Boolim Heads for Shimonoseki

6
Boolim Heads for Shimonoseki, 1940

Mouths of the clan's aunts and sisters at this small town got busy, who were milling gossips mostly at the village well under a huge elm tree. The roosters of the village crooned and the sky in the east dawned. The "aunts" of the village got to the village well and drew water from the never-drying spring. And the never-ending yarns, too.

The yarns were not coherent altogether. They couldn't be. Mrs. Punggsan, who was from Pungsan, Andong-gun, which was 50 kilometers away, usually talked about the wellbeing of her children (Chinchin had a fever last night!) Mrs. Munkyong whispered about her husband, giggling. Mrs Andong used to put her dreams on the mill board. She was wondering whether she had dreamt taemong, a dream indicating the pregnancy and omen about the unborn baby, or something. They then couldn't wait to offer gratuitous interpretations.

There were also moments when knowledge took precedence. A semblance of it, of course. They knew it from the grapevine, or from the wind. So some aunts had made endeavors to enlighten other ignorant hyongnims, that is, elder "sisters" tied in clan relationships, by claiming that there is a big country. far across the Pacific, called miguk, or a beautiful country, named the United States of America, which is ten times (several times multiplied) bigger and stronger than Japan, so that the miguk would intervene in the Pacific War and vanquish ilbon, or the Imperial Japan, sooner or later.

The notification at the wellside was also made of the marginal default or impoverishment when one aunt or the other's house was running out of the food grain. The aunts subsequently chipped in to fill in the empty ssaldok, that is, the urn of rice for emergency. More often than not episodes of over-the-fence camaraderie occurred in which a big bowl of steamed rice crossed over an aunt's fence.



Good tidings arrived via sea mail to Boolim's and her clan's delight that the two advance departures, Toung Doung Wang and his older brother Toung Jang Wang, had been admitted to the miners' apartments at Sakitoma-chi, Nishisonoki-kun, Nagasaki-ken. In the letter Toung Doung was honored to have been recruited, through rigorous fitness tests, as one of the Industrial Warriors of the Emperor, and elated at the prospect that the esteemed company Mitsubishi had permitted the Chosun miners to have their dependents at the residence.

"Honored? The Industrial Warriors of the Emperor your asshole!" some of the listeners thought aloud as the most knowledgeable middle-school graduate in the village read the missive aloud. As if to detect the cerebration, some of the audience chimed in to defend Toung Doung, saying, "Mail censorship must be harsh!" The rest of the audience began to argue about the toils and hardships the Wang brothers now faced.

The great uncles and the great fathers or, the elderlies of the village were sitting on the hottest part of a spacious ondol room floor, one of whom coughed discomforts over the proceedings of the conversations. Great Uncle Hui coughed a solemn remark, saying, "Don't be sarcastic. Why make a mockery of Nippon and things Nipponese?" The eyes of the audience in the room were rivetted on "the Uncle of the West", which had been named after the location of the residence of the patriarch.

The monarch and the ruling class were responsible to the colonial nation. The ordinary people were not. The subjects of the humiliated country had to survive. Whatever hard elements they were in, they had to carry on. So they were not excused to idle away, merely lamenting the sorry state of the country.



She prayed...And prayed. She just prayed before the altar in the small hours before dawn. Taking a bath and offering a bowl of the fresh well water she had drawn first of all the others in the new day, Boolim prayed that her husband Toung Doung might keep safe and sound in the deep pits of a Japanese coal mine.

“The altar" was not particularly built. Any elated place, which a doenjangdok, or a big jar containing soybean paste was placed, would do. No psalms, nor mantras, nor prayer books were in store for her. She used to just kneel in the direction of the Big Dipper and prayed to the heaven for her husband's good luck.

Prior to the nightly routine, she took a wash of her face and a bath, not a serious one, got her teeth brushed, and hair combed. Before she exited her room for the altar at the backyard, she faced the north wall and offered three deep bows, two for the fallen Chosun monarch and one for her husband.


Toung Doung Wang had said in the letter his elder brother would send for his wife Boolim (I need you here!), with Toung Doung's elder brother Toung Jang coming back home to pick her up. He said she would have to keep company all through the journey to Nippon. Boolim's mother-in-law grudgingly let go of her daughter-in-law. That left three out of a six-member family: Toung Doung's mother, his younger brother and youngest sister.

People and things were new to country woman Boolim of 23 with no issue, who had never gone out of Danuishill, her husband's local residence. Cars were rare; old classic General Motors trucks, which had been ignited by hand-held starters, were spotted one in a mile fashion. Long and huge hulks of trains were also new to her. The howling of locomotive trains was a happy surprise; Even the scent of smokes from burning coals was not a nuisance.

