- Walking to North Korea. - A Refugee's Story

The author sits next to a Korean grandma during Thanksgiving. She reveals how as a 17 year old she fell in love with a North Korean soldier.  She details how her family fled north and then back south. Also, how she survived being machine-gunned buy a U.S. plane. And what you eat when you are starving...

Transcript

                                                  WALKING TO NORTH KOREA

Monterey, Ca

Twelve of us sit around the Thanksgiving table we are poking at - turkey, stuffing, jelled-cranberry, mashed potatoes, kimchee, fried seaweed, sticky rice, brown rice, steamed white rice, exotic roots, fish sauces, and a variety of bowled fermented anchovies exchange hands. Only two of us are 100% Anglo; the other ten are Korean or part Korean. When the inevitable Korean discussions begin, I hear them but I don’t listen. I can’t my Korean isn’t sophisticated enough. However, I notice the tiny Korean grandmother sitting on my left. She’s the grand matriarch of the family, but not a soul pays her heed. She seems left out. I have known her for many years. My wife is Korean - thus the connection.  I do some quick math in my head and try to spark some interest on her part. I cast a verbal line in her pool of silence.

     “Halmoni (Grandmother) Can I ask how old you were in the Korean War?”

      Her eyes sparkle, “Seventeen!” She leans closer to me and points to the discussions swirling around us. “My own kids NEVER ask me about that. They don’t know anything about me or the war. They don’t care.”

   “Seventeen must have been terrible?”  I expected to be cut off. Grandma passed me a bowl of Kimchee. I didn’t want a fermented leaf, but it seemed like saying no might annoy her. I chop-sticked out a small mound and dreaded eventually stomaching it.  I attempt another probe. “I think you lived in… Seoul?”  I try again. “Seventeen… wow… not the best of ages to be in a war.”

         “Yes, we lived in Seoul.” Granny moved in even closer to me and whispered, “Actually seventeen was a wonderful age. I fell in love with a North Korean officer.”

          I almost choked. “North… Korean… officer...?”

          “Here, you take your plate.” She lifted my full plate for me. She grabbed her own and stood, “Let’s sit in the other room.”

           Her daughter, Jean, saw us get up. “Mom, where are you two going?”

           “Mind your own business.  Mi-ra’s husband and I are having a talk. We don’t need to bore you all.”

           I stood, took hold of my plate as required turned my back to the table, and scurried off to the couch in the next room.  I followed gram, and waited for her to sit first. My wife had taught me the rudimentary social expectations of Koreans – totally respect your elders. 

           I sat, lathered my turkey with gravy, and then followed it with as little Kimchee as I could honorably eat while being watched. And I was being watched.

            Gram started, “We had a huge house in Seoul. The largest in fact in the Dong.”

            “Sorry, what’s a Dong?”

            “In Korea we have cities, then city districts, then Dongs, like a block or neighborhood. Anyway, when the North Koreans invaded they came straight to our house and took it as a headquarters.”

             “Must have been scary.”

             “Not really. The North Koreans were all gentlemen. The asked us permission to do everything. They apologized for the inconveniences. They paid us for the use of our home and any food they took. And… they were handsome. Especially that one officer. They put up their flag on top of our roof and let us stay in a small house in our compound. My family considered us to be lucky. The war destroyed everything and everyone around us.”

         I hid some kimchee behind some mash potatoes.  Granny spotted my maneuver, but failed to say anything.  She continued, “Three times Seoul went back and forth. South Koreans, North Koreans, even one time the Chinese invaded. And every time one army left, the next one came right behind them, and started interrogations, round ups, and executions. So when the North Koreans left, we decided to go with them.”

         I stopped eating, “You went with the North Koreans!”

         “Yes, my whole family went. We had to. We went because we’d be labeled as collaborators and certainly killed by jealous neighbors or executed by the next army. But I went mostly because of the red-cheeked Lieutenant from Wonsan.”

          I almost spit out my food. I knew grandma was a fireball of a character. But this was well juicy. “I’m assuming, “I asked straight-faced, “Wonsan is north of the 38th parallel.”

         “It is.” She nodded… “It is. It is very much in North Korea.”

         “How does that work?”

          “What?”

