The Spirit of the Dragon

by William Andrews

  Next came music and dancing. First, the men in their red shirts danced the nongak. They performed the farmer’s dance, pounding drums that hung around their waist and clanging cymbals. Father and several other men marched and leaped in a circle around the drummers while spinning white ribbons on a stick. As he danced, Father looked like he was in a trance.

  When the men finished, five women danced the taepyeongmu, the peace dance. The women glided and turned gracefully as a drummer played a slow rhythm. In the center was my aunt in her white dress. Her moves were skillful, and although she was the youngest, I could see she was leading the other dancers.

  When the dancing was done, it was time for comedy and satire. This was my favorite part of the festival. I loved the banter between the satirists and the audience. I pushed to the front to get a better view. A man stepped into the center wearing a white mask to disguise himself. The mask had a long thick nose, bushy eyebrows, and huge ears. By the way he carried himself, I could see the masked man was young. I tried to see who he was, but with his mask on, I could not.

  The crowd threw insults at him, pointed and laughed. I covered my mouth and laughed with them.

  “You have a face like a donkey!” one person said.

  “Are you as dumb as a donkey, too?” another shouted.

  The man held up his hand. “Quiet!” he ordered. “I am a Japanese donkey, and you may not insult me!”

  “A Japanese donkey?” a man said. “All Japanese are donkeys!” The crowd laughed again.

  “You say Japanese are donkeys,” the masked man said, “but if we are donkeys, you are pigs. And donkeys do work while pigs wallow in mud. We build roads and dams and bring electricity to you. We have brought order and efficiency, too.” The man raised his palm to the sky. “Of course, you pigs have had to give us everything you own and change your wallowing way of life. But that is not too high a price to pay for all we have given you, is it?”

  At this, the crowd hissed and whistled. I hissed with them.

  “You ungrateful pigs!” the masked man shouted, pointing at the crowd. “Yes, we have stolen everything from you. But us donkeys have given you something even more valuable than these things I have said. We have given you someone to despise. Think of that!”

  The crowd cheered. “That is true!” one person said.

  “Yes!” said another. “We despise the Japanese donkeys!”

  “Without us to hate,” the masked man continued, “you would fight among yourselves, clan versus clan, as you did for hundreds of years. Without us donkeys, you would be poor pigs, trapped in your miserable past. Instead of despising us, you should thank us for uniting you!”

  The crowd hissed again. Someone yelled, “We would rather be trapped in our miserable past than to have to live with donkeys!”

  “Go home, donkey,” another man said.

  “You want us donkeys to go home?” the masked man asked. “Why should we go home? Korea has everything donkeys need—forests and fields, mountains and minerals. Korea is much too nice for pigs. It is much more suited for donkeys.”

  The crowd hissed and whistled. Again, I hissed with them.

  “And you have beautiful women, too!” the man said. “More beautiful and charming than the homely donkeys on our island. For example . . .” The masked man scanned the crowd. He stopped when he saw me. “This girl here,” he said, pointing at me. “This one would make a lovely donkey’s wife, don’t you agree?”

  I think I blushed. I lowered my head and looked behind me for a way to escape attention. The crowd hissed and whistled louder. “We will never marry Japanese!” someone shouted.

  “But of course, why would she marry a donkey when she can have a Korean pig who is content to be poor and wallow in the past?”

  Someone said again, “Go home, donkey!” The crowd joined in. “Donkey, go home! Donkey, go home!”

  I looked at the masked man, who was still facing me. Through his mask, I saw his eyes. They were focused on me as if he didn’t hear the crowd’s chants. This time, I’m sure I blushed.

  Then the man looked beyond the crowd at something. The crowd turned to see what he was looking at. There, on the road, was a truck heading toward us.

  “Who is that?” one person asked.

  “The police!” another replied.

  A murmur rippled through the crowd. I turned to the masked man and saw that he was running away. He ran behind the house, into the field. I wondered why he didn’t just take off his mask and stay with the crowd, one among many.

