Finding Junie Kim

by Ellen Oh

  “Wow!” Junsoo shouted, and then waved his little hands as he smiled and jumped up and down. This made more of the soldiers smile, and many even laughed.

  Jinjoo picked up her younger brother so he could see better. He put out his hand and leaned toward the trucks, as if he was trying to touch the Americans. Some of the soldiers leaned over to wave at Junha, making him laugh out loud. She couldn’t understand the words the men were saying, but she appreciated their warmth toward her little brothers.

  All of a sudden, a soldier in one of the last trucks waved at them and said something. As he came level with them, he tossed a big handful of small items that fell all around them. He said one more word as he waved goodbye. Jinjoo didn’t know what he had thrown, but she bowed in thanks. Junha wriggled down to see what it was and began picking up the colorful objects with his brother.

  Jinjoo looked at a yellow rectangular one and squealed in happiness. She knew what it was. Several years before, when there had been more foreigners in Incheon, an American man had given her one piece. He called it chewing gum and explained that it was for chewing until all the flavor was gone but not to swallow it as it was bad for your tummy. Jinjoo had enjoyed the sweet flavor but understood what the man had said about swallowing. Once she had chewed it for a while, all the flavor was gone and it tasted like nothing. But she’d enjoyed it tremendously. There was another small rectangle that was brown with gold ends. She didn’t know what it was, but it smelled sweet.

  “Junsoo, Junha, pick up every piece! It’s candy!”

  The little boys crowed in delight and filled their little pockets with everything they could find. Jinjoo searched the entire area to make sure they hadn’t missed any. She gathered them all from her brothers and marveled at the big pile of sweets they now had. Only then did she notice that Eunjoo had never joined them.

  “Eonni! Where are you?”

  Her sister peeked out from behind the haystack.

  “Are they gone?” she asked. “I was so scared. How come you weren’t?”

  As the little boys ran over to show Eunjoo their haul, Jinjoo wondered why it was she hadn’t been scared by the Americans. Lots of Koreans hated them. They blamed them and the Soviets for dividing the country into North and South. They were the ones that had created the thirty-eighth parallel and separated families. But right now, with the Communists invading South Korea, Jinjoo could only look at them as brave men willing to fight for a country that wasn’t even theirs.

  “They were so nice! Look, they gave us all these sweets!”

  “I want!” Junsoo shouted. “I want! I want!”

  “Me too, me too!” Junha chimed in.

  Jinjoo plopped down on the ground and sorted through the pile.

  “Let’s try this one,” she said, opening the brown-and-gold rectangle that had smelled so sweet. Inside was a hard brown block that had a design of six squares. When she tried to break it apart, it was actually squishy and left a big smudge of brown on her finger. Junha reached over, licked it off, and crooned, “Mmmm.”

  Jinjoo laughed and broke off the pieces, popping one in everyone’s mouth before eating it herself. The taste was like nothing she’d ever had before. She heard her sister gasp in delight while Junsoo was now running in circles shouting “Wow!” at the top of his lungs. Junha copied him exactly. Soon her brothers came back and opened their little mouths for more.

  “Ah,” they both said, looking expectantly at the two remaining pieces in the wrapper.

  Part of her wanted to eat them both herself, but Jinjoo counted three more of the brown candies in her pile. Feeling generous, she popped the last pieces into their mouths.

  She then opened the chewing gum package and gave them all a piece.

  “This is for chewing only. You can chew it, you can suck it, but you can’t swallow it! Understand?”

  Her brothers nodded and put out their hands, but Jinjoo wasn’t convinced they understood.

  “Listen, you like this brown candy, right? You want more, right?”

  They nodded their heads eagerly. “Yes, Noona!”

  “Then you chew this, and when I put my hand out, you spit it out, okay? And if you don’t spit it out, if you swallowed it, then no brown candy for you, understand?”

  “Yes, Noona!” they shouted.

  She then opened a piece for all of them and stuck it in the little boys’ mouths. In her candy pile, she counted ten packs of the chewing gum. She then gave one whole pack to Eunjoo.

