Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story

by William Andrews

  Mrs. Hong puts her hands around the mugunghwa blossom and admires the purple blossom inside. “The Empress took power during a time when Korea was being fought over by the Chinese and Japanese. She was a skilled diplomat and was able to keep both powers in check. That is when she created the two-headed dragon. She employed skilled artisans to make artifacts with the dragon for members of her family. She had shamans instill magic in them.”

  She takes her hands from the bowl and picks up the comb. “Isn’t it interesting that the Empress had a comb made for herself instead of a sword or some other kind of armament? Look at it. It is a woman’s comb. You can tell by the long tines. The Empress knew that if her secret got out, the Japanese would kill her and persecute her son. So she gave the comb to her daughter.”

  “At the history museum, they told us she only had a son,” I say.

  “You are correct. You were paying attention. Good. Yes, history books say she only had a son. But it’s not true. You see, back then, it was common for the royal family to say the first child died if it was a girl. Then, they would keep the girl cloistered in the palace. It turned out to be a fortunate thing. When the Empress learned the Japanese planned to assassinate her, she moved her daughter to our family farm and gave her this comb with the two-headed dragon.”

  She sets the comb on the table. Her eyes narrow. “On October 8th, 1895, the shameful Japanese murdered my great, great grandmother, your fourth great grandmother. Assassins snuck into Gyeongbok Palace where the Empress was sleeping. They dragged her out of bed and hacked her to death. The assassination marked the beginning of Japanese dominance in Korea and our darkest hour.”

  “When you learned about the two-headed dragon, why didn’t you just give the comb to the government?” I ask.

  “Because it was as Mr. Han said when he dismissed me from Gongson Construction, my yi was what was most important. I have a duty Korea and to my ancestors and to my descendents.” She points to the comb. “Look at the dragon. The heads do not just look east and west. They also look backward and forward. It is a symbol they do not explain at the museum. You see, in Korea, when we look back, we see all of our ancestors all the way back to the Three Kingdoms to Tan’gun, the father of Korea who lived three-hundred years before Christ. Each of our ancestors has given us a duty that we must fulfill. And, when we look forward, we see the generations of our descendents. We love them like grandparents, but expect them to honor their duty to us as we have honored our duty to our ancestors. It is a single, unbroken chain. If I gave the comb away, I would have broken that chain and not fulfilled my duty to Korea.”

  “And you think I have a duty to Korea too? But I’m an American, not a Korean.”

  Mrs. Hong taps a finger at me. “Do you think because you were raised in America that you are not Korean? Then why did you come here? And why did you come to my apartment to hear my story? Just like me, you were born in the year of the dragon. The spirits of your ancestors are strong inside you. You have a duty to them—a duty to Korea. You must tell my story for Soo-hee, for Jin-mo, for Korea. And for me. As long as you serve Korea, the dragon will protect you.”

  I run a hand through my hair and stare at the comb. The dragon stares back at me.

  “Ja-young,” she says, “now that you have heard my story, you must decide what to do. You have to decide before you go back to America.”

  Back to America. I check my watch. It’s 4:30P.M. “Oh, no!” I say, jumping up from the table. “Excuse me, ma’am. The bus has already left for the airport. Mr. Kwan said he’d arrest me if I miss my flight.” I grab my purse.

  Mrs. Hong’s eyes plead with me. “I have sacrificed everything for Korea,” she says. “Take the comb. Tell our story.”

  I shake my head. “I just don’t know.”

  She puts her hand over her chest. “Ja-young... Anna, what does your heart say?”

  I try to search my heart but I’m conflicted, unsure and afraid like I’ve been since Mother died. I look at the comb. It’s a Korean comb, made by Korea’s most important queen. But I’m an American and have been since I was a baby. I don’t know anything else. Yet in the mirror, I see the Korean woman. There is a yearning in her eyes. Her heart aches for something that I can’t explain.

  I pick up the comb and hold it in my hand. I think perhaps it speaks to the woman in the mirror. I think she wants me to take it. I nod slowly. “Okay. I’ll take it. Maybe you should send it to me.”