  The truck stopped at the yard and the crowd huddled close. Four policemen got out dressed in dark-blue uniforms, high boots, and squat hats with the police emblem on the front. Two carried batons. One held a rifle and another gripped a shinai.

  “What is going on here?” the policeman with the shinai said. He tapped the bamboo sword in his hand as he talked.

  My uncle stepped forward and gave the policeman a small bow. “We are celebrating spring,” Uncle said.

  “Spring?” the policeman said, mockingly. “You mean, you are celebrating Emperor Hirohito’s birthday, don’t you?”

  My uncle did not respond. The crowd was dead silent.

  The policeman strolled in front of the crowd as if he was doing an inspection. With each step, he tapped his leg with the shinai. “But I do not understand,” he said. “If you are celebrating the emperor’s birthday, you should not be wearing blue and red. And you should wave Japanese flags and sing songs of praise to the emperor. I do not see any flags. I didn’t hear any songs for the emperor.” He stopped at my uncle. “Were you singing songs of praise to your emperor?” he asked. “Perhaps you were singing ‘Kimigayo,’ our national anthem?”

  My uncle lowered his eyes. “No, sir,” he said.

  “I didn’t think so,” the policeman said. He scanned the crowd. He stopped when he saw my aunt. She stood with her hands on Soo-hee and Jae-hee. He pointed at her with his shinai. “You there, the one wearing white. Come here.”

  My aunt told her daughters to stay where they were, and she went to the policeman. She did not lower her head to him.

  “Why are you wearing white, woman?” the policeman asked, lifting the hem of her dress with his shinai. “Don’t you know wearing white is forbidden? You aren’t protesting, are you?”

  “I am wearing white to preserve our heritage, sir,” my aunt replied.

  “Ha!” the policeman said. “There is no Korean heritage anymore. You are Japanese now, and you must respect our laws. Remove that dress at once.”

  My aunt hesitated, then she gave the policeman a nod. “Yes, sir,” she said. She started for the house.

  “Stop!” the policeman ordered. “Do it now. Right here.”

  My aunt turned back. She looked from side to side. “Here?”

  “Right here, right now.”

  “No,” my aunt said, shaking her head.

  “No?” the policeman said, surprised. “You defy my order? I should arrest you and throw you in jail for a month. But then, Mother,” he sneered, “who will take care of your daughters?”

  The policeman glared at my aunt. “Take off your dress,” he snarled, “or you will regret it and your daughters will be without a mother.”

  My uncle stepped forward. “Stop,” he shouted. “This is not right.” He approached my aunt.

  The two policemen with batons intercepted him before he reached his wife. One swung his baton and struck my uncle hard on his thigh. The blow made a sickening thud and made him fall to the ground. The other policeman stood over my uncle with his baton raised.

  My father took an angry step forward and the policemen braced for him. Before Father went two paces, Mother grabbed his arm. “Seong-ki, no!” she pleaded. Father didn’t take his eyes from the policemen, but he stopped.

  The policeman with the shinai glared at my father for a second, then addressed my aunt. “Remove your dress now or I will arrest you.” My aunt stood still for several seconds, staring horrified at my uncle. The
n she untied the sash around her waist. She pulled her dress from her shoulders and let it slip to the ground. She stood in front of the policemen, her husband, and the entire crowd in her undergarments.

  The policeman nodded to the one holding the rifle and pointed at the white dress. The policeman with the rifle picked up the dress and threw it in the truck.

  My aunt moved to go to the house. “Stay where you are, woman,” the policeman said. My aunt stayed where she was, staring at the ground.

  The policeman began to pace again. “So, you are celebrating spring instead of the emperor’s birthday. Well, we need to correct that.” He faced the crowd. “You should sing ‘Kimigayo’ for the emperor on his birthday. All good citizens of Japan should know our national anthem. Come now, sing it!”