  “Try it, Eonni, you’ll like it.”

  As she listened to the little sounds of pleasure her brothers made, she wrapped the rest of the candy in the cloth that they had used for their food.

  “If we walk faster and farther today, I’ll give you more candy,” she said to her brothers.

  They clapped their hands in delight and both began to walk, holding their sisters’ hands.

  On the road, the children kept a faster pace than before. The boys were energized by the thought of more candy and didn’t stop as much. Whenever they wanted to get picked up, Jinjoo would trade their old gum for a new piece and they would walk again.

  Finally, they were too tired, and the sisters carried the little boys on their backs until the evening sun began to set and the girls were near collapse. With very few trees on the road, they moved out into the field and plopped down under the leafy branches of a large, solitary oak tree. The boys dropped onto the soft grass and fell asleep.

  Jinjoo could see that her sister was still marveling at the chewing gum.

  “How did you know what this was, Jinjoo?”

  “From Abeoji’s store,” Jinjoo said. “You would have known, too, if you had gone to his store more often.”

  Eunjoo shook her head. “Strangers frighten me.”

  Jinjoo put her arm around her sister. “It’s okay, Eonni. You have me! I won’t let any stranger near you!”

  Her sister smiled and then frowned again. “Sometimes I think you should have been the big sister,” she said. “You’re not as scared of things as I am. And you’re stronger than me. . . .”

  “No way!” Jinjoo said. “I’m just a big bully! You’re the best big sister! You take care of our brothers and are always patient, even when I want to hit them. You can cook and you are so kind. I could never be as good a big sister as you.”

  Eunjoo wiped away her tears and hugged Jinjoo. “I’m so glad you’re my little sister.”

  “Hey, who are you calling little?” Jinjoo puffed out her chest, causing her sister to laugh.

  They looked at where the little boys had passed out asleep on the ground. Junha had used Junsoo’s stomach as a pillow.

  “They’re so tired, they didn’t even ask for dinner,” Eunjoo sighed. “I guess it’s a good thing, since we have no food.”

  “We have to save the little that we have,” Jinjoo agreed.

  “Go to sleep then, little sister,” Eunjoo said, cuddling next to Jinjoo.

  Jinjoo closed her eyes and fell fast asleep.

  Junie

  “Grandma, when did you find out that the candy was chocolate?” I ask in curiosity.

  “I think it was after the war,” Grandma replies. “My father went to the store and bought it as a treat. I recognized it right away and loved it. So he would buy lots of chocolate for us all the time.”

  I look at Grandma in wonderment. “But you don’t even like chocolate.”

  Grandma laughs. “It’s because I ate too much of it and I got seven cavities!” She shudders. “Getting seven teeth drilled for cavities made me never want to eat candy again!”

  “WE SHOULD WAKE THEM,” JINJOO said, anxious to be on the road again.

  Eunjoo shook her head. “Let them sleep some more. And we should be more rested so we can carry them longer.”

  Since Eunjoo was her older sister, Jinjoo had no choice but to listen to her, no matter how it chafed at her. Only after thirty minutes had passed did Eunjoo allow her to wake the boys up. Junsoo woke up crying of hunger. With
nothing else to give them, Jinjoo broke open another brown candy bar and gave two pieces each to her sister and brothers, only allowing herself to lick her fingers where the candy melted. There were now only two brown candies left. Jinjoo needed to save them, as they were the most filling of the treats.

  “What about you, Jinjoo?” Eunjoo asked. “You’ll be hungry.”

  Shaking her head, Jinjoo opened another pack of chewing gum. “We have plenty of this! It will keep me going!”

  They carried the boys for almost an hour before they gave up and had to put them down. The American candy worked extremely well as bribes to keep the little boys going. There had been another candy that was like a soft but chewy fruit snack that was covered in sugar. Neither Jinjoo nor her sister liked it very much, but the boys loved it. Jinjoo was so grateful to the soldier for giving them such a wonderful gift.

  “Eonni,” Jinjoo said as they walked the empty road, “when I grow up, I want to move to America.”

