The Invitation-Only Zone

by Robert S. Boynton

  The war had destroyed Sato’s faith in the emperor and the military, and the American occupiers had let him down by undercutting the very democratic institutions they had claimed to value. The only positive experience he’d had during the past few years was with his union brothers. They’d all worked together, for one another—not for the emperor, not for the military, and certainly not for the Americans. It was a sense of solidarity and friendship he’d never felt before.

  Given the communicable nature of tuberculosis, a hospital visit from someone other than a family member was rare. The only people who visited Sato were union brothers from the shipyards. Sato was familiar with the basic ideas of communism, but he now delved into them deeply, reading Marx and Lenin from morning to night. He wasn’t the only patient undergoing an ideological conversion. In fact, the Communist Party sent tutors with a selection of leftist books and magazines to the hospital. Sato also received a real-life lesson in dialectical materialism. Although streptomycin was now available in Japan, it was so expensive—thirty thousand yen, or eighty dollars back then, for twelve ampules—that it was out of the reach of most patients. “Those who could afford the medicine were cured, and those who couldn’t afford it died,” Sato says. “I saw one or two people die every day. It couldn’t have been a more concrete lesson: in the capitalist society, those with money live, and those without money die.”

  Sato’s parents somehow came up with the money, and he was cured—once again beating the odds. Never having held a steady job, he didn’t have a lot of options and settled for working in a bookstore that rented titles to people who couldn’t afford to buy them. Now that he was out of the hospital and supporting himself, his mind turned toward Tamiko. He found her address and wrote her a note, inviting her to visit him at the bookstore. She was intrigued and began visiting him regularly. The final note she received contained a marriage proposal, which laid out the reasons they should be together. Sato and Tamiko married one year after they met, and he left the bookstore and helped her run her family’s cosmetics shop. Next to their shop was a Communist bookstore run by a young man named Harunori Kojima, whose life story was nearly identical to Sato’s. Sons of poor Niigata rice farmers, both had joined the military in the final days of the war. The two became best friends and spent hours discussing the fine points of Marxist theory, and it wasn’t long before Sato joined the Communist Party himself. The two men had witnessed a world turned upside down. Perhaps communism could set it right again.

  8

  DEVELOPING A COVER STORY

  North Korea is a country where everyone knows his place. In 1957 the central government created a caste system that classified every citizen according to his family’s political reliability, dividing the country into three groups: the trustworthy “core” class (descendants of anti-Japanese guerrillas, Korean War heroes, laborers, and farmers), a suspect “wavering” class (merchants, professionals, and families originally from the South), and a “hostile” class (Christians, landowners, prostitutes, and wealthy businessmen). Individuals in these three groups were further classified into fifty-one subcategories, and the life prospects of every North Korean are still determined largely by one’s caste. While the core class and their children comprise the country’s hereditary elite, the hostile class and their progeny are essentially “untouchables,” forbidden from living in major cities, attending the best schools, or serving in the military. As a member of the Japanese bourgeoisie, Kaoru Hasuike didn’t fit neatly into any of these categories, which made his prospect of successfully passing as North Korean unlikely.

  With all the limitations of his situation came a few odd advantages, and Kaoru learned to make the most of his liminal status by gaming the system whenever he had the chance. North Korea is one of the few parts of the globe that remains untouched by multiculturalism of any kind, and one consequence of its homogeneity and rigid social hierarchy is that its citizens receive no training in how to deal with the unexpected or foreign. The Invitation-Only Zone’s rules were designed to minimize the possibility that its residents—who had access to privileged information or, in Kaoru’s case, were themselves state secrets—would come into contact with ordinary people living outside its confines. One rule was that the abductees were not supposed to leave the zone unless accompanied by a minder. However, Kaoru noticed that the more he and Yukiko settled into their lives in the zone, the less their minder checked up on them. When their minder started taking most Saturdays and Sundays off, Kaoru began making unauthorized trips outside the zone, nodding confidently to the guards as he left, if only to experience the thrill of breaking the rules. For someone with no freedom, even the smallest taste of liberty was intoxicating. His short trips got longer, and soon Kaoru would take his fishing rods an hour or so from the zone to a pond that he’d heard brimmed with carp and perch. Once there, he’d set his bait and spend hours enjoying nature, fishing by moonlight on warm summer evenings. Owned by a nearby school, the pond was officially off-limits, which made the transgression all the more satisfying.1

