Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story (3 page)

F
OUR

S
he’s wearing dark
blue slacks frayed at the hem and a thin cotton sweater over a clean white blouse. Her thick, grey hair falls down her back. She has eyes that are kind, but intense. Her skin is amazing. The only flaws I see are a small scar on her upper lip and another one over her eye.

“Good morning, ma’am,” I say with a half bow.

She examines me with an odd smile. She steps aside and says, “You may come in.”

I remember to take off my shoes and step inside a small, clean apartment not much bigger than our den back home. I smell the sweet, spicy scent of
kimchi
. There’s a low dresser drawer, a rust-stained sink, a ceramic, double-burner stove, and a miniature refrigerator. On a cheap low table below the apartment’s only window is a purple flower blossom in a glass bowl. Next to it, in a plain wooden frame, are two photographs.

She points at the table and tells me to sit. Her posture is perfect, like I’ve seen in upper-class Korean women on our tour. She doesn’t take her eyes off me and I feel that she’s sizing me up. I wish I’d spent more time on my hair and worn a dress instead of jeans.

“You must have been disappointed you couldn’t meet your birthmother,” she says. Her English is flawless. She has no accent at all.

“Yes,” I nod. “How did you know about that?”

“I volunteer at the orphanage. I have for twenty years now.”

Twenty years? It was a little over twenty years ago that I was brought to the orphanage. This is starting to feel creepy and I’m already regretting coming here. Maybe I can make this quick. I tell her I don’t think I should have the comb and that I came to return it. She says I might change my mind when I hear her story. I ask her why but she doesn’t answer and continues to stare at me. I fidget in my chair. I realize I don’t know her name. I ask her what it is.

“My name is Hong, Ja-hee. And I am your maternal grandmother.”

“Seriously?” I gasp. I take a long look at her. When a birth child looks into her parent’s faces, she sees herself. She has her mother’s eyes or her father’s chin. But for twenty years, I never had that connection to anyone. Until now. Even though she’s sixty years older than I am, the resemblance is clear. She’s petite like me and has my high cheekbones. I’m thrilled that for the first time in my life, I see myself in someone else. Suddenly, I’m not at all anxious to leave.

I try to remember the right way to behave toward a Korean grandparent. “I’m glad to meet you, ma’am,” I say with my eyes low like I remember they taught us in our tour orientation. “What would be the right way to address you?”

“Since we have just met, perhaps you will feel most comfortable calling me Mrs. Hong.”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Hong,” I say.

“I understand your adoptive mother died last year.”

The image of my dying mother comes rushing in and I feel guilty for the selfish joy I had just seconds earlier at meeting someone from my birth family. I look at my hands and nod.

“It is difficult to lose loved ones. Isn’t it?” she says.

“She loved me,” I reply. “And I loved her, too. It was an awful loss. I guess that’s why I came here, to Korea, to meet my birthmother. They told me she died giving birth to me. What happened? What was she like? Do I have any brothers and sisters? Who is my birthfather?”

Mrs. Hong turns to the window. She keeps her chin high, but her eyes turn soft. She isn’t smiling anymore. “You have many questions, Ja-young.”

“Ja-young? Oh, that’s my birth name. My parents named me Anna.”

“Very well, Anna. You say you have the comb. You can give it to me now.”

I get the package containing the comb from my pocket and set it on the table. She stares at the lump of cloth but doesn’t reach for it. She waits a minute, then, she takes the package and slowly unfolds the cloth. When she sees the comb, she brings her other hand to her mouth and the lines around her eyes deepen. I think she might cry. “I don’t take it out much anymore,” she says. “It brings back too many painful memories.”

I move to the front of my chair. “Excuse me for asking Mrs. Hong, but if you don’t want it, why don’t you just sell it? You could probably get a lot for it and move to somewhere… you know, more appropriate.”

“I was tempted many times,” she says without looking up. “But I could not. It is too important to sell, Ja-young… Anna. And, you must have it.”

“But Dr. Kim—he’s our tour director—he said I shouldn’t take it. He said there’s a law or something against heirlooms leaving the country.”

Her eyes snap to me. “Did you show this to him?”

“I… I had to,” I say. “He saw I had it.”

“What did he say? Tell me exactly.”

“He said I should give it to him so he could give it to the right people.”

Mrs. Hong clucks. “That is a problem. He might know what it is.” She quickly wraps the comb in the cloth and sets the package on the table.

“Anna,” she says firmly, “I asked you to come here because I want you to do two things. First, you must hear my story and that of the comb with the two-headed dragon. You will know what the second thing is after you have heard my story.”

