Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story

by William Andrews

  We came to Jin-mo’s apartment. As we pushed through a door leading to a set of stairs, Jin-mo stopped and said in a low voice, “Don’t tell anyone you worked in the boot factory. Just tell them you lived on your parent’s farm. Okay?”

  I nodded. I looked up the stairs and wondered what I would find behind the door. I thought about running back to my home in the hills. But Jin-mo’s eyes met mine and he said. “It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” I decided I had to trust him.

  He led me up the stairs to a two-room apartment overlooking the river. When we stepped through the door, I was relieved to see a woman at the stove. A man about Jin-mo’s age sat on the floor in front of an old radio. “Hello, comrades,” Jin-mo said kicking off his leather shoes. When they saw me, the man lifted himself onto a crutch and the woman turned from the stove. Her pregnant belly protruded from underneath her blue blouse.

  “This is Hong, Ja-hee. The Japanese killed her family and she has nowhere to go. She can help Ki-soo.” He pointed at the pregnant woman. “This is my wife, Choi Ki-soo. And that’s my comrade, Park Seung-yo.”

  I bowed to them. Choi Ki-soo, tall and pretty with hair down to the middle of her back, was expressionless as she said, “Anyahasayo.” She wore simple pajama-like pants that went to just above her ankles. She wore zori without tabi. I could see in her face the weathered hardness that I had seen in the comfort women in Dongfeng.

  Park Seung-yo stood in front of the radio and nodded his greeting. He had only one leg and the wooden crutch he leaned on was worn smooth and shiny. After I bowed to him, he curled his leg and stump underneath him. Then he began to fiddle with the knobs and antenna on the radio. Faint whistles and static came from the speaker.

  Jin-mo pointed to the floor next to Seung-yo. “You’ll have to stay in this room with Seung-yo,” he said. “Ki and I have the other room. After dinner, we’ll find a mat for you.” Jin-mo walked over to Ki-soo and put his arm around her bloated belly. I was surprised and embarrassed at the open display of affection. It was not how proper Koreans behaved.

  As Ki-soo continued to stir the rice, Jin-mo disappeared through a door into the other room. I took off my tabi and put my cloth sack on the floor next to the wall. The apartment was neat and clean with windows overlooking the street below and the harbor beyond. The wooden furniture was simple. On one wall was a cabinet filled with many books like we used to have at home.

  I went to Ki-soo. “May I help?” I asked.

  She didn’t look up. “It’s almost done,” she said. “I was able to get a chicken on the dock and onions for bulgogi. I need to eat meat for the baby. Where are you from?”

  “I lived on my parent’s farm east of here.”

  “Jin-mo said your family is dead.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  Ki-soo pressed a hand into the small of her back. “How did they die?”

  “My father was sent to fight for the Japanese and died in battle. They sent my sister to China and she died there. My mother was killed by the Japanese.”

  “Japanese pigs,” Ki-soo said. Then, she looked sideways at me making me uncomfortable. “And you, so young and pretty, you stayed at the farm after your mother died?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  After a few moments, Ki-soo said, “Get chopsticks and bowls from the cupboard. Jin likes to eat right away when he gets home.”

  *

  During the meal, Jin-mo, Seung-yo, and Ki-soo fell into a passionate discussion about the rich, the poor, property and workers. Mother always said that it was an insult to the cook if young people talked while the elders ate. Soo-hee often pinched me under the table when I did. So I didn’t talk and concentrated on my food. Over the past few years, I had forgotten what good food tasted like. In Dongfeng, the comfort women rarely ate meat and when we did, it was often tough, boiled horsemeat. But here, the chicken bulgogi was delicious. It felt like the meals I’d had with my family when I was a young girl.

  Jin-mo sat close to Ki-soo at the low table. He did more talking than eating and the meal lasted a long time. Ki-soo kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye. Seung-yo, with his good leg tucked underneath him and his stump out front, devoured his food and talked with his mouth full. Then, when Jin-mo, the eldest male, finished eating, everyone stopped. I helped clear the table while Jin-mo and Seung-yo tinkered with the radio antenna. Finally, Jin-mo exclaimed, “Got it!” A faint voice came over the radio’s speaker.

