And soon enough, more misery arrived . . .
On a nice sunny day in the early spring of 1968, a truck came rumbling into our village. Then another, and another. Suddenly, a military unit raced into the village and came to a stop. One of them, someone who appeared to be the leader, ordered us to gather.
He surveyed us skeptically and declared, “This village will now serve as our garrison.”
Then he walked away.
Garrison? A garrison usually describes a fortified place where soldiers are housed when they are sent in to protect an area. But what were we being protected against? Were we about to get invaded? We didn’t even know the name of the military unit.
The head of the village rushed up to us and told us that these soldiers were under the direct command of Kim Chan-bon. But we got no more explanation than that. The soldiers were there, protecting our area from God knew what for God knew how long.
I soon discovered that this Kim Chan-bon character and Kim Il-sung had been brothers-in-arms. Kim Chan-bon had become a powerful figure in the party and the author of some major military innovations. Everyone around me kept dwelling on that, but it still didn’t explain what he was doing in our village with his merry band of men.
A few days passed. Everyone was on tenterhooks, the tension in the air like electricity. Everyone watched their back and chose their words carefully. One morning as I was about to leave for work, I caught sight of a couple of soldiers approaching our house.
I immediately told my mother and sisters to hide inside, and then I blocked the front door to stop them. A scary-looking soldier came up to me.
“Pack up your things and get out of here immediately!” he said.
“Why? Could you please explain?” I asked.
My heart was pounding and my blood was boiling, but I tried to appear calm.
“Why?” he barked. “You ask me why? Your songbun, of course. Surely you know you’re a ‘hostile,’ the lowest of the low. Now fuck off!”
And with that, he turned and stomped off with the other soldier standing nearby. And just like that, they were gone.
We weren’t alone. Several other families were also told to leave. According to our orders, we had to move to a village called Pyungyang-ri, several miles away. So we packed up our few belongings and set off. When we got there, there was no house for us. We found shelter in a vacant house that had been built for a farm laborer. We had no idea what had happened to him; he’d probably collapsed and died of exhaustion and despair.
Luckily, I could continue my work as a tractor driver. My father and sisters started working on the local agricultural team. And my mother? She continued to go off into the mountains in search of weeds just as she had before.
Several members of Kim Chan-bon’s military unit came to our new village too. Their behavior was positively criminal. They stole animals that the laborers had taken great care of, and killed and ate them. They filched sweet corn and potatoes from the village’s food storehouse. They ransacked the farm-equipment factory and made off with motors and power sawmills on their trucks. They seduced young women by promising to marry them, with no intention of doing so, of course. We all loathed and despised them.
The higher party officials in Pyungyang-ri and our old village disappeared. Kim Chan-bon’s boys were in control now. It became so bad that we were terrified to go outside even in the middle of the day. Soldiers picked fights with people for no reason and beat them severely.
Our tumbledown house was almost able to keep out the rain, but the wind rattled through the place constantly. It was still the snowy season, and the temperature dropped well below freezing at night. We kept a stove going all night. And thank goodness for the wind since it meant we didn’t have to worry about carbon-monoxide poisoning.
There wasn’t a mattress to be found, so the six of us just huddled around the stove. First we warmed our backs; then we warmed our stomachs, repeatedly twisting and turning all night. Occasionally, we actually fell asleep for a little while. Because we were always changing positions throughout the night, my father and I often bumped heads. Sometimes we burst out laughing like raving lunatics. If you suffer long enough, it almost becomes funny, and you can find yourself laughing at the most miserable situations. I guess it’s a kind of hysteria.
Once I woke up in the middle of the night and discovered that Masako, my youngest sister, was missing. I panicked and dashed out of the house. I saw her footsteps in the snow and followed them all the way back to our old village. Sure enough, there she was, standing in front of our old house, sobbing and sobbing.
As soon as she saw me, she said, “This is our house! I don’t want to leave it!”
I hauled her up onto my back and trudged off to Pyungyang-ri under the moonlight. The snow glistened and sparkled, masking the desolation of the scene before me. The cold cut through my tattered clothes, but Masako’s weight kept me warm. All her sobbing had tired her out, and she soon fell asleep on my back. I don’t think I ever felt as close to her as I did that night. Her desperation, her fear, her exhaustion—all of it seeped through her thin clothes and straight into my heart.
Kim Chan-bon’s thugs continued to oppress us and treat all the villagers like their personal slaves. We had to serve them whatever food they demanded—and of course, it was never enough. They always made the same preposterous claims: “We fight for our country! We need more!”
I wanted to reply, “Battle? What battle? There is no battle. What are you talking about? All you do is spread misery and despair and terrorize decent, hardworking people. And how much do you think we get to eat? The people who actually produce the food while you go around beating people up?”
But of course I kept mum. They’d have killed me if I’d spoken out.
Amazingly, even in these direst of times, I suddenly fell in love. Her name was Rim Su-yon. She was nineteen, and she was the prettiest young woman I’d ever seen. I met her on the farm where she took care of rabbits kept for breeding. I used to deliver grass there on my tractor-driving route. I had never experienced those feelings for anyone before, and I didn’t know what to do. Every time I tried to talk to her, she left me tongue-tied, so I just avoided talking to her altogether. But I thought about her constantly.
One day, when I was unloading the grass, she came up and offered to help. We worked in total silence. The following day, she came back and helped me again—and the day after too. One day she finally broke the silence and asked me if I was going to participate in an upcoming soccer competition. I told her I couldn’t because I didn’t own any shorts. The next time I saw her, she gave me a pair of shorts that she had made out of white nylon. I turned to her and blurted out, “I love you—so will you marry me?” Quite the pickup line.
She looked at me timidly. “Could you get my mother’s consent?” she asked. Now I knew she liked me too. I felt my heart swell with hope.
The following day, I gathered my courage and went to her house. Her father had passed away a long time ago, so I told Su-yon’s mother that I wanted to marry her. To be fair, she didn’t interrupt me or cut me short but heard me out with great tenderness.
Su-yon stood next to her, hanging on my every word. I can picture her even now. She was blushing, and her ears had gone red.
Her mother remained silent for a moment, looking grave. My heart was racing, beating so fast, it felt like it was going to gallop away without me.