          “Following an army?”

          She put her chop sticks down, “First, when it is dark you bury everything of value, coins, silver, old vases, ancient dishes, family records. Everything. My father also buried two massive vats of kimchee. My mother wanted to give it to the neighbors, but my father insisted that we bury it. They screamed at each other about that. But you can never bury too much. The problem is how long it takes. Anyway, when the North Korean commander of our house left he promised to keep an eye on us. My lieutenant promised too. But the commander left in a Russian car and my Lieutenant marched off by foot. When we left the house it was just our family, but when we stepped on the road there were hundreds of followers going north and then thousands. Thousands! We had carts, oxen, wheelbarrows, everyone looked like a street peddler carrying as much as they could. Even small children carried bags or dragged luggage. We walked for two weeks – north, north, north. Through dirt and mud. It was fall.  All along the way people threw things away. Piles every where. We finally got to Pyongyang and it had been destroyed, burned, ruined, we couldn’t even find street names. We thought a dear cousin would take us in but we never found their house. Not their Dong, not their street. Everything was black from fire. And more and more refugees poured in all from the countryside and from the south.”

         “What did you eat?”

         “Not much… rice, kimchee, dried seaweed. The way up was ok and barely that because we had some food we carried. Not much at all, but some. We sold everything or begged from friends we ran into. Mostly the North Korean troops were on the road. Civilians had to walk on the side in the fields. Always we heard bombings all around us. We were filthy.” She shook her head.

         “Obviously at some point you left Pyongyang or you wouldn’t be here.  How?”

         “There was nothing for us in North Korea. We heard executions of refugees were taking place. So we decided to separate and head south back to Seoul. I went first with my brother and sister.”

         “That was not the plan, but that is what happened.  We were the youngest and we were to leave messages all the way. Our older siblings followed a day behind us. We were to see if it was safe. Would there be food? And we thought two groups would survive better than one.”

         “And what happened?”

         “We lost contact right away. So many people. Then one morning a plane came overhead. An American plane. It flew low and it fired on us as we huddled on the side of the road.  I curled up in a ball.”

         “You are tiny. How tall are you?”

           “Tall? Ha! Short… thank god. I’m 4’11.”

         “When the plane passed, only I stood up. My sister was killed immediately. My brother shot in the chest, with a huge hole. People all around us didn’t get up. I stayed with my brother for two days as thousands and thousands of people passed. Some went north, some went south. Every time we saw soldiers from either side we hid. And that was hard to do with my brother.”

         I had stopped eating. She noticed, “Finish your food. It is just an old woman’s story that her own kids don’t know or care about.”

         I purposefully shoved more kimchee in my mouth than I had in years. Gram approved with a hint of a smile.

         “My brother went in a coma and I sat alone as thousands of people passed by only a few feet away. What could I do? Before my brother passed out he begged me to leave him. He said, ‘GO…live. Leave me.’ And on the third day I did. I abandoned him with other wounded people.”  She looked at me, “Can you imagine to abandon your brother?”

         “No, but you were seventeen.”

         “Yes, I was seventeen.”

         “How did you survive on your own?”

         “Like a chwee.”

         “Chwee I knew. With my limited Korean that was a word I knew – rat! You survived like a… rat?”

         “Yes, like the rats of the night. I only travelled in the dark. Always only on the side of the road. I ate leaves, grass, dried rice stalks, and the dried vines of pumpkins.”

         “What happened to the rest of your family?”

         “They all made it back. Except for my sister. We should have waited and left together. Most surprising was when the ghost showed up.”

         “Ghost?”

          “Weeks later my brother showed up at our compound. He survived being shot. And his seventeen year-old sister had abandoned him.  Not nice.” Gram teared up a little.

         “Wow.”

         “So now you know more than they do.”  She pointed to all her kids, and grand kids sitting twenty feet from us.  “You know what else?”

         “What?”

         “My father had been right. About burying the kimchee. Those two vats he buried kept us alive for weeks.”

         The she looked at me. “You don’t like kimchee very much do you?”

              “Not really.”

              “Let me tell you a secret. It’s much better than grass, leaves or dried pumpkin vine and an empty stomach.”

               I could only nod in agreement. That was my Thanksgiving.