Boolim and Toung Jang hit the road early in the morning. The distance from Danuishill to Euiseong-up railroad station was some 14 kilo meters. Toung Jang's paces were so brisk Boolim had a hard time catching up gasping for air, so he stopped from time to time and waited for her to join him.

It was the day set for the local bazaar which had been scheduled to open in the interval of five days starting the second of the month like 2.7.12.17.22.27. The visitors to the bazaar lined the roads to Euiseong-up (the capital of Euiseong), carrying the farming produce on carts driven by cows. Or, carrying the merchandise on chigae, or the wooden A-frame. Or, taking the load up on the top of the woman's head.

Boolim's feet were sore. She tripped on the way over a rock and almost fell, not limping, however. She was not a stout build nor a frail type. She was rather strong inside. Although she got left behind a few paces almost all the time, she did not turn out a burden to his brother-in-law.

Once in the precinct of the town capital on the day of the bazaar, they found it rather subdued. Gloom was in the air. The uniformed Nipponese policemen in twos were patrolling the street, carrying the bayonet rifle on the shoulder. They were on the prowl; They threw suspicious glances toward the crowd whenever it was formed and got near to them and whistled furiously, propping them to disperse.

Excitement heightened when the train blew ear-splitting horns as it pulled into the station. Boolim was so nervous she almost tripped as she stepped on the train. Toung Jang was behind her, warning her to watch her steps. People with their loads high on their shoulders shoved their way onto the stairs.

Hardly had they gotten onto the landing to the compartment third class they found the crowd stampeding for passenger seats of the deck, which were up for grabs. The unlucky folks, finding no place to sit down, were milling about in the aisles. Toung Jang managed to take a seat for his sister-in-law, who uttered thanks and regrets for him time and time again.

How could the metamorphosis of emotional cataclysm happen? And that just in an instant. All that the train and its whistle had evoked in Boolim was so sweet she might have painted the compartments and the passengers in them in fairy tale colors. But expectations turned into disappointment as time wore on. Nostalgic anticipations, which she had harbored whenever she had heard faraway whistles of trains when skies had been overcast with clouds and when the hamlet had been shrouded with fogs, turned into irritating boredom. Overwhelming stench of urine and odor emanating from unwashed men around got her sick.

A man in his seeming thirties across Boolim's seat showed curiosity about Boolim's destination, giggling and reeking of cheap liquor. Boolim was silent for a while, not knowing how to respond. Toung Jang interrupted, saying it was none of "your goddamn business." The man, piqued by Toung Jang's blunt remarks, spitted obscenities. Then Toung Jang collared him by the neck and push pressed him to the back of the seat, staring at him sternly.

The man quieted down. Toung Jang did not slap him or something. Fist fights did not erupt. In spite of a small stir of the place, the passengers around Boolim and her company were nodding off as if nothing had happened. Some passengers across the aisles were engaged in small talks. Some others enjoyed boiled eggs or other edibles. The other passengers seemed to try to keep wits for the long and slow journey.

A staff of the station was hawking by with a cart rolling full of steamed eggs, peanuts, cookies and non-alcoholic beverages. Liquors and beers were not allowed on the train. Ilbon Gongahn, or Nipponese security officers, kept a tight rein on some lousy people on the booze.

Tunnels meant darkness. Hails of coal grain struck the faces of almost all the people in the train as the iron horse went through the subterranean passageways. The clickety clack of the mighty wheels rolling sounded "haebang! haebang!""(Emancipation! Emancipation!) to the muted riders. Horns shouted "Dohngnip! Dohngnipo!" (Independence! Independence!)

New arrivals took the seats which had been emptied by those who had disembarked the train. The conductor came and punctured the tickets. Security officers came and checked the travel passes of the Toung Jang couple. Finding that the couple were bound for a Mitsubishi Company in Nagasaki, Japan, they saluted, saying "Gokouuno inorimasu." (Good luck to your journey!)



The seas didn't sit quiet. They rocked and rolled. They roared. The amazement she had had when Boolim first saw the great waters bordered on shock, which couldn't be compared to the excitement she had had when he took a first sight of the locomotive train. "What an irony that a misfortune of the nation has given me a welcome chance of a poet!" a minstrel had lamented.

Although she was not a poetess, her heart was full of emotions at the sight of the high seas, especially at the time of the ruined nation. Tears welled up in her eyes, with her throats choked with emotion. She imagined the seas in the know how to beat the hell out of the proud swordsmen. They would only await a proper time when they would be able to quake and tilt the bizarre hunk of land to the far brink of the perdition, she thought.