“Of course,” I say. “I want to hear your story, but I don’t want to get in trouble.”

”Listen to my story, and you will know what is right.”

I let out a sigh. I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. But why not stay? She’s my birth-grandmother after all, and the tour won’t be back from Itaewon until mid-afternoon. Maybe she has some answers for me. And what trouble could I possibly get into? I mean, if it gets too intense, I could just walk away and leave the comb with Mrs. Hong. Right?

Outside, it’s turning hot and humid again. A breeze kicks up dirt on the street. The cab. I forgot about the cab. Fifteen dolla’ American every fifteen minute. I grab my purse and tell Mrs. Hong I have a cab outside and should let it go. I have to give him a time to come back. “How long will your story take?” I ask.

“It’s a long story,” she says, picking up the photographs from the table. “A very long story.”

I say I’ll tell the cabbie to come back at 3:00. I wait for her to say okay but she just stares at her photos and says nothing. I tell her I’ll be right back.

I go to the door, pull on my shoes, and run out to the cab. The driver rolls down the window when I get there.

He tells me he’s been waiting twenty minutes and I owe him thirty dollars. “Fifteen dolla’ American every fifteen minute,” he says.

I take thirty dollars from my purse and give it to him. I tell him I need to stay and ask if he can come back to pick me up. He says okay and asks for a time.

“Three o’clock,” I answer.

“Okay, three o’clock,” he says. “If I wait, fifteen dolla’ Amer…”

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I say. “Fifteen dolla’ American every fifteen minute.” The driver flashes his bad teeth in an amused grin and drives off.

*

Mrs. Hong’s apartment door is open when I get back. She is standing by the table framed by the light from the window. She has changed her blouse and slacks for a yellow
hanbok
made from what looks like silk. It has long, loose sleeves and a hem a few inches above the floor. She has braided her hair and pinned it up with an ornate
binyeo
. She invites me in. “Granddaughter,
unlinahyi
. Are you ready to hear my story?”

I nod and say yes. I feel like I’m in a dream.

“Come,” she says. “Sit.”

I sit at the low table again. She moves the flower blossom and the photographs to the center of the table, next to the package containing the comb. She sits straight, with her hands in her lap. She takes a long breath and starts in a voice clear and strong.

“A young soldier on a rusty motorcycle delivered the orders from the Japanese military command in Sinuiju…”

F
IVE

September 1943. North P’yŏngan Province, Northern Korea.

A
young soldier
on a rusty motorcycle delivered the orders from the Japanese military command in Sinuiju. I was the first to see him, motoring up the hill toward our house. As he came near, I wanted to run outside and throw a rock at him. I wished I was strong like a boy or older—I was only fourteen—so I could throw a big rock and knock him off his motorcycle back down the hill.

I had seen him before. He had come the previous fall to deliver orders for my father. The orders said Father was to report the next day to the military headquarters in Sinuiju so he could work in Pyongyang in the steel mill there. The next morning, the sun had not yet climbed over the aspen trees and the morning air was cold when Father said good-bye to me, my older sister Soo-hee, and our mother. I think Mother cried a little as Father walked past our persimmon tree with his head held high and his orders in his pocket.

I loved my
appa
. He let me get away with things my mother never would. But after that day, I never saw him again.

As the soldier came near, I quickly gathered the
nappa
cabbage I had been washing. I wrapped it in a large cloth and stuffed it under the sink. I ran to the back door.

“Soo-hee!” I said to my sister who was digging up clay
onggis
of rice and vegetables we had hidden behind the house. “The soldier on the motorcycle is coming!”

Soo-hee stood and looked down the road. When she saw him she said, “Stall him.” She dropped to the ground and began to push the
onggis
back into their holes.

I ran back inside the house and watched the soldier from the kitchen window. I hoped he would drive past to another house up the road, but he stopped and leaned his motorcycle against the persimmon tree. He took off his gloves and slapped the dust out of them across his legs. He reached into his leather satchel and pulled out a yellow envelope. He came up to the front of our house.

“Hello!” he called out in Japanese. “I have orders from military command. Come out! Come out!”

I pushed aside the gray tarp where our beautiful carved oak door had once hung. I folded my arms across my chest. “Go away,” I said in Japanese.

The soldier eyed me. “Is that any way to treat me?” he asked. “I’ve come all this way to deliver your orders.” He held out the envelope. “Here, take them.”

“You should throw them into the Yalu River instead of bothering us with them,” I said not moving an inch. “Why do we always have to do what you say?”