  “I am afraid that is no longer possible. Now that the government knows who I am, they will be watching me. You have to find another way.”

  “They’re watching me, too,” I say. “But I have an idea.”

  She takes the comb from me and gives it one more long look. Then, she ties the brown cloth around it and says, “I told you there were two things I wanted you to do for me. One was to hear my story. There is one more thing, as well.”

  “Oh yeah. You never said what it was.”

  “I want you to help me see my onni before I die.”

  Of course. Mrs. Hong never saw Soo-hee after Dongfeng and now that she’s given me the comb, the only thing she has left to do is to see her sister again. “I’m not sure I can do that,” I say.

  She says she believes I can and hands me the comb. I tell her I’ll try.

  Then, I stand before her with the comb in my hand. Our eyes meet one last time, and I bow low.

  *

  I run outside and, thank God, my taxi driver is waiting for me. He complains that he waited for an hour and a half. I toss a hundred dollars at him and tell him to take me to the Kosney’s store by our hotel. “Hurry,” I say.

  We speed through the streets of Seoul and when we get to the store, I tell my driver to wait for me. I run in the store and a clerk says something to me in Korean.

  “What?” I say.

  “I am sorry,” she replies in English, “we are closing soon, ma’am.”

  I tell her I’ll just be a minute. I ask where the celadon pots are. She tells me they’re on the second floor and points to an escalator. I take the escalator two stairs at a time and find the area with the blue-green pots. I run up to the counter and a clerk greets me in Korean. I tell her I want to buy two pots.

  “Two?” she asks in English.

  “Yes. A large one and a small one.”

  She takes my order and information and I pay for the pots with the cash Dad gave me. I grab the box and run back out to the taxi. I tell the cabbie to take me to the Sejong Hotel. When we pull up to the hotel, Dad is waiting for me at the front door with our suitcases.

  “Anna, thank God,” he says. “Where have you been? The bus left over an hour ago. We won’t make our flight!”

  “Get in,” I say waving him into the taxi. “We might still make it.” Dad shoves our suitcases in the back of the cab, and we cram inside the back seat. I put the box with the celadon pot between us. “Inchon Airport,” Dad says. “As fast as you can.”

  The driver throws the car into gear and we race onto the street. Over the top of the box, Dad asks, “You gave the comb back, right?”

  “No,” I answer.

  His brow furrows. “Some government officials came to the hotel looking for it. They searched our room and asked a lot of questions about it. Anna, you’ll get in trouble. They might be waiting for us at the airport.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, trying to sound convincing.

  Twenty minutes later, we pull up to the airport drop-off zone. The flight leaves in thirty minutes and we were supposed to have checked in over an hour ago. Dad jerks the suitcases from the trunk and pushes a hundred dollars at the cabbie. I take my celadon pot and we sprint toward the ticket counter. When we get near the counter, I freeze. There, waiting for us, is Mr. Kwan, Bruce Willis and several airport security guards.

  F ORTY-FOUR

  Mr. Kwan sees me before I can turn away. He marches up to us. “We have been waiting for you,” he says with his diplomatic smile. He tells us if we had been any later, he would’ve l
et the plane go and arrested us. He says they’ll hold the plane for us and if everything checks out, he’ll let us go back to America. “You should check in first,” he says, pointing to the ticket counter.

  Other travelers stare at us as two male security agents take our luggage and the box with my celadon pot. Dad and I go to the ticket counter and give our passports and tickets to the agent. Mr. Kwan steps to the counter and says something to an airline official. The official bows to Mr. Kwan and then shoots an angry look at us. He disappears into an office behind the ticket counter.

  After the ticket agent hands us our boarding passes, Mr. Kwan tells us to follow him. He walks to a door just off the entrance to the concourse. An airport security guard unlocks the door with a key attached to his belt and Mr. Kwan points us inside.