  “Why?” Eunjoo asked in alarm. “Why would you want to move so far away? And to such a foreign place?”

  “Just think of it! America is a land so powerful and rich that they can throw wonderful food like this into the street. I want to live there and never be hungry again.”

  “I would miss you,” Eunjoo responded. “Wouldn’t you miss all of us?”

  “Yes, but I’ll be so rich that you will be able to come visit me anytime you want!”

  “You are a big dreamer, Jinjoo.”

  Jinjoo looked up at the bright blue sky above them. “If you don’t dream, it can never come true.”

  She looked back at her sister and grabbed her hand. “Come on, Eonni! We have to go faster if we are to meet our parents!”

  From a distance, they could see smoke rising high into the sky. As they walked farther, they saw it was a farmhouse that had been completely destroyed. Beyond it, an entire village was on fire.

  Earlier in the day they’d seen a few airplanes flying ahead. Jinjoo wondered if they were the ones that had destroyed the village. She didn’t know what side the planes were on. They could have been American or North Korean. All she knew was that an entire village had been burned to the ground, and to the villagers, it probably didn’t matter who had done it.

  A few kilometers later, they reached a crossroads. There was a sign with arrows pointing in each direction, but the words were written in English, not Korean. And there was no one around to ask which way to go.

  “What happened to the Korean signs?”

  Eunjoo pointed to a pile of blackened rubble nearby.

  “What do we do?” Eunjoo asked.

  Jinjoo looked down at the dirt road. The one to the left was heavily crossed with large wheel tracks. The one to the right was not as marked.

  “We go left,” she said with absolute conviction.

  “How do you know?” her sister asked. “Are you just guessing?”

  “Look at the tire tracks,” Jinjoo said. “Remember all the American soldiers in trucks yesterday? Must have been twenty trucks that drove by us. They definitely took that road.”

  Her sister looked confused. “But how do you know they are going to Seoul?”

  “It’s our capital,” Jinjoo said simply. “The North Koreans captured it, so the Americans must be here to help us win it back.”

  “You don’t know that,” Eunjoo said, fear widening her eyes. “Maybe they were running away! Maybe they’re going back to their ships and going home!”

  Jinjoo thought of the faces of the soldiers she’d seen. They’d been smiling. Those were not the faces of men who had been defeated or were running away.

  “No way,” she said with absolute confidence. “They’re here to help us.”

  With that, she picked up Junha and quickly started walking to the road on the left.

  “Wait for me, Noona!” Junsoo cried as he ran after her.

  Junie

  “Is that why you wanted to come to America so much?” I ask. “Because the Americans saved Korea?”

  Grandma hesitates. “That’s a very complicated question. Yes, America helped save South Korea from the North. But it’s also true that Americans killed a lot of innocent Korean civilians during the war—stories that were suppressed by decades of terrible South Korean presidents who brutalized our people.”

  I nod my head. I remember Grandpa telling me about how bad it was.

  “So you wanted to come here because of the South Korean government.”

  “That’s more accurate,” Grandma says. “My childish desire to go to America was based on this idea of it being a rich country. But as an adult, I wanted to get away from the corruption of the Korean government. Americans might have put President Rhee in power, but it was his corruption, and that of his military successors, that hurt the people. I wanted a fresh start. Back then, America represented hope for a better future.”

  THERE WERE MORE PEOPLE ON this stretch of the road. But most were heading south and looked in terrible shape. They seemed too dazed to notice anything around them.

  Jinjoo and her siblings just kept walking. They stopped midday for a long rest under the shade of a row of camellia trees. Eunjoo carefully gave them water to drink, and then they napped because of the dust and heat.

  It was Jinjoo who woke them up again and pushed them back onto the road. But the heat and the walking had taken a terrible toll on Eunjoo and the boys. They were dragging their feet, and their pace had fallen significantly. Jinjoo coaxed and bribed them all the way to mid-afternoon, when they reached another crossroads. This one had no sign. Both roads were heading north; however, one was in an easterly direction while the other one veered sharply to the west. Eunjoo and the boys collapsed in the grass.

  Eunjoo whimpered that she could not walk any farther.