  One Saturday morning, Kaoru made the pilgrimage accompanied by an acquaintance from the zone. As the two men arrived at the pond, they nodded to the fishermen already there, dropped their lines, and waited for a nibble. Just then, several security officers appeared. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know that fishing is prohibited in this pond!” they shouted. North Korea is filled with petty officials either looking for bribes or rousting intruders to make a point, but their tone struck Kaoru as unnecessarily aggressive. An officer whose armband identified him as a second lieutenant grabbed at Kaoru’s rod. “How dare you steal fish from the Department of Safety and Security!” he screamed.

  Growing up in Japan, where indirection and understatement were the rule, Kaoru knew how to keep his thoughts to himself. And if North Korea had taught him nothing else, it was the wisdom of this practice. For all its bellicosity, there was very little crime here, and Kaoru had not been an object of violence since the night he and Yukiko were abducted. Yet now he felt the resentment that had been burning inside him for years suddenly burst forth. Turning to his companion, Kaoru began shouting in Japanese. “Who is this man? Why is he behaving so violently?” he asked. The officer fell silent, bewildered by the foreign language coming from Kaoru’s mouth. Sensing a shift in the balance of power, Kaoru seized his own lapel, dramatizing the encounter while pointing to the officer. “He grabbed my jacket like this!” he said in Japanese. “What is going on?” At this, the officer was completely flummoxed. “I did no such thing!” he protested, pleading his innocence. Kaoru’s companion caught on to the ruse and quickly assumed the role of the voice of reason. “You see, this man is a guest from a foreign country,” he told the officer in Korean. “He came here to take a break and do some fishing. If you confiscate his gear, it will cause a lot of trouble for everyone.” In North Korea, getting mixed up in the affairs of foreigners, regardless of the circumstances, is dangerous, and the officer dropped Kaoru’s rod and gestured for them to leave. Kaoru hadn’t won the argument, but he took satisfaction in having rattled the official.

  Kaoru and Yukiko were allowed to take a long trip every two years or so—far more frequently than a typical North Korean, who would feel blessed if allowed to visit Pyongyang or Mount Kumgang even once in his life. Like all “leisure” activities in the North, travel had a revolutionary purpose, and a typical trip consisted of stops at historical sites such as Kim Il-sung’s birthplace; the holy Mount Paektu, where it is alleged that Kim Jong-il was born; and the various battlefields where Kim Il-sung and his guerrilla army were said to have vanquished the Japanese. But for Kaoru, these trips stirred feelings other than North Korean patriotism, reminding him that he would never fit in.

  In the summer of 1981, Kaoru and Yukiko drove 125 miles to the port city of Wonsan. It was the first time Kaoru had seen the Sea of Japan since being abducted, and he could barely contain his emotions. The ocean’s aroma made him long for home. It was all he could do to stop him
self from leaping into the waves. “If I just swam and swam, maybe I could make it back,” he thought to himself. During a trip to Mount Paektu, Kaoru’s minder took him and Yukiko to the banks of the Tumen River to view the Chinese towns on the other side. The border was open there, with no fences or guards. On the Korean side, women washed their clothes on stones, while their children frolicked naked in the water. On the Chinese side, a billboard read “Time Is Money,” a slogan for the economic reforms spreading through the Communist country. Kaoru wondered if he and Yukiko could dash across and make their way to a Japanese consulate.