  The lights in the room are bright and hurt my eyes. There’s a long metal table, an airport luggage scanner and a people scanner that leads to an outside door. I try not to stare at the security guard who opens the box with the celadon pot. Another guard lifts our suitcases onto the table and zips them open. They begin sifting through the contents, searching the pockets, our shoes, Dad’s shaving kit, our toiletries—everywhere we might have hidden the comb. One by one, they pass everything through the scanner while a third guard stares into a monitor. Bruce Willis has his back against the door and watches everything.

  As the guards pick through our luggage, Mr. Kwan tells us that they have to frisk us and then we have to go through the people scanner. A guard stands next to him with a metal detecting wand. Mr. Kwan explains that the ‘examination,’ as he calls it, is necessary to be sure we’re not taking the comb out of the country. “I assure you,” he says, “if you have it, we will find it.”

  “This isn’t right,” Dad complains.

  “Of course,” Mr. Kwan says, “if one of you has the comb, you can give it to me now and avoid this unpleasantness.”

  Dad glances at me, but I say nothing. After a few seconds, Mr. Kwan tells Dad to take off his shoes and raise his arms. The security guard runs his wand up and down Dad’s body and legs. When he’s finished, Mr. Kwan tells Dad to walk through the scanner. Dad does and the light on top turns green. Mr. Kwan points to the door. “Wait for your daughter in the concourse,” he says.

  Dad looks worried. “It’s alright,” I say. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Dad frowns and goes out the door.

  Mr. Kwan tells me to take off my shoes. I give them to a guard who runs them through the scanner. The guard with the wand steps up to me and waves the wand over me like he did with Dad, just like they did in Mrs. Hong’s apartment. This time, I’m strangely calm, almost as if this is happening to someone else. I’m not embarrassed or the least bit afraid. I feel like I’m someone else. I stare at Mr. Kwan.

  “So, it’s true, isn’t it?” I say. “The two-headed dragon is a powerful symbol for Korea.”

  “It is just a valuable artifact,” he says as the guard wands my legs.

  “No, it’s more than that,” I hear myself say. “A five-toed dragon with two heads. It’s a symbol from Empress Myeongseong.”

  The security guard finishes frisking me and hands me my shoes. “Is that what your grandmother told you?” Mr. Kwan asks.

  “Yeah, it is,” I say, pulling on my shoes. “She said the comb has been in our family for generations. She said that I’m a descendent of Empress Myeongseong.”

  He shakes his head. “I read your adoption papers, Ms. Carlson. Just because she gave you the same name as the Empress does not make you related to her. Many Koreans say they are descendants of royalty.”

  “Yes,” I say, “but she had the comb with a five-toed dragon that you want so badly, didn’t she?”

  Mr. Kwan nods almost imperceptibly. “Yes, she did.”

  I stand before the people scanner with my eyes still locked on Mr. Kwan. He raises his chin. “I see you bought a celadon pot,” he says.

  The corners of my mouth turn up. “I got it at Kosney’s,” I say. “I heard the quality is much better than the ones on the street.”

  For the first time since I met him, he gives me a genuine smile. And then he says, “Take care of yourself, Ja-young.”

  I’m completely at ease as I walk through the scanner and the light turns green.

  *

  Dad and I sprint to our gate carrying our suitcases and my celadon pot. When we get to the gangway, a luggage handler is waiting for us. He takes our suitcases and we board the plane. As we find our seats, the other passengers glare at us for delaying their flight.

  After we settle in, Dad whispers, “What happened? Where were you all day? And what happened to the package?”

  “It’s safe,” I answer. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get home.” Dad gives me a look but lets it slide.

  We have two seats together next to a window over the wing. Dad’s on the aisle and I’m at the window. The airplane pulls away from the gate and rumbles down the runway. Soon, we’re crossing over the Korean peninsula toward the Sea of Japan. A monitor on the bulkhead shows our progress with a yellow line over a map of the North Pacific. I’m relieved to be going home.