The soldier grinned and leaned against our house. “Because you are Japanese subjects. If you don’t follow our orders, you will be shot.”

“It would be better to be shot,” I said.

The soldier’s grin dropped to a scowl. “Soon, you will learn how to serve Japan.”

I was about to tell him how I felt about serving Japan when Soo-hee came from the back, wiping her hands on her dress. “Yes? What is it?” she asked in Korean. She couldn’t speak Japanese like I could.

“
Konnichi wa
,” the soldier said. “I see you haven’t learned to speak Japanese yet,” he said switching to Korean. “Perhaps you should take lessons from your disrespectful little sister.”

Soo-hee bowed her head. “I’m sorry for my sister. She is young.”

“She is not so young,” the soldier replied, eyeing me.

He straightened and lifted his chin high the way the Japanese do. “Your landlord is not pleased with the harvest this year,” he said. “You are in debt to him now.” He held out the envelope. “These orders are for you and your sister. They are what you must do to repay him. Take them.” With a small bow, Soo-hee took the orders.

The soldier looked at me in a way that made me glad I hadn’t told him what I thought about serving Japan. “You better take care of your little sister,” he said to Soo-hee. “She could get you all in trouble.” He gave a quick nod, and then went to his motorcycle. He turned it around and started it with a kick. He drove away down the road followed by a curl of dust.

“What is it?” I asked over the motorcycle’s fading snarl. “What do the papers say?”

Soo-hee tucked the envelope inside her dress. “Don’t worry about them, little sister,” she said. “We must start soaking the vegetables soon or they won’t be ready to make
kimchi
in the morning.” She headed to the back of the house.

“But
Onni
, Big Sister, the soldier said they were orders for you and me. What do they say?”

“Hush, Ja-hee!” Soo-hee said turning on her heel. “You must learn to do the right thing. Mother will read them tonight when she comes home from the factory.
Ummah
should see them first. Now go back to your chores.”

Soo-hee always sounded like Mother, and I didn’t like being told what to do. So I stomped inside the house and pulled the
nappa
cabbage from under the sink. As I prepared it for the
kimchi
, I worried about the orders tucked away in Soo-hee’s dress. I guessed they were orders to work in a factory during the winter months. When our skinny Japanese landlord with the big ears had come to collect that year’s crop, he had told us the Japanese needed more workers to support their war efforts. “We are winning glorious battles against the Americans!” he had said climbing inside his truck filled with the vegetables we had worked so hard to grow. “If you do what you’re told, the filthy Americans will be pushed back across the ocean, never to trouble us again.” He started the truck and eventually found the right gear. As the truck began to roll down the road, he stuck his head out the window and I thought his ears might flap in the wind. “Then, you will be rewarded for the sacrifices you have made,” he said. “You will be glad you are Japanese subjects!”

*

By the time the sun had set over the fields in the west and the evening turned cold, Soo-hee and I had two pots of vegetables soaking in brine. We had the biggest farm for miles around, but we didn’t have enough to feed us through the winter. Then, Mother would have to beg for an extra sack of rice, just like our neighbors did every year.

It seemed like we had to wait forever for Mother to come home. Soo-hee and I sat at a low table and ate
nappa
cabbage and a handful of rice for our evening meal. Our house had a large main room with a kitchen, eating area and family sitting area. It was here where Mother taught us how to read and write. In the back of the kitchen, an iron cook stove fed heat to the home’s
ondol
under-floor heating system. The floor was wood plank, polished smooth from the feet of generations of my ancestors. In the kitchen were two wooden stools, and in the eating area a low table with mats on the floor. Mine was the blue one. Sliding latticed doors separated a sleeping room from the main room. The sleeping room had straw mats on the floor and an ornate cabinet that Mother had refused to sell, even though Father said we should. I was glad she didn’t.

When we finished eating, Soo-hee set some rice and vegetables aside for Mother. She would soon be walking up the road with the other women from the uniform factory where she worked every day since the harvest. Mother was very smart—too smart to work in a uniform factory. Our house had many books that she and
Appa
were very proud of. We had books in Chinese and Japanese as well as a few in Hangul, even though the Japanese banned them. We had the great novels, the teachings of Confucius, Chinese poetry. Even western literature like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Dickens translated into Hangul or Chinese or Japanese. It was wonderful. After a long day of work in the fields, the four of us would read until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any more. It was how I learned to speak Japanese and Chinese so well.