  The only trip Kaoru enjoyed was to Mount Myohyang, known as the “Mysterious Fragrant Mountain”; its deep ravines, pristine waterfalls, and densely wooded forests soothed him. According to ancient legend, it was the home of Tangun, the mythical forefather of the Korean people. The area around the mountain is dotted with abandoned temples, but the modern attraction is the enormous museum exhibiting the gifts that foreign dignitaries gave Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. While Kaoru came for the nature, his minders looked forward to the banquet at which they would drink copious amounts of soju (Korean vodka) and sing. Every night, his minders would press Kaoru to get drunk and sing with them. He would sip soju, and when his minders were inebriated, he would sneak out and explore the paths and bathe in the ravines. By tradition, one was allowed to wash only one’s hands in the water, so Kaoru positioned himself behind a rock, away from the path.

  “What are you doing? Don’t you know that entering the water is prohibited!” shouted a hard-faced middle-aged man with an armband that identified him as the manager of the area. The sound shook Kaoru out of his state of calm. With a moment’s hesitation, he put on his best penitent face. “I’m sorry, but the streams of my fatherland are so beautiful that I entered the water. I didn’t know that doing so was forbidden,” he said, modulating his Korean slightly to give it a foreign sound. “I live in the U.S. and this is the first time I’ve been able to visit the northern part of the Republic,” he added, choosing his words carefully. The phrase “northern part of the Republic” was the locution international supporters of the regime used to describe North Korea, and the reference to the United States made Kaoru seem like an “important” visitor.

  Hearing these words, the manager’s face softened. “Oh, I see. You have made a long journey. The mountains and streams of our fatherland are splendid, aren’t they? Please bathe yourself unobtrusively,” he said with a big smile, and walked away.

  * * *

  When Kaoru and Yukiko had been reunited in 1980, they were told to come up with a plausible cover story that would hide their Japanese identities and help them blend into North Korean society. Concocting a suitable cover would be easy in a pluralistic society where immigration and cultural differences were common, but the narratives Kaoru and Yukiko had to choose from to explain away their accents and their ignorance of all things North Korean were limited.2

  There was one story, however, that seemed to fit the bill; it was about a group of Japanese-born immigrants who’d previously had trouble fitting into the North. These were the ninety-three thousand ethnic-Korean “repatriates” who had come to the North in the sixties and seventies to escape the discrimination and economic hardship of postwar Japan. Having relatives in Japan who could send them gifts, they were both envied and despised. Those whose Japanese relatives were too poor to support them were relocated to the cold, mountainous north of the country, far from Pyongyang. A disproportionate number ended up in the gulag, never to be heard from again. The fact that Kaoru and Yukiko had in reality grown up in Niigata prefecture, where the repatriation movement was based, bolstered their account. So Kaoru and Yukiko assumed the names Park Soon-chul and Kim Kum-sil, and manufactured elaborate stories of trading their lives in Japan for the adventure of moving to their sacred “homeland.”

  9

  THE REPATRIATION PROJECT: FROM JAPAN TO NORTH KOREA

  At the conclusion of the Second World War, Japan was home to an estimated two million Koreans. One million had immigrated to Japan for economic reasons since the late nineteenth century, with roughly 80,000, many brought by force, coming every year from 1932 to 1940. During the war, 350,000 Koreans fought with the Japanese armed forces and 500,000 more worked in Japan’s mines and factories.

  The United States knew little about Korea when, on August 10, 1945, two young officers, future secretary of state Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, drew a line across a National Geographic map dividing the Soviet and the American occupation zones at the Thirty-Eighth Parallel. The U.S. strategy was to refashion Japan into a bulwark against the Communist threat in China and the USSR, and the Koreans were perceived as an unstable and potentially disruptive leftist element. “As long as there is a sizeable Korean minority in Japan it will be a menace to law and order,” concluded a British Commonwealth Occupation Force intelligence report. The United States was dimly aware of Japan’s Korean minority and hoped they would simply return to Korea. And during the first three months of the occupation, from August through November 1945, eight hundred thousand of them did. The remaining six hundred thousand Koreans, many whose families had lived there for generations, became Japan’s largest minority.

