The Prisoner

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  A long time later, in early September of 2001, I was invited to the literary symposium commemorating the centennial of the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway’s Tromsø. The theme that year was “War and Peace,” and the posters printed the word war very large and peace very small, reflecting the state of the times. I met Israel’s Amos Oz and also Stefan Heym, a venerated East German writer. My friendships with the German writer Hans Christoph Buch and Norway’s Halfdan Freihow have continued ever since that time.

  I was sitting at the hotel bar one evening when someone came up and greeted me. It was the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. I had first read him in the 1960s, when he was introduced to the Korean audience as a new, avant-garde poet influenced by the anti-Stalinism of the Khrushchev era. He was no longer a young poet but in his late sixties. He seemed to have something he really wanted to tell me. Yevtushenko said he had once visited Seoul, around the Olympics in 1988. I had very clear memories of that time and asked him if it was for the PEN International congress. He nodded, saying that there had been talk of petitioning the Korean government to release imprisoned Korean writers. He was now thinking that those writers had been my friends.

  Yevtushenko said that when he arrived in Seoul, the head of PEN Korea and an assistant came to his hotel room to say hello. They briefly explained the atmosphere of unrest and expressed their concerns about a literary event being turned into a political one. They left behind an envelope containing $5,000. Later, the day before the vote on the resolution, someone visited Yevtushenko’s room and asked him again not to support the resolution, leaving behind another envelope of $5,000. The Soviet writers, after Yevtushenko discussed it with the Soviet group chairperson, decided to abstain from this vote and also from the independent events outside of the conference, choosing a path of non interference and silence. He did not know what had happened with the other participants. But at the time, with economic liberalization underway in Russia, $10,000 was a lot of money. Yevtushenko’s wife bade him to take this secret to the grave, but the decision had haunted him ever since. “As soon as I heard you were from Korea, I wanted to tell you what had happened back then.” When I asked if I could quote him in the press, he said that his telling me at all was permission to do so, which I did in a brief article for a Korean daily when I returned to Seoul.

  Right before the Seoul Olympics, the Korean government announced the July 7 Declaration, a document that hinted at the shifts in the Cold War era since Perestroika in the Soviet Union and Deng Xiaoping’s “Black Cat, White Cat” liberalization policies in China. But democracy activists never forgot how the previous July 4 North–South Korea Joint Statement, the most progressive since the division, had been used by the South Korean government as an excuse for getting rid of term limits and by the North Koreans to abolish all checks on the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung—demonstrating that the reunification issue was politically exploited in both North and South, resulting in a kind of hostile symbiosis. We used to call these unrealized reunification campaigns “political marketing.” In any case, the July 7 Declaration was at least a step up from outwardly hostile North–South relations vowing mutual destruction, a result of the nationwide upswell in sentiment for reunification after Roh Tae-woo’s election. On July 7, 1988, Roh’s government announced the “Special Declaration for National Self-Esteem, Unification, and Prosperity,” expressing the administration’s willingness to promote diplomatic relations for the sake of peaceful reunification. Its points were as follows:

  • Allow exchange between North and South Koreans and freedom of movement for foreign-national Koreans to both North and South Korea;

  • Allow divided family members to confirm the status of their families across the border, along with the exchange of letters, and family-reunification visits;

  • Open trade and cultural exchanges;

  • Pursue balanced economic development and allow non-military goods to be exchanged with North Korea and allied powers;

  • End confrontational diplomacy and the all-consuming war between North and South, and begin cooperating on the international stage;

  • Improve relations between North Korea and the US, and South Korea and the Soviet Union and China.

  By the spring of 1989, writers’ and arts associations were gearing up for a year full of North–South exchanges. There had been many moments during my tour of Europe, the US, and Japan a few years before where I was infused with much hope for the future by overseas Korean democracy activists and foreign artists and politicians. I began talking about the specific logistics of North–South cultural exchange with Kim Yong-tae, who had begun to manage the Korean People’s Artists Federation. Kim Yong-tae and I came to the conclusion that if there was going to be progress in North–South exchange, someone had to visit the North and talk with the North Koreans. We were sure that the South Korean government would pretend to help us but would, in the end, use all kinds of excuses not to follow through. I felt an obligation to further North–South cultural relations, but a big part of me also wanted to write my own objective take on North Korea. Even if it meant being prosecuted under the National Security Act, it would be a good opportunity to show the world that writers as well as politicians were subject to this heinous law. What worried me was the “non-notification” statute of the act, meaning that if friends or family knew that I was going to break this law but didn’t report me to intelligence, they also could be criminally prosecuted. It meant that not only would I be thrown in jail but that the newly minted Korean People’s Artists Federation and the Association of Writers for National Literature would also suffer persecution.