But Soo-hee wasn’t good with languages like I was and that was a problem. The provincial government insisted that all Koreans speak Japanese. I didn’t like Japanese—it was rough and harsh sounding—but Mother insisted we speak it when they were around and she told me I had to help Soo-hee. So to pass time, Soo-hee and I sat on the great room floor and I tried to help her learn Japanese.

“What is the word for sheep?” I asked.

Soo-hee thought for a while and then shook her head.

I snorted. “Why is it so hard for you to learn these? ‘
Hitzuji’
is the word for sheep. What about ‘tree’?”

“I know that one,” Soo-hee answered. “It’s ‘
moku’
.”

“Yes!” I said. “See? It’s easy! You look for patterns, things you already know that you can connect the words to. And to pronounce them right, you pretend you’re Japanese. It’s like acting.”

“Do you mean like this?” Soo-hee stood and puffed out her chest. “You must speak Japanese!” she said in Korean.

That made me giggle and I stood too. “Yes, like that!” I said. “But do it in Japanese.” I puffed out my chest as Soo-hee had done. “You are now Japanese subjects!” I said in Japanese, wagging my finger. “You must learn to obey!”

Both of us laughed, careful to cover our mouths. But our laughing died quickly and Soo-hee turned melancholy. “You will have to speak Japanese for me, little sister,” she said. “I can understand most of what they say, but I can’t bring up the words when I have to.”

“Why do I have to do it?” I said. “Why can I learn it and you can’t? The white crane must have left you at the door. You’re not my real sister.”

Soo-hee smiled at me, but it was an embarrassed smile. I had hurt my sister’s
kibun
—her feelings and honor. I quickly said, “I’m sorry,
Onni
.”

“Ja-hee,” Soo-hee said gently, “you are smart like
Ummah
. You were born in the year of the dragon. You are luckier than me, and prettier, too. You must be careful with these things you have been given.”

“I’m just mad that we always have to do what they say,” I said.

My
onni
put her arm around me. “Don’t be stubborn, little sister. We have to be careful with the Japanese.”

“I hate them,” I said.

*

A full moon was rising over the aspen trees when Mother trudged up the road, grimy from work. Soo-hee and I pulled aside the tarpaulin and ran to greet her. Our mother, her name was Suh Bo-sun, was dressed in her old wool coat and faded purple scarf. She smiled when she saw us. “My babies, ye
deulah
,” she said. “How are my babies today?” Mother always called us ‘her babies.’

“
Ummah
!
Ummah
!” I blurted out. “The soldier came on his motorcycle today with orders. He said they are for Soo-hee and me.”

“Ja-hee!” Soo-hee scolded. “We must first show our mother respect!”

I sighed, but bowed to
Ummah
with Soo-hee. Then Mother led us inside the house. “Orders?” she said. “What do they say?”

“Soo-hee said we couldn’t look at them until you got home,” I said. “Can we look at them now?”

“Little sister, you must learn to hold your tongue!” Soo-hee scolded. “
Ummah
is hungry. Let her eat.”

Mother slowly removed her scarf and sat at the low table without taking off her coat. Soo-hee placed the rice and vegetables we had made in front of her.

“Let me see the orders, Soo-hee,” Mother said, ignoring the food.

“
Ummah
, you should eat first. We can read them later.”

“Daughter!” Mother scolded. Then, more gently she said, “Let me see the orders.”

Soo-hee bowed. She was always more respectful than I was. She reached inside her dress and pulled out the yellow envelope. She handed it to Mother.

Mother read the orders to herself and her shoulders sagged. She gave the orders to me. “Here,” she said, “you read Japanese, too. Make sure we understand them correctly.”

The orders were signed by the same official who had signed Father’s orders a year earlier. As I read them, I said aloud, “We are to report to the Japanese military headquarters in Sinuiju tomorrow where we will be sent to work in a boot factory. We will live in a dormitory. They will subtract rent and the cost of the meals from our wages. Anything left over will go to our landlord.”

I pushed the papers back at Mother. “I am not going. They can’t make me.”

Mother stared at the orders in her hand. “You must go,” she said, shaking her head. “We don’t have enough food for the winter. And you must always do what the Japanese say.”

“But how will we plant the crops in the spring?” I asked. Mother could not possibly plant them by herself.

Mother didn’t answer. After a while, Soo-hee said, “Hush, Ja-hee. You ask too many questions.” She was right. I always asked a lot of questions.

Eventually, Mother folded the orders into the envelope and laid it on the table. “Go, girls. Prepare for bed,” she said, gently. “Prepare for bed and come back to me. Tonight, I will comb your hair with the comb with the two-headed dragon.”