  An hour into our flight, we’ve crossed over the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The monitor says we’re cruising at thirty-eight thousand feet heading toward the Aleutian Islands. The airplane hums quietly and there’re only a few overhead lights on. Dad is sleeping. Asleep, he finally looks peaceful.

  I’m wiped out. I can’t even begin to grasp all that’s happened on this trip. I know there’ll be plenty of time to think it through when we get home, so I set it all aside. I look out the window at a billion stars.

  My eyes are heavy, so I turn off the light and pull the blanket to my chin. I curl up in the seat and soon I’m asleep. As we head home, the people and places of my Korean grandmother’s life story fill my dreams.

  F ORTY-FIVE

  When I was growing up my family didn’t have a big house or fancy cars or a cabin on a lake ‘up north’. We didn’t spend money on boats or snowmobiles or ATVs like many of our friends did. We didn’t buy the latest fashions. But I didn’t mind. We travelled instead.

  Dad always said that to understand the world, you had to smell it. So by the time I graduated from high school, I’d smelled Europe and Canada three times each, Mexico and the Caribbean twice each, Central America, Kenya, Australia and New Zealand. I’d been in forty-one states (airports don’t count) and had my U.S. National Park passport book stamped twenty-nine times.

  And now I’ve smelled Korea, the country where I was born.

  When I get home, everything’s different. It’s all bigger and more alive. Colors are brighter and sounds and smells are more intense. Yet at the same time, it’s somehow more manageable. I can’t explain it, really. I suppose it’s because I have a new context to put everything into—my birth-grandmother’s amazing life and the new knowledge I have of the people I share DNA with. For the first time since Mother died, I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my life.

  The day after we get home, I tell Dad that the woman that gave me the comb was my birth-grandmother. I tell him her incredible story and that I promised to try to help her meet her sister someday. I decide not to tell him about me being a descendent of Empress Myeongseong or that Mrs. Hong says I have to serve Korea somehow. I feel guilty about keeping it from him, but honestly, I really don’t know what to believe.

  Dad listens carefully and asks questions. I answer them as best as I can. Then he asks about the comb. I tell him it’s just a family heirloom that Mrs. Hong wants me to have to remind me of my Korean heritage. “Why were those government officials so intent on it?” he asks.

  “It’s just an heirloom, Dad,” I repeat. He raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t ask any more questions.

  That night I think about going back to college to finish my senior year. When I left, Northwestern said they’d let me come back. Dad says I should do it, but I decide to stay home and enroll at the University of Minnesota instead. I
log onto the ‘U’s website to see what my class options are. I’m still not sure what I should take and the deadline is only a few days away. I bring up my list of pros and cons for medical school versus law school. Medical school and residency would be an expensive, ten-year grind. But in the end, I’d have a prestigious job and a good income. Law school would be a piece of cake compared to medical school. It’d be three years of school and a few years as a law associate. But a career in law isn’t exactly a sure thing like medicine is.

  Or, I could do something completely different.

  My choices on the computer monitor stare at me. I search my heart for the right answer like Mrs. Hong said I should. It’s not telling me anything. So I log off. I still have a few days.

  It saddens me when Dad falls back into his miserable routine. Each day he leaves for work early and comes home in time to sit in the dark living room before dinner. When he puts on his grilling apron, he makes the same things each week. On Monday, it’s Mother’s goulash. On Tuesday, it’s Mother’s baked tilapia. Wednesday, it’s her parmesan chicken… and so on. Every week it’s the same thing and every recipe is Mother’s. When I offer to make something different, he says, “No. I’ll do it.”

  *

  One day, I do a search for the Korean embassy and I see there’s an office in Minneapolis. It’s on Park Avenue where businesses have converted the 1800’s mansions into hip offices. I jump in Mom’s Corolla and drive there. The office is on the third floor of a three-story stone mansion. I climb two flights of stairs to a reception area with a flag of South Korea in the corner. A Korean woman sits behind a glass desk. She smiles pleasantly through stylish, red-framed glasses. “May I help you?” she asks.