WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 150: The Story of the Brothers 【Classic of Mountains and Seas】 (2)
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The five won Ham Byeong-cheol gave him changed Han San.
‘I have to do it.’
He could not rely on others.
‘Words have no value.’
He had said his mother had died. He had said his younger brother was clever. He had said he wanted to send his younger brother to school.
Had that happened? Ham Byeong-cheol had said. How terribly unfortunate, Ham Byeong-cheol had said. When he borrowed the money, he had said he would certainly repay this kindness.
And so five won came.
‘Words and actions.’
Han San watched people closely.
“Me? You know how much I love our people?”
Most people who talked big raised their voices before Chosun[1] people and became polite before Japanese people.
“Oh, that poor thing. What can be done? Tsk, tsk. I really do want to help.”
Most people who clicked their tongues never took even a single coin from their pockets.
“Me,” “us,” “friendship above all,” “love is!” “family,” “patriotism and love for our people,” “justice!” “the nation,” “equality!” “universal love,” “and justice.”
Words, words, words. All those beautiful words.
Most people who spoke them were not so beautiful themselves. Once he filtered out those who only talked, the world became astonishingly clear.
His father had been a man of few words. Now his son understood why.
Han San did not make himself speak less.
Instead, he spoke more.
“Hello, I’m Han San! I look forward to working with you!”
When he worked. When he met people. He bantered and rubbed his hands together, making sure his voice was not hollow.
Words were only words, but speaking was an action in itself, and thus had its uses.
“If you ever want to go into the mountains, make sure to call me! If you ever need to cross a mountain, call me then too! My name is Han San, after all! Doesn’t that inspire confidence?”
Words were perfect for wordplay.
‘Only action can move this world.’
Then that action had to be his own.
Han San became an adult.
1938. Twenty-three years old. Perhaps one year old.
But.
Becoming an adult did not mean he could simply go on living as one.
“If you don’t have enough money, I can’t give you a ride. Isn’t that obvious?”
Han San spoke firmly. The frail old woman lowered her head.
“My son is in Hongcheon... I just want to see him once...”
In her hands were crumpled banknotes and coins. There were also a few foodstuffs that smelled closer to fermented soybean blocks than rice cakes.
The old woman’s entire fortune was not enough for the work payment. That should have been the end of it.
It should have been.
The moment he turned away, he thought of his mother.
“I’ll collect from your son.”
At other times, a gaunt, starving child begged him for something to eat.
“Please, hyung. I haven’t eaten anything for days. Please give me just a little food.”
Han San was dumbfounded.
“Hey. Do I look like I have anything? Get lost. I’m busy feeding myself and my brother. If you don’t, I’ll kick you.”
The child did not leave, and Han San could not kick him. He thought of his younger brother.
“Eat, then get lost.”
Han San, too, was not free from the gap between words and actions.
1938. Twenty-three years old. And so, one year old.
The younger brother, who had in truth become an adult before his older brother, grew up watching him.
1938. Thirteen years old. And four years old.
1938 was also the year the Empire entered a wartime national system.
That April, the National Mobilization Law was proclaimed, and that May it was implemented on the peninsula.
As the end of the year drew near, the Army Special Volunteer Soldier System[2] reached even Inje.
“Chosun bastard.”
Sawada called Han San.
“Volunteer.”
Each region had been assigned a quota. A number of volunteers it had to provide to save face.
Naturally, men who could not get promoted tried to fill those quotas. But to fill a quota, a man who could not get promoted had to push himself.
That was why word had reached Han San.
“I don’t have a household register[3].”
“That’s why you should volunteer.”
Han San smiled, but inwardly he frowned. Words were useless, yet that snake bastard Sawada could not even use them properly.
The one who chewed up that bastard’s words and made them easier to swallow was Tendo, the adjutant standing beside him.
“If you pass, you’ll immediately be given a household register. Your younger brother will receive one as well. Once training is over, you’ll be able to live in respectable official housing, and your younger brother... The Empire never neglects its soldiers.”
Han San thought.
The Japanese Empire was a militarist state. In a militarist state, the military had the most power and the most money.
He nodded.
“I’ll go.”
“Good. There’ll be an interview in Chuncheon.”
Han San took his younger brother to Chuncheon.
There were two reasons.
One was to show him Chuncheon. He had not been able to show his brother a bustling city even though he was thirteen. It would be good if he could show him one this time.
The other was that, if he passed, he would stay in Chuncheon during training. He could not leave his younger brother behind in Inje then, could he?
His younger brother sat atop the rickshaw his older brother pulled. He saw the Soyang River, Chuncheon Station still under construction, and automobiles on the streets. His expression did not change much.
His older brother remembered the younger brother from Sebeom Valley, whose eyes had shone at every new sight. So he deliberately spoke to him.
“Bada, isn’t it amazing?”
His younger brother looked at him, then smiled. Since he was nine, his younger brother’s smiles had always been like that.
“Yeah. It’s amazing.”
“What’s the most amazing thing? Chuncheon Station being built over there? Or the Soyang River?”
“No.”
His older brother followed his gaze.
His younger brother was looking at people. The crowds filling Chuncheon. Masses of people, all headed somewhere.
“Why the people? Because they ride in automobiles?”
“No.”
His younger brother shook his head and said,
“It’s amazing that there are so many.”
His older brother could not understand what he meant.
Would he have understood if he had gone to school?
At twenty-three, his older brother did not know.
The interview hall was in a building beside the provincial government office. Chosun[1] youths stood in long lines. They all looked neat, like they had gone to school.