  The people in the crowd looked from side to side at each other and didn’t sing. “What? You do not know it?” the policeman said. “Here, let me help you.” He straightened his back, cleared his throat, and began singing in a baritone voice. “Thousands of years of happy reign be thine . . .” No one joined him, and he stopped.

  He glared at the crowd as my aunt still stood to the side in her undergarments. “You know the anthem,” the policeman barked. “If you do not sing it, I will start arresting people for being disloyal to the emperor. I will arrest this man first,” he said, pointing his shinai at my uncle. “Now start singing with me.”

  He began again, and a few voices tentatively sang with him. “Thousands of years of happy reign be thine . . .” A few more joined in. “Rule on, my lord till what are pebbles now . . .”

  “Good!” the policeman said condescendingly. “Everyone sing!”

  Everyone sang, looking at their feet as they did. “By age united to mighty rocks shall grow, whose venerable sides the moss doth line.”

  “Excellent!” the policeman said. “You are all on your way to becoming outstanding citizens of the Japanese empire! And now that you’ve sung to the emperor, it is time for you to go home.”

  People stared nervously at the ground and did not move. “Now!” the policeman bellowed, slapping his shinai against his leg. “And if you gather like this again without permission, you will be arrested. Go!”

  The crowd quickly broke up, people scrambling in all directions. My aunt ran to my uncle and helped him up. Women swept food off the table. The musicians hurriedly packed their instruments. Somewhere, a baby cried. I went to Mother and Father, and together we hurried down the road. Father took long, angry strides as we headed home. The entire way, none of us said a word.

  SIX

  Two days later, the administrator came to our village again in his Model T Ford. I spotted the car when I was helping in Mr. Pak’s potato field. I didn’t think much of seeing the administrator because he came often. I turned my attention to weeding the potatoes with the blacksmith’s daughters, Soo-sung and Mi-sung. It was always the girls who helped on the farm. Like my brother, the young men were away at the Japanese schools in Sinuiju and Pyongyang, learning how to be good Japanese.

  The police had still not released Mr. Pak for whatever he had done, and his fields were thick with weeds. We were on our second day of hacking away the weeds with our hoes. The previous day we’d worked until dark. I’d been exhausted and went to sleep without supper. In the morning, my hands were blistered and my back was sore, but I crawled off my mat and trudged down the road to Mr. Pak’s field. I tied rags around my blisters and had been hoeing all morning when the car came puttering up the road.

  “What does he want now?” Mi-sung asked, staring at the car.

  “He probably wants to make sure we understand the new rule,” Soo-sung grumbled.

  “Will they make us marry a Japanese man?” Mi-sung asked.

  “No,” Soo-sung replied. “We will defy them as all Koreans should.” She gave me a stiff look.

  The car drove out of sight and we went back to our hoeing. Fifteen minutes later, the car came again, going back down the road.

  “He stopped at your house, I think,” Soo-sung said.

  I didn’t reply, and we continued to hoe for the rest of the day.

  That night when I got home, Mother and Father were waiting for me. They told me that the administrator had indeed come to our house. “There is a Japanese family with a son who needs a wife,” Mother said. “You are to go to Sinuiju tomorrow to meet the family. If the father approves of you, you will marry his son.”

  I looked at Father, hoping he would say we would go to Manchuria instead of going to Sinuiju. He just stared at his hands and said nothing.

  “What is the boy’s name?” I asked.

  “The administrator did not say,” Mother answered. “The family is Saito. The administrator said Mr. Saito is a high official in the provincial government.”

  “How old is the boy?” I asked.

  “They said he is only a few years older than you,” Mother said, trying to put on a brave face. “If they like you, you will not have to marry an older man. Since this boy is still young, you will live with his family in a nice house.”