  The high-pitched voice was saying something in Korean. Ki-soo lowered herself to the floor next to Jin-mo and I sat behind Seung-yo. I could only catch a few words above the static but the others listened carefully, especially Jin-mo. Every once in a while, he nodded in agreement with what the person on the radio was saying. Eventually, the voice signed off and in its place tinny music played.

  Jin-mo turned off the radio. “We have to go to Pyongyang soon,” he said, looking pleased. “The party is gathering there. The Russians are supporting us. We will be the new government of Korea.”

  “I’m not going,” Seung-yo said, lighting a cigarette.

  Jin-mo leaned forward. “Seung-yo,” he said, “why not?”

  “I can’t go to Pyongyang with one leg. It was all I could do to make it to Sinuiju. Anyway, this is my home. It’s where I grew up. Maybe my family will come back someday.” He took a pull on the cigarette and blew smoke toward the ceiling.

  Ki-soo pushed herself off the floor without expression. She went to the other room and closed the door. Jin-mo continued to stare at Seung-yo. “I can get a car to go to Pyongyang. You must go. The party needs you. Korea needs you.”

  Seung-yo returned Jin-mo’s stare. “I have given plenty to Korea already,” he said. “I just want to rest a while. I’ll find something to do here. I’ll stay in this apartment.” He took another puff from his cigarette.

  “But Seung-yo, this is our opportunity! It is what we’ve been fighting for. All those years in the hills and now Korea will be free and we will be the leaders. You cannot quit now.”

  “I’m staying,” Seung-yo said simply. He pulled himself over to the corner and curled up on his mat. He took a book out from under the mat and began to read, his cigarette dangling from his lip.

  *

  Jin-mo and I sat in front of the radio. He sighed and regarded me with his liquid-soft eyes. “What do I do with you?” he said.

  I lowered my head. “Perhaps I should leave.”

  “And go where?”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then, Jin-mo asked, “Can you read?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “My mother taught me to read Hangul and Chinese. I know Japanese, too. Mother always said I had a good ear for languages.”

  “Oh? Do you speak them well?”

  “I speak Japanese and Chinese fluently,” I said, looking up. “I have already learned some Russian and English, too.”

  A sly smile spread over Jin-mo’s face. “Okay,” he said in Chinese, “tell me, what did you think of our dinner tonight?”

  I could feel the corners of my mouth turn up. “I thought it was delicious,” I answered in Chinese, careful to pronounce the words correctly. “I haven’t had chicken in a long time.”

  Jin-mo’s grin grew to a full smile. In Japanese, he asked, “What do you think of our apartment? Is it… um…” in Korean, “what’s the Japanese word for ‘satisfactory’?”

  I straightened and put out my chin. “Juubun is the word.” Then in Japanese, I said, “And I think your apartment is indeed satisfactory. I like the view of the river.”

  Jin-mo laughed with delight and my heart skipped a beat. “And you’re learning Russian, too?” he asked, switching back to Korean.

  “I haven’t heard it much but I already know many words. Their sentences come together in a strange way. When I hear more, I will learn it quickly.”

  Jin-mo shook his head. “You have a remarkable talent indeed. Perhaps you can come to Pyongyang with us. We could use your help.”

  “Why
are you going to Pyongyang? Why don’t you stay here?”

  “Because with the Japanese finally gone, Korea will be free and independent for the first time since they took our country from us. We can do it with a new kind of government, one that represents all Koreans—not just the wealthy, not only the landholders, but the working people, too.”

  “I don’t know anything about governments,” I said.

  The door from the other room opened and Ki-soo leaned out. “Jin, are you coming?” She had a hand on her belly.

  “In a minute,” Jin-mo said. Ki-soo’s face flashed disapproval. She slipped back inside the room and shut the door.