Her momentary thoughts were riotous, or seditious. All the sights and sounds were lively and encouraging, nevertheless. The sea waves striking the Busan-Shimonoseki ferry boat made a primordial hue and cry. Although the dialogues, which were being conducted by the Japanese themselves and between the people who were bound for the country, were not getting across to her, they sounded melodious. What a beautiful language, she thought aloud. She hated the very thought that the foreign language enlivened her. She shot a guilty glance at her brother-in-law who shot back in a nonchalant and mischievous way.

Before they knew, a panic took place where the passengers on the deck were doing the leisurely talks. A rabbit appeared from nowhere, startled and shaking all over. He was sitting still on a patio, not knowing what to do. Murmurs of surprise arose. Some people shouted and clapped their hands, laughing loudly. Then the rabbit was running all over the place. A guy, dressed in a cook uniform, making an appearance from the cabin, appeared to look for the prey. He ran to the pitiful animal and picked it up and returned, with the onlookers on the deck looking away.

Horizons in almost every direction, especially the horizon in the west, drummed up clouds, threatening to pour in any minute. The sea winds were getting shorter and stronger. Boolim, getting seasick and advised by Toung Jang, got down to the third class cabin, of which the floor was public. The designation of "the third class" did not irk her at all. Amenities were mutual and even, which got her to think that the Japanese were fair and generous.

The cabin was full, of which the passengers were mostly laborers from the late Chosun kingdom volunteering to work in the Archipelago proper and a small number of the Chosun young men garbed in the university students' uniforms studying in the Imperial Japan. The students were partly from Tokyo Imperial and mostly from Waseda or something. They put on imperial airs, forming peer groups and talking with each other in loudly fluent Japanese. A while later, a group of students came over from the second class cabin and took the peers in the lowest class as if their presence were an insult to themselves.

Boolim thought that her sickness would calm down as she got downstairs to take a rest. Since an afflicting nuisance of nausea had not been a common occurrence in the past, she did not care a bit about it. But all of a sudden she found herself vulnerable; She had her stomach so messy she rushed to the bathroom and threw up and up what little food she had taken for the day. Toung Jang showed up with looks of apprehension behind the toilet door. In minutes, Boolim had gone to the ship infirmary, staying for the rest of her journey, tended by a doctor and two ship nurses.



"We got here at long last," Toung Jang said in a low voice. After eight more hours' cruise, including some intermediate procrastinations for technical reasons or other, Ship Bukuanmaru docked at Shimonoseki Harbor. There was a little quiver in a ship body. Boolim heard like in a dream that they had reached the terminal port.

The terminal was bright like a sunny day. Toung Jang was near at her side. She found her feet so weak and her head so dizzy that she was standing still for quite a while, stunned, not knowing what to do next. Toung Jang asked apprehensively whether she was all right. As if drugged or hit hard on the head, she felt herself in a daze. After a slow take she realized that she had been thrown into the wild, into the dark stillness of the imperial country proper, in which her husband had been "voluntarily" commandeered to dig the coal. Out of the nadir of despair, stateless and penniless. a ray of indescribable hope erupted onto her spine that her husband was waiting for her somewhere nearby.

Melodious and merry Japanese dialects were all around. There were no inactivities. Everyone was on the move. But no Mitsubishi people presented themselves. It was a welcome thing, though, that there were no people out there to try and take advantage of unwary and innocent new arrivals. The midnight train from Shimonoseki to Fukuoka was not crowded. It was cleaner, quieter, more comfortable, and less smelly. The atmosphere in the passenger compartment was tense just like both edges of swords. The passengers shared few conversations, if any, dozing off or pretending to sleep.

Even for the moment, her impression was that the native Nipponese (Japanese) didn't shake each other's hands. They didn't shake their legs, and they didn't shake their eyes, either. They didn't shake their heads. Their voices were full of confidence and optimism, casting off self-doubt or skepticism. Their footsteps were brisk and stable. Their gazes were fixed, not shivering. Their shoulders were firm. They didn't shrug their shoulders. They didn't shake their bodies; All the parts of their bodies were in place, in well-organized fashion. The reason might have been that their land had been shaking them all along the way, off and on.

Gloom was falling like drizzle in whatsisname fields. You might call it Fukuoka Plains, which was shrouded in the dark. Boolim looked out the window at the pitch-dark expanse, death-like stillness of which enveloped like a huge bed spread. Glimmers of light, which were seen in the faraway places presumed to be the people's villages, through the one- hundred deep wall of darkness, looked to beckon the nocturnal passengers to their place of peace and rest. The wayward imagination of a colonial country woman was running wild. She was wondering aloud whether the dear sons of the villagers were chasing the preys in uniform in rain forests in the Pacific, or gunned down by the warring predators, or desecrating the captive women, or beheading the prisoners' heads.