Thou shalt value the political life thou wast given by the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung, and loyally repay his great trust and thoughtfulness with heightened political awareness and skill.
Thou shalt establish strong organizational regulations so that the entire party, nation, and military move as one under the one and only leadership of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung.
Thou shalt pass down the great achievement of the revolution by the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung from generation to generation, inheriting and completing it even unto the very end.
Much later, I checked out the Ten Commandments of the Abrahamic religions. You know how many of them contain a reference to God? About five. So it seems that God could learn a thing or two from the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung, peace be upon him.
In practical terms, the new “speed strategy” meant that we had to create farms wherever there was soil and turn mountains into terraced fields. To achieve this, more laborers were needed.
In the spring of 1970, I was sent to work at a cooperative farm near Chongpyong-ri. I drove a tractor with a trailer carrying three other laborers, jolting our way slowly to our destination.
When we got to the farm, we boarded a military truck. After thirty minutes or so, we came to a deep valley where soldiers and farm laborers were already hard at work on the side of the mountain. We reported our arrival and were issued work pants. This was the very first new pair of pants I had received since coming to North Korea. I took off my ratty pants and put on the new pair. I was elated. You’d have thought I’d won the lottery.
At five o’clock the next morning, a bugle sounded to wake us from our long hut, which was designed like a military barracks. After roll call, we formed a line and ran down to the river at the heart of the valley. We broke through the frozen river with rocks, dipped our hands in, and washed our faces. The icy water stung my face and instantly numbed my hands. After that, we ran to the army post. Wonder of wonders, we were given white rice in the mess hut. I hadn’t tasted white rice for ages. In fact, the sight of that white rice nearly brought several of us to tears. I didn’t want to leave the mess hall, ever. But we had to get to work.
Our job was to remove the rocks and piles of earth that the military had dug out of the mountainside as they worked to build tunnels throughout the area. The tunnels were being built to house gunpowder and munitions factories. During the Korean War, these plants had been destroyed by American aerial bombardments, so it made sense to build their replacements underground. However, the power lines, also underground, didn’t work properly. The voltage was too low, so some factories couldn’t operate. It goes without saying that clearing away the rubble left by the tunnel construction was backbreaking work.
After a few weeks, I got a telegram from Kan Ki-son, Eiko’s husband. WEDDING JAN. 25. COME HOME BY 24TH, it said. I had no idea whose wedding it was. Then I thought that maybe something terrible had happened at home, something that couldn’t be addressed explicitly, and the wedding reference was a code. So many tragedies had befallen our family that I always assumed the worst.
So I returned to my workplace in the mountains of sand and rubble and told the guy in charge about the telegram. Over the sound of dynamite exploding and bits drilling into bedrock, he shouted, “You can go.” So I dashed off, hopped in the tractor, and drove back to Dong Chong-ri as quickly as the vehicle would go. I mulled over all my worst fears as I drove. I didn’t feel relieved to be leaving, despite the difficulty of the work and the harsh conditions. At least there was guaranteed food. Along with my new pair of pants, I’d been given a new pair of military boots—the first footgear that actually fit me since I’d arrived in North Korea.
When I got home, the wedding preparations were in the works. There were some rice cakes, meat and fish, sake, and a few other offerings. I didn’t know what was going on, so I just stood there, taking it all in. Then, Kan’s mother came up to me. “Great news! It’s your wedding day,” she said.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. To say I was surprised doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. I was dumbfounded. Paralyzed with shock.
The woman I was apparently about to marry was called Lee He-suku. Her father was the vice manager of a power plant in Hamhung City. Her eyesight was terrible, and . . . well, I’m sorry to say this, but she wasn’t exactly beautiful.
“Do you think that just because I’m a returnee and very poor, I can’t find my own wife? Is that why you’ve found one for me?”
My father was sitting next to Kan’s mother. I soon learned that he was the one who’d asked her to find me a wife. But even he seemed to think this setup was too cruel.
The truth gradually came out. It was He-suku’s stepmother who was in such a hurry for the wedding to take place. This marriage was a great chance for the woman to get rid of her stepdaughter. I later learned that the woman had never liked He-suku and often bullied and tormented her. Kan’s mother didn’t know anything about that, so I can’t really blame her. I just didn’t know what to do. In the end, it quite frankly felt like too much trouble to put a stop to it. I simply didn’t have the energy to put up a fight, and my options were quite limited. So I went through with it. I was twenty-three years old.
A few days after the wedding, I was preparing breakfast when my father came up to me.
“I realize now that it was very wrong of me to ask Kan’s mother to find a woman for you. You’re my only son, and I want you to be happy. You’d better get divorced and find the right woman.”
“She hasn’t got anywhere to go. It’s done now. Let her stay with me. I’ll look after her,” I said.
“As you wish. Take care of her, then. But I can’t accept her as my daughter-in-law. And if you’re going to live with her, you’ll have to find somewhere else to live.”
How’s that for irony?
I can’t say I loved He-suku. I hardly knew her. I soon discovered that her stepmother had kept her locked up in a room at home, so she’d never really learned to do anything. She couldn’t cook, and she spent many hours daydreaming. But I couldn’t imagine living on my own, especially in such a hard world, and she desperately needed my help. So we decided to make a go of it and move in together.
My mother came up to me when I was packing my belongings.
“Your destiny is always so hard,” she said, a sad expression on her face. I didn’t know what to say. I hated to leave her, but I had to fulfill my obligations to my new wife.
I found an old couple in Dong Chong-ri who had a spare room they said we could use. Of course, there were conditions. We had to give them part of our food rations, help collect firewood, do some household chores, and the like. It wasn’t long before the old couple started increasing their demands. Worst of all, what they wanted most of all was anything of value from Japan. They couldn’t understand why, as a returnee, I didn’t have anything. But of course, we had nothing to give them.
That first year was a big adjustment. In addition to my regular farm job, I now had to look after our landlords. In addition, my wife became pregnant. I worried constantly about how I was going to provide for a child when we were barely surviving ourselves. But I had no answers to that question. I just kept going to work, day after day, hoping for some kind of miracle.
About a year after we’d gotten married, I came home from work one day and suddenly felt dizzy. I lay down on the floor and started bleeding from my nose and ears. The bleeding wouldn’t stop, and my wife panicked. I started losing consciousness, so I asked her to call for help.
I woke up in the hospital two days later. When I opened my eyes, I discovered my parents’ worried faces gazing down at me. My nose and ears were stuffed with gauze. I looked around for He-suku, but she wasn’t there.
“Your wife was so shocked when she saw you lose consciousness that she apparently—she—er—ran away,” my father said.
I started to cry.