  Jin-mo turned back to me. “I have something for you,” he said. He went to the bookshelf and took out a small, well-used book. “This is my most prized possession. It is one of the few copies of The Communist Manifesto translated into Hangul. It’s by a man named Karl Marx. Read it and we can talk more.” He handed me the book.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Jin-mo moved toward the room where Ki-soo was. “We won’t leave for Pyongyang for a few weeks. In the meantime, help Ki-soo around the apartment and read that book. Then you can decide if you want to go to Pyongyang with us and join the Communist Party.”

  I took the book and a blanket Jin-mo handed me and went to a corner. Seung-yo curled up on his mat. Soon he was snoring softly. I wrapped the blanket around me. I felt out of place in this apartment with these strange people. But I had nowhere else to go.

  T WENTY-TWO

  Two weeks later, Jin-mo, Ki-soo and I drove to Pyongyang in a tiny, beat-up Fiat that Jin-mo had borrowed from a government official he knew in Sinuiju. He had bartered with a Russian soldier for just enough gasoline to make the 150-mile trip. We packed the car, said a heartfelt goodbye to Seung-yo, and set off. Jin-mo drove and Ki-soo sat in the passenger side with her hand on her belly. I was wedged in the back seat next to several old suitcases, two bedrolls, pots and pans and Jin-mo’s duffle bag stuffed with his books. On my lap was an old suitcase that Jin-mo had given me. Inside were some old clothes from Ki-soo, Jin-mo’s copy of The Communist Manifesto, the photograph of my family and, tucked within the lining where no one could see it, the comb with the two-headed dragon.

  It was my first ride in a car. Of course, I had ridden in trucks before—you cannot very well grow up on a farm without riding in a truck once in a while—but never a car. The Fiat smelled of exhaust fumes and the ride over the rutted road was bumpy.

  At first, I was scared to be going so far from home again. But the further south we went, the better I felt. Every mile was another mile away from Dongfeng and the comfort station.

  And then, many miles out of Sinuiju, I saw the Yellow Sea for the first time. I had learned about the sea from my parent’s books and Father’s stories. I had always tried to picture water stretching so far that it looked like it was spilling off the edge of the earth. Now it was there in front of me, outside the car window.

  It was wonderful. The blue-green sea sparkled under the morning sun and the sea air smelled fresh and clean. A large freighter with its stacks trailing thick black smoke, steamed along on the horizon. Closer in, dozens of fishing boats bobbed and pulled their nets. Still closer, great waves reached for the shore liked white foamy fangs, then crashed against the cliffs with a thunderous roar, only to retreat back again to the sea, gathering themselves for another surge. I could not take my eyes off it.

  After a while, the road turned south. We traveled across a broad plain with rice paddies all the way up the hills. Dozens of workers in pointed straw hats, their black pants rolled over their knees, skillfully swung long cane poles knocking the rice grains into baskets. Others balanced baskets full of rice on their shoulders and carried them to carts waiting on the edge of the fields.

  Eventually, the road rose from the rice paddies into farm fields like those behind my home. The smell of onions and garlic filled the air. It made me feel like a girl again. Workers stuffed sacks with carrots and beets and I remembered my mother saying how grandfather had to hire twenty men to bring in the harvest on our farm. In another field, cattle grazed lazily on the fall grass. I felt a surge of pride for this land and for my country and I realized Colonel Matsumoto was right. Korea was indeed a great country. Now I understood why the Japanese wanted it for themselves and had to be forced to leave. And now that they were gone, I was sure Korea would be great again.

  “How much have you read of Marx?” Jin-mo asked with an elbow over the front seat. I snapped out of my spell. The Communist Manifesto had been difficult to read. It was dense and filled with words I didn’t know. Jin-mo and even Ki-soo had helped me with the new words. However, I had read so much growing up that I was able to finish it and understand most of the ideas. But I was afraid of exposing too much of myself so I didn’t let them know that I did.

  “It is very difficult,” I answered.

  “Don’t worry,” Jin-mo said. “It was difficult for me when I first read it. I got through it and you will, too.”

  Ki-soo let out a snort. “Why do you bother? She’s too young.”

  Jin-mo slid his elbow off the seat and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “I was her age when I first read it. You were only a year older. Anyway, we’ll build the party on the shoulders of the young. They are the future of Korea.”