While they waited together, they looked at Han San strangely.
Han San hunched his shoulders. He shoved both hands into his pockets for no reason. The murmurs calling him a lackey for Japanese bastards bothered him less than the gazes of youths his own age, though he did not know why.
Then it was Han San’s turn.
“Name.”
“Han San!”
“Household register?”
“I don’t have one. I come from slash-and-burn settlers...”
The three interviewers looked at one another. They each checked the documents, then clicked their tongues.
“Inje?”
“Honestly, as if that shithole town wouldn’t send something like this.”
“Tsk.”
That was the end.
Han San failed.
Really, it was only natural.
[ I want to sell out my country and people! Please let me become a loyal dog of the Imperial Nation[4]! ]
Hmm... The ambition was admirable, but the great Empire of Japan wondered whether you had what it took to become a country-and-people salesman. The Empire had the right to choose too. When some peddler showed up out of nowhere, well, that was awkward.
It was an age when even becoming a traitor had a threshold. Han San could not cross it.
However.
“Um, that man!”
A man stood outside the interview hall, looking inside through the window.
“Please call him over here!”
Kannoizuna Toono.
A member of Military Police Headquarters. The Empire’s Silver Fox.
Born into the nobility, one of only 413 Imperial barons in all Japan.
Han San was called over to him.
“Ah-ha, nice to meet you! Han San, was it? What an amusing name! Even if you add an honorific to your surname, it remains Han-san!”
Toono spoke fluent Chosun. Han San hesitated before replying.
“Th-thank you, Baron. Why did you call for me...?”
When Han San had been summoned, an assistant had repeatedly warned him not to do anything disrespectful. But his hesitation now was not because of that warning. It was because he had seen Toono’s face.
It was a beautiful face. Though he was a man. White skin, tidy features, and a gold-rimmed monocle over one eye. He wore a suit rather than a uniform.
It was a strange face. It was not hard and mean like Sawada’s, nor was it imposing like Father’s.
That, that face, the face of an Imperial baron, was...
‘Not a human face.’
His younger brother’s face suddenly crossed his mind, though he did not know why.
“What is your reason for applying?”
It was a question he had not even been asked in the interview hall. Han San quietly looked at the baron, then bowed his head and answered.
“Because I love and respect the Empire.”
“Mm! A fine answer. Very moving. But meaningless.”
Han San’s eyes widened.
“What?”
Toono smiled, tapping his lips with a gloved hand.
“You may answer honestly.”
Honestly?
Hmm... Han San was not sure. Sawada sometimes said things like that too, but when he answered honestly, a slap usually came flying.
There was little value in who said what.
Still, he had failed the interview anyway.
“Because I want to feed my younger brother.”
Han San sighed, then continued.
“My brother is clever. Unlike me. I want to send him to school.”
He said exactly what he had said to his cousin Ham Byeong-cheol. Not as desperately as before. Words had little value, after all.
Yet Toono’s eyes lit up.
“Oh-ho! A noble motive. How old is your younger brother?”
“...Thirteen.”
Han San answered a little late. He did not quite understand the word noble.
“Can you bring him here?”
Could he have answered no?
(Sometimes he wondered. Ten years later. Twenty years later. Then fifty years later. What would have happened if he had shaken his head then? No, I cannot bring him. My younger brother cannot meet you. Would things have changed if he had answered that way? So much, perhaps everything? Sometimes. Very occasionally.
Though he knew the answer was no.)
An assistant brought in his younger brother. His younger brother entered the room and looked at Toono. Toono had been watching him from the moment he entered.
Their eyes met.
Toono’s eyes narrowed. Interest gathered on his face.
“Your name?”
“Han Bada.”
It was Japanese. His older brother knew his younger brother could speak Japanese, but he had not known he was so fluent.
“Han Bada-kun! Your brother cares for you. And you, hmm, care for your brother too.
Do you want your brother to become a soldier?”
“No.”
It was an immediate answer.
Han San flinched and lowered his head.
“My brother is still young...”
“Why not?”
Toono did not look at Han San.
Han Bada answered.
“Because hyung would not be good at it.”
Han San was speechless.
Toono was interested.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because hyung thinks people are people.”
Han Bada spoke slowly.
“Hyung wants to help people. Hyung helps people.
Hyung is, um, a good person.”
So he thought hyung was not suited to being a soldier, Han Bada said.
Then he added,
“Like you, Baron.”
The smile vanished from Toono’s lips.
Han Bada said no more, and Han San did not understand much of what had just been said.
After a long while, Toono spoke.
“Han-san.”
“Yes?”
“You said you wanted to send your brother to school.”
“Uh... yes.”
“I will arrange it. I have business in Buyeo soon, and there is an elementary school there. I will take responsibility for all the costs and procedures.”
“Uh...”
Han San blinked.
A moment later, his heart pounded.
“Y-you really mean it?”
Toono smiled broadly.
“Ah-ha! Of course. That is what soldiers of the Empire are for!”
As he said that, Toono immediately began filling out documents. His hands moved lightly, like a fox running across snow.
“As an Imperial soldier, I have a duty to defend the Empire. I also have a responsibility to protect those considered pillars of the Empire.”
Of course, Toono said, he could not extend that protection to just anyone. Administrative power and policing power were limited resources.
“Therefore, the one receiving this is not you. It is your younger brother.”
The older brother accepted the judgment that he was not worth helping while his younger brother was, without the slightest jealousy