  I came up with a plan. I had been helped by friends in the art world when I set up the Modern Cultural Research Center in Gwangju with Yoon Han Bong. During the Park dictatorship, artists had also supported the Council of Writers for Freedom and Practice when it was rechristened as the Association of Writers for National Literature. We brought together famous painters and brush calligraphers to decorate pottery and sold the completed pots in an arts bazaar. It was a way to gain the support of companies, individuals, or politicians who found it difficult to directly fund an arts organization that was critical of the government. The association successfully raised enough funds and sold the leftover ceramics for a long time afterward. The Korean People’s Artists Federation used the same method to approach a National Assembly member, Kim Sang-hyun, who had ties to both Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung’s followers; he donated a painting to raise funds for the Korean People’s Artists Federation’s founding. After much discussion, Kim Yong-tae and I decided to ask Kim Sang-hyun for help as well. We were riding on the Korean People’s Artists Federation’s coattails, but we were sure Kim Sang-hyun would understand our situation. We had realized that the government would be much more cautious in deploying “non-notification” if the problem involved not just people in the arts but the opposition party as well. Kim Sang-hyun agreed to meet us for breakfast.

  Kim Sang-hyun was waiting at a hotel restaurant when we showed up rubbing our eyes. Kim Yong-tae acted as a witness of sorts while I pled our case. I was going to visit North Korea, and it would be good if the honorable representative informed Kim Dae-jung’s people and Kim Young-sam’s people first. Kim Sang-hyun was unreadable. We exchanged a few jokes over breakfast before we parted. Kim Yong-tae telephoned me saying that Kim Sang-hyun had called him several times afterward, and that he seemed rather tense. Kim Sang-hyun had cloaked his feelings at breakfast, but he must have felt tricked into helping us. Nevertheless, he did reserve a place close to the Korean People’s Artists Federation for our next meeting—a bangseokjip, a lower-end hostess bar that was trendy at the time, where the female employees wore traditional garb and the patrons sat on floor cushions, from which the place derived its name.

  When we got there, he exclaimed, “For goodness sakes, how could you think I’d be able to undertake such a thing on my own? I’ve brought along a friend to help us.”

  Kim Yong-tae and I had no idea who to
expect when another man, wearing indoor slippers and a dress shirt and tie without a jacket, came into the room. It was National Assembly member Lee Jong-chan, secretary-general of the ruling party. Lee seemed to have strolled across the street from his party’s headquarters at Kim Sang-hyun’s call. Although a member of the conservative ruling party, he was the grandson of Lee Hoe-yeong (founder of the legendary Shinheung Military School of the Korean independence movement in Manchuria), and the grand nephew of Yi Si-yeong (vice president of the Provisional Government of Korea led by Kim Koo), and was thus a cut above the snarling dictatorship-holdover generals and colonels of his party.

  Kim Sang-hyun introduced us and explained the role of the Korean People’s Artists Federation. Lee Jong-chan seemed bemused by the situation but reassured by the fact that I was a well-known novelist.

  Kim Sang-hyun patted my knee and said, “These people seem to be planning something. I’m not sure if I’ll be enough to help.”

  I quickly added: “Actually, I’m trying to visit Pyongyang. How do you feel about that, Mr. Speaker?”

  He looked surprised but smiled. “Well, I imagine that’s good for the country,” he said. “Have you received permission from the government?”

  “We should get official permission, of course.”

  Lee Jong-chan seemed reassured by my answer. He observed that, ever since the Lunar New Year, it seemed like every arts organization and civic group was floating plans for North–South exchanges.

  He told us about how he got into the Korea Military Academy as a student. President Rhee Syngman had adopted Lee Ki-poong’s son Lee Kang-seok when he had no children of his own, having him enter the academy with Lee Jong-chan. As we listened to his family stories, we hoped that someday we’d be able to talk about that meeting as the beginning of a friendship, not just of a strategic alliance.

  We had mentioned at the Korean People’s Artists Federation meetings that a certain Mr. Hwang might be visiting North Korea, hoping the rumor would spread. There was an ANSP handler I met frequently who happened to be the regional police station’s intelligence detective. Along with the police who mobilized the intelligence division detectives whenever there was a big public incident, the ANSP called and met me at restaurants or hotels about once a month. I had an ANSP handler exactly my age and practically a friend, who was fond of saying, “Life is one big insult.” I imagine that what I ended up doing must have upended his life afterward. He showed up punctually after I called and asked him to come to my house, instead of meeting outside. I said that my book The Shadow of Arms was coming out in Japan next month, and I wanted to be there for the launch. I also hinted that I might sound out while I was there if it were possible to visit North Korea. He replied that it would be a fine thing if Mr. Hwang visited North Korea. When I asked why, he said it was because writers could see and hear things ordinary people couldn’t, and went so far as to add that I should go and see as many things as possible, and write about it. He advised me that for now I should only check out if it was possible, and to come back to South Korea and discuss it with the government once I had secured an invitation. Our thinking on this differed, but I answered that of course I would discuss it with the authorities.

  In any case, I had notified them of my intention to visit North Korea.