  One reason they remained in Japan was the instability awaiting them on the divided Korean Peninsula. In the North, Soviet-style people’s committees nationalized industry and redistributed land. On the brink of economic collapse, the South was ravaged by political infighting. Considering their options, many Koreans judged it safer to remain in Japan, where, as colonial subjects, they had been granted Japanese nationality. However, unlike other Japanese citizens, Koreans considered themselves victims of Japan, who, having been liberated by the Allies, deserved reparations. Against these sentiments, the United States weighed the fact that three hundred fifty thousand Koreans had fought for the Japanese.1 So how should Koreans be treated under the occupation? As a liberated people who were victims of the Japanese, or as potential subversives who had fought with the Japanese? The compromise pleased no one: Koreans would be considered “liberated” nationals in ordinary circumstances and “enemy” nationals when military security was involved.

  The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty formally ended the Allied occupation of Japan. The treaty stipulated that Japan relinquish the colonies it had acquired, which had the consequence of stripping Koreans and other ethnic minorities of Japanese citizenship, leaving them in legal limbo. Their fate was not resolved until 1965, when those Koreans who had been living in Japan before August 15, 1945, were allowed to apply for “permanent resident” status. They could remain in Japan indefinitely, but under the Alien Registration Law they were barred from becoming lawyers, teachers, nurses, bank officers, or public servants (postal workers, firemen); in addition, they were ineligible for bank loans, scholarships, and welfare benefits. With Japanese unemployment soaring, most private-sector jobs were denied to them. As a result of these restrictions, a disproportionate number of Koreans in postwar Japan, much like blacks in Jim Crow America, pursued careers outside the mainstream, whether in sports, the arts, or organized crime. Others assimilated, using the Japanese names forced upon them in colonial times, and blended in so thoroughly that they unwittingly confirmed Japan’s new self-image as an ethnically homogeneous nation.

  Lacking citizenship and civil rights, Koreans in Japan saw their lives change little in the postwar era, and in many cases actually get worse. In 1952, 79 percent were unemployed. Excluded from the mainstream, Koreans committed crimes at six times the rate of the Japanese, and drug and alcohol abuse were problems. To improve their lot, Koreans sought help from two groups: Mindan, which served those who identified with capitalist South Korea, and Chosen Soren, which supported the Communist North. The Japanese Communist Party had cultivated a large Korean following after the war, and the number of Chosen Soren members vastly outnumbered Mindan’s. Chosen Soren—its full name is the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan—became North Korea’s de facto
representative in Japan, issuing passports and performing basic diplomatic functions. It was also a social service provider, helping Koreans with jobs, housing, and education; facilitating travel to the peninsula; and maintaining the connection between Japan and North Korea.

  In June 1956, Kim Il-sung issued Cabinet Order 53, in which he invited Japan’s Korean population to return “home.”2 It was an enticing prospect, offering cash stipends in addition to free housing, education, and health care. The Japanese government had been considering plans to get rid of the poorest, most left-leaning Koreans for several years, so it didn’t take long for Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke to give his consent.3 Repatriation offered something for everyone. “In an era when Japanese politics were deeply polarized between right and left, repatriation brought both sides together. This issue was a vote winner, popular with media and the public alike,” writes historian Tessa Morris-Suzuki in her study of the repatriation, Exodus to North Korea.4 Japanese newspapers echoed Chosen Soren’s promise of “Paradise on Earth,” with headlines proclaiming, “Return of Compatriots from Japan Welcomed: Livelihood to Be Completely Guaranteed,” and “No Unemployment for Returnees: Housing Ready to Receive 50,000 People.” Under the auspices of the International Red Cross, the first of 187 ships, carrying 93,000 people, departed from Niigata on December 14, 1959.