second exodus.

In the summer of 1913

more people left, fleeing from the Japanese:

the third exodus.

And a fourth exodus, fifth, sixth…

during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931,

even during the Pacific War in 1942.

They left

with one pot,

one blanket,

and a sick child on their backs.

Farmers who for centuries had never once thought of leaving

left.

Tomorrow, when they hope to regain their country,

and today, with its starvation, embraced one other,

and they were hopeless on the long mountain ridges

while the sun set.

Amidst such processions

a boy was growing up

who would later throw a bomb

at the Japanese emperor.

Revering Yi Bong-chang

who was executed after throwing a bomb at the Japanese emperor,

he changed his name from Nam Ji-su to Nam Bong-chang,

made a bomb, and was caught in the act.

A little boat was floating on the sea off Byeonsan.

During the war

sun-bronzed Gang Dong-su

put out to sea

to draw his father’s spirit out of water.

Bailing out the boat,

Father

Father

Father, come on out.

In the summer of 1950

Gang Byeon-hwan, a guard at the office of the People’s Committee

in Buan, North Jeolla province,

was thrown into the sea with all the other red collaborators

as the communists retreated northward.

Father, father, don’t be afraid, come on out quickly.

By the sea in Asan,

South Chungcheong province,

rose a hill that looked about to collapse,

a hill

that had thawed after freezing.

Ah, that child,

Kim Tae-seop,

left all alone and

always crying.

A boy in his early teens

with his head completely shaved

passed by some clumps of goosefoot.

Following him

was one hollow-bellied goat.

Not a boat was in sight on the evening sea.

Not a tree on the hills.

His parents, reds, had been arrested and had died.

Their only child

was sent to his maternal uncle’s house.

He grew up working in the paddies

and in the fields.

Today

he has walked a long way

and is gazing at the sea.

Of father,

of mother,

no sign.

The Soejeongji field,

the Bawipaegi field,

the Galmoe field,

the Jaechongji field,

then over the hill, the Bangattal field,

the Bangjuk field.

Work was unending throughout the year.

First daughter, Chi-sun was adept at housekeeping,

a good worker.

Drawing water at daybreak,

cooking,

pounding the mortar,

boiling cattle feed,

carrying food to the field-workers,

sweeping the yard,

removing the ashes,

catching insects in the kitchen garden,

doing laundry,

weaving straw sacks on rainy days,

patching old clothes by lamplight

in the evenings.

She had no time to catch a cold,

no darkness in which to look up at stars.

She wasn’t born to be a person,

she was born just to be a labourer.

One wish

lay in her heart:

never to marry

into a household with a lot of work.

Then, thanks to a matchmaker, she married

a son of the miller, of all people.

From early morning,

together with one errand-girl,

she measured out the weight of rice

in the dust-filled mill

and in the evenings

kept watch over the watermelon and melon patches.

She wasn’t married as a person

but as a labourer.

Her husband was an invalid,

a consumptive.

She had to prepare drinking tables

for her father-in-law

three or four times a day.

Worn out after such a life, she watched

her husband, his health improving,

take a concubine, a new labourer.

Intent on restoring Korea’s independence by all means,

he went into exile in Shanghai.

One day at dawn, Yi Jong-nak

woke from a dream where families back home

dressed in white were waving their hands.

After that he fell sick.

He went to a German hospital,

to a Japanese hospital.

He did not want to die

in a Japanese hospital,

so he moved to one in the French concession.

One day,

An Chang-ho visited him in hospital.

He told him to believe in Christianity.

Sick, Yi Jong-nak replied

that he could not believe in order to live;

once he got well he would believe with a sound mind.

One day

he said quietly to his comrade Jeong Hwa-am,

‘Hwa-am, I’m dying. Go on fighting for me as well.’

Clutching his comrade’s hand

he died.

He did nothing really to contribute to the independence movement,

not one act to speak of.

His forearms were so strong an awl could not pierce them.

He was good at the violin, good at sports,

good at singing at drinking parties.

Yi Jong-nak stood briefly on a small corner of his times, then went away.

Even a wooden shack had to have a lock.

Anyone who went to sleep leaving the front gate open was a fool.

Anyone who went to sleep without locking the door to his room was a fool.

Midsummer evenings,

while people were killing and being killed on the front,

in the rear thieves made their rounds by night.

Everyone had to have a padlock.

Safely locked in,

they had to hear in their dreams

the waves of the night sea.

A dusty wind was blowing in Gongdeok-dong in Seoul.

At the entrance to the alley

a seller of locks and keys

walked by, metal locks jangling from his clothes,

dressed in clothes heavy with clumps of iron.

Buy my keys!

Buy my locks!

Keys repaired. Locks repaired.

Buy my locks!

You can trust only to locks.

Buy my locks, buy my keys!

Two passing middle-school boys asked:

‘Hey, Mister!

What’s better, keyhole or key?’

The lock-seller laughed.

‘Hey kids, I don’t know,

go home and ask your parents.’

Not one child was crying.

On the plaza in front of Busan station in 1952

there were children five-years-old,

six-years-old,

eight-years-old,

and some you could not tell:

five? six? eight?

Some bigger ones were eleven.

Some smaller ones were nine.

The children, wearing old woollen hats,

had been sent from Daegu, were headed

for Zion Orphanage at Songdo, Busan.

Gap-toothed children

deaf children

children with long trails of snot.

When they passed through tunnels

they were covered with coal smoke

in trains without windows

None was crying.

Crying was cowardly. Crying was shameful.

One of those children

was named Yi Yohan.

He had been given the family name of a pastor at a Daegu church.

His Christian name was that of John the Evangelist.

He knew nothing of his mother,

nothing of his father.

Later, this child

grew up to be one of the policemen who opened fire