  ~

  I left for Japan on February 28, 1989. I met with Professor Itō Narihiko, a critic and a long-time, politically savvy activist. It was important to figure out whom to tell about my intention to visit North Korea. Telling a Korean Japanese or Korean could make things legally complicated for them, not to mention the danger of more fabricated spy incidents. I concluded that I should tell someone who had connections with Japanese politicians and wasn’t shunned by the General Association of [North] Korean Residents in Japan, someone who more than anything else was trusted by the North. That would be the former editor of Sekai and current head of Iwanami Shoten, Yasue Ryōsuke. My thinking was that I should inform him of my intentions but not tell anyone that I had. As I mentioned earlier, Yasue had serialized the “Communiqué from Korea” for years in the pages of Sekai and was persona non grata to the South Korean authorities. His role as a bridge between the Koreas was crucial. I needed to decide beforehand whom I was to credit with connecting me to the North when the official invitation arrived and my North Korean visit was settled. I followed Professor Itō’s suggestion to designate Doi Takako of the Japanese Socialists. She was internationally known, and regarded helping a South Korean writer to visit North Korea for cultural exchange a rightful part of her duties as the leader of a neighboring country’s political party.

  I met Yasue Ryōsuke to explain the civilian exchanges between North and South and my intention to visit the North, and he immediately agreed to help. Next, I went to Chung Kyung-mo’s offices for Ssiarui him (Power of a Seed) in Shibuya. Chung grinned when I told him my plans and teased me, saying, “You think you can just walk in there like it’s your living room!” He came to the point as we got drunk after dinner. He had himself visited North Korea recently, and talked of his impressions of Pyongyang and the taste of the old-fashioned grilled mackerel they served in the visitors’ residences. “I must be getting old, I kept wanting to break down in tears.” He looked around at the Japanese people in the bar and added in a low voice that Pastor Moon Ik-hwan was also preparing a visit to the North. I’d heard a rumor to that effect, but I was still surprised by this evidence that we weren’t the only ones planning on visiting North Korea. Chung was as excited as a child, saying he never dreamed he’d be going to North Korea with the writer Hwang Sok-yong on one arm and the pastor Moon Ik-hwan on the other.

  I cautiously asked if my North Korean trip could be separated from Moon Ik-hwan’s. Being involved in the National Association for Democratic Activism, Moon was visiting the North for the sake of political negotiations toward reunification; I was on a cultural exchange with no other agenda. As a writer, I had to be more flexible and able to move about freely and widely, my actions more geared to the mainstream. I was also considering publishing my travelogue in a South Korean newspaper or other formal media. I was too naïve at the time to consider that the National Security Act would not care about the exact nature of what I was doing in North Korea, or that when it came to it I would often overstep my prerogative as a writer.

  Chung understood what I was saying and asked no more questions when I responded with a silent smile to his query of who was handling my visit. He advised, however, that I should not tell Itō or Wada Haruki about what Moon Ik-hwan was planning. He did not trust Korean Japanese organizations, and he was worried that Japanese people would blithely tell the Korean Japanese of our plans, unaware of the sensitivity of the issues.

  About two weeks later, Yasue Ryōsuke delivered to me an invitation letter from Baek In-jun, chairperson of the Korean Federation of Literature and Arts. Yasue also wrote me an invitation letter himself. Itō Narihiko accompanied me to the Chinese embassy where I was granted a transfer visa. Before I left Japan, he asked the assistant, Gotō Masako, to set up a meeting with Doi Takako. I’d first met her at a publishing event a few years ago, during my six months in Japan; she had a briskness about her and a forthright way of meeting one’s gaze that seemed different from other women. When I explained to her that I was going home to North Korea after forty years away, she wished me a safe journey and said she envied me, adding that she could foresee changes in the current Cold War situation. I had Itō take a picture of us together, as she was to be the official mediator of my trip. I wrote up a statement for Professor Itō and the director for the Japan–Korea Solidarity Committee, Professor Takasaki Sōji, to give to the media once my visit North was announced.

  On March 18, about twenty days after leaving for Japan, I boarded a commercial airliner bound for Beijing. Most of the passengers were Chinese, officials and executives and the like, with few Japanese tourists at that time.

  Once we had crossed the sea, the rugged peaks of a continental mountain range
appeared from between the clouds. It reminded me of how young people would sign off petitions with “X years of yearning for reunification.” Indeed. Forty-four years had passed since the division. I’d been unable to fall asleep in the hotel the night before and had bumbled about in the airport, briefly losing my passport and finding it again. Professor Dakasaki pretended to rap my head with his knuckles, warning me to pull myself together. I kept thinking of mysterious North Korea as a land of mischievous dokkaebi or a den of witches and got paranoid about eyes in the crowd watching my back. I felt disembodied as I sat in my hotel room, staring at myself from the outside. I was feeling the aftereffects of breaking a half-century-long taboo.

  The plane descended as if on a staircase, dipping sharply at intervals. The customs official looked down at my transfer visa on my passport and cocked his head. China and South Korea did not have diplomatic relations at the time. He said something to me in Chinese, but I couldn’t understand him and didn’t answer. He called for someone and a woman approached. She looked through my passport and asked me in English:

  “Where are you headed?”

  I had no answer prepared, so I improvised. “It hasn’t been confirmed yet.”

  She tilted her head as well. “Isn’t this a transfer visa?”

  “It is. Your government authorized it.”

  “What is your next destination?”