  Ki-soo turned her pretty face to the side window and didn’t say anything.

  During the two weeks in Sinuiju, Jin-mo, Ki-soo, and Seung-yo had passionate discussions at night in the apartment about governments, workers and the future. They used each other’s shortened names—‘Ki,’ ‘Seung,’ and ‘Jin’—which sounded strange and impolite to me. It was not the way proper Koreans addressed each other. They discussed what would happen to Korea now that the Japanese were gone. Jin-mo tried to include me in their discussions and I had tried to participate as much as I could. The ideas were new, but they seemed to make sense. The discussions felt like the discussions my family had about one of our books after a hard day’s work on the farm.

  I had learned that Jin-mo, Ki-soo, and Seung-yo were rebels and had fought the Japanese with other Koreans in the mountains of northern China. It had been a dangerous, hardscrabble life that had cost Seung-yo his left leg and many of their friends their lives. They had been part of a group led by a man named Kim Il-sung who they said had fought bravely and who had convinced the Russians to enter the war against the Japanese. The radio in the apartment had given them news that Kim Il-sung, with Russia’s support, was in charge of a provisional government in Pyongyang. Jin-mo had been close to comrade Kim and was going to Pyongyang to secure an important position in the new government there. He had said he could get a job for me, too.

  Jin-mo turned to me. “It’s an exciting time in Korea, Ja-hee. A new beginning. Soon, the party will take over and Korea will become a modern country. You’ll see.”

  Ki-soo folded her arms across her bloated belly and continued to look out her side window. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said under her breath.

  Jin-mo tensed. “Why do you have to be that way, Ki?” he demanded. “Why are you always so cynical?”

  “Because I don’t trust them,” she said, suddenly facing him. “I don’t just believe everything they say.”

  I sank low in my seat. I had never heard a woman talk back to a man like Ki-soo did to Jin-mo. My mother never talked to my father like that. But Jin-mo and Ki-soo argued often and it usually ended with Ki-soo slamming the door to her room and Jin-mo staring blankly at Seung-yo and me.

  “Look Ki, this isn’t going to be easy,” Jin-mo said. “We’ll have to work together or other countries will push us around just like they always have. Communism is our chance. No more Japanese, no more Chinese. And the Russians and the Americans have agreed to leave once we establish a government.”

  “I’m not sure it will work,” Ki-soo said.

  “What’s the alternative? Capitalism? Money and power in the hands of a few greedy men? It pl
unged the world into a ten-year depression that the Japanese and Germans took full advantage of. It caused the World War. We have to find a better way. Communism is it.”

  “‘A classless society based on common ownership of the means of production,’” Ki-soo said, as if she were reading from Marx.

  “Exactly,” Jin-mo said. “It’s what has made Russia powerful. And there are communist movements in a dozen other countries, too. China will be next, and countries in Asia and Europe will follow. There’s even a communist movement in America. And right now in Korea, we can make it happen without a civil war.”

  “Changes like this are never bloodless, Jin. And who will lead this new government, your friend Kim Il-sung? I don’t trust comrade Kim,” Ki-soo said, twisting the word ‘comrade’.

  “He fought against the Japanese, Ki, when others ran away to America or Europe.”

  Ki-soo faced the window again and said nothing more for a long time. The car climbed into hills terraced with more rice paddies.

  Finally, with a nod to me, Ki-soo asked, “What are you going to do with her in Pyongyang?”

  “She can help with the baby.”

  “I don’t need help with the baby.”

  “Then, she can help in the new government. She is great with languages. She speaks Japanese better than I do. Chinese, too. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Is she going to live with us?” Ki-soo asked. Her eyes flashed.

  “She lost her family, Ki.”

  “Half of Korea lost their family during the Japanese occupation. You aren’t going to invite all of them to live with us, are you?”

  Jin-mo gripped the steering wheel hard as the car bumped along the road and crested another hill. Pyongyang loomed in the distance. I hoped we would get there soon so I could get out of the car, away from Ki-soo.

  Finally, Ki-soo said, “I have to piss again. This traveling isn’t good for the baby.”