  As Jinjoo tried to figure out which way to go, an old man in a horse-drawn wagon appeared.

  “Harabeoji, please excuse me, but could you tell us which is the way to Seoul?” Jinjoo asked.

  The man scratched his head. “Well, they both head north toward the Han River. One will take you to the east side and the other will take you to the west side.”

  “Thank you,” Eunjoo chimed in. “Which road is shorter?”

  He pointed to the right. “The way I’m going,” he said. He looked at them. “Do you want a ride?”

  “Yes!” Eunjoo replied. Gathering the boys, she headed toward the wagon. “Come on, Jinjoo! We don’t have to walk anymore.”

  The thought of a ride was such a tremendous relief that Jinjoo took a step toward the wagon, but then something made her stop. She placed her hands on her chest. There was a tightening, like a warning. This was not right.

  “Eonni, I don’t think we should go that way,” Jinjoo said.

  “What are you talking about? They both go toward Seoul. What can be wrong?”

  Jinjoo shook her head. “It’s this feeling. I know we have to go to the west.” Jinjoo pointed. “If we don’t go this way, we might never meet our parents.”

  Eunjoo had already put Junha in the wagon and was lifting Junsoo up.

  “Jinjoo, I can’t walk any more. And Junsoo and Junha can’t either—we’re too tired. We’re going to ride in the wagon.” With that, she began to climb up, when suddenly Jinjoo raced forward and pulled her down.

  “No, Eonni, we have to go west.” Jinjoo hauled both boys out at once. “Thank you, Harabeoji, but we are going the other way.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said as he clicked his teeth, and his horse slowly plodded away.

  “No!” Eunjoo screamed. She hit Jinjoo hard on the head and shoved her to the ground “Why did you do that? I told you, I’m too tired. I can’t walk any more. You’re supposed to listen to me! I’m your eonni!”

  Eunjoo dropped to the dirt road, sobbing wildly. Even though it was Jinjoo who’d gotten hit, the little boys crowded around their older sister and cried with her.

  Jinjoo wiped away the tears that had sprung to her eyes. For a moment she fought
the urge to yell at her sister and hit her back. To tell her she was tired too. And scared, so scared that maybe she was wrong. That all she wanted was for her older sister to be a true eonni and tell her that everything was going to be all right. Jinjoo closed her eyes and thought of what her father always told her to do when she was about to lose her temper.

  “Jinjoo, when you lose your temper, you lose control of your tongue. Things you’ll wish you’d never said will come flying out.”

  “Like Eomma?”

  He nodded. “Instead of losing your temper, count backward from ten. Let the hotness cool down. That way you won’t say things that you will regret.”

  “Like you?”

  Her father smiled and hugged her tight. “You are the most like me, Jinjoo. And I have always struggled with my temper also. But this little trick helps me keep not only my temper, but also my friends.”

  Jinjoo counted backward from twenty and then pulled out the second-to-last brown candy bar and opened it. At the sound, her brothers sat up and came to her. She quietly fed them two pieces each and then gave the other two to her sister.

  When she refused it, Jinjoo insisted. “Eat it, Eonni. I know you are mad, but we have to keep going. You need this more than I do.”

  She pushed against her sister’s resistance until she finally agreed to eat the candy. Jinjoo tied Junha onto her back, and then picked Junsoo up.

  “Let’s go.”

  They walked down the westerly road, Jinjoo stubbornly holding Junsoo until her arms felt like wet noodles and she abruptly put him down.

  “Junsoo, here’s some chewing gum. Please can you walk for me?”

  He nodded, looking tired, and held the package in his hand.

  As they walked, the road they were on turned sharply to the left, and the children suddenly found themselves alongside a large field of bright orange cosmos flowers. Far ahead they could see how the road curved and bent through the field as the sun began to set to the west. The flowers blazed in the rays of the setting sun, and all around them was a sea of orange and gold. The children were enthralled by the colorful blooms and left the road to walk in the field. Junha was so little, he was hidden by the tall flowers. Jinjoo picked him up and twirled him around, to his delighted screams.