  I tried to picture the house of Mr. Saito, the important official of the provincial government. The house would certainly have a giwa tile roof, a formal courtyard, and many rooms. They probably had gardens and servants, too. Mr. Saito most likely had a car and a driver.

  I tried to imagine what his son was like. Was he handsome? Was he kind? Perhaps he had lips like a fish and was skinny and weak. Maybe he was stupid and dull and that’s why his father was forcing him to marry a Korean girl. Perhaps he liked to hurt girls like me as the Japanese boys liked to do. I remembered my plan to be rude so that no one would want to marry me. I was sure that it would work, so I didn’t ask any more questions.

  Mother went to the stove. “I made rousong pork and rice for you,” she said. “Come, eat your supper and then go to bed. We have a long day tomorrow.”

  The next morning, I arose before it was light outside. The administrator had told Mother and Father to bring me to the police station in Sinuiju, where someone would take me to Mr. Saito’s house. It was a three-hour walk from our village to Sinuiju. Only Mother and I would make the trek. Father said he had to stay to work on a project. I wasn’t sure if the administrator had told him he didn’t have to go, or if he refused to. Either way, I was glad he wasn’t going. I planned to be rude to Mr. Saito, and I didn’t want Father to get into trouble for my behavior.

  After I crawled off my mat, Mother filled the metal washtub behind our house with hot water. In the growing morning light, I sat in the tub and washed myself with soap the officials gave out, then washed my hair with calamus water to make it shiny. Mother poured a pail of water over my head to rinse off the soap. The water was cold and made me shiver. The night before, Mother had washed my gray dress. I didn’t like that dress. It was coarse and dull and made me look plain. I had seen photographs of women in hanboks from before the occupation, and I always thought I would look pretty in one. But the officials didn’t allow Korean women to wear hanboks, so I had never even tried one on.

  I brushed my hair in front of the stove to dry it. Then, Mother twisted it into a long braid and tied it with a red silk ribbon with Japanese characters. I complained that I didn’t want to wear the Japanese ribbon, but Mother said that I had to. “You must look like a proper young woman,” she said. A proper young woman. I thought of how I was going to be rude once I got to the Saito house, and my stomach hurt a little. It certainly wasn’t the way a proper young woman would act. But I pushed my stomach pain aside. I wasn’t going to marry a Japanese man, no matter how important his father was.

  When Mother had finished with my hair, I put on leather shoes that Father had patched and Mother had polished. They were too small for me and pinched my feet. I tied them loosely so they wouldn’t pinch so much.

  The administrator had instructed my parents to have me at the police station by early afternoon. It was still midmorning when Mother packed a bottle of water, the leftover rousong pork, and daik
ons in our haversack. Then, as Father hammered away in his shed, we set off down the road past the thatched-roof houses. Just outside the village, I saw Mrs. Pak, Soo-sung, and Mi-sung weeding the potato field. They looked at me when I walked by. I waved but they didn’t wave back.

  Clouds had moved in and a north wind promised rain, but Mother and I made good time. After an hour, we had walked to where we could see the Yalu River. Rice paddies in geometric patterns scaled the hills all the way to the riverbank. Farmers wearing pointed straw hats and hauling tube-shaped baskets on their backs bent over ankle-deep water, pushing seedlings into the ground. In another field, two men worked a pump wheel with their legs to flood a paddy. Every so often, a truck rumbled by, kicking up mud as it went. We had to scramble into the ditch so the mud wouldn’t splash us. Poles with electric wires ran along the road. I remembered the masked man at the Dano celebration had said the Japanese had brought electricity to Korea. The wires were still several miles from our village, and I often wondered why we would need electricity.

  As we were walking, my mind drifted to Sinuiju and the Saito family. Mother hadn’t told me what to expect when we got there, or what they would ask me to do. Perhaps she didn’t know. I wondered how an important Japanese family in Sinuiju knew about me, a poor carpenter’s daughter miles away. I decided to ask. “Ummah,” I said, “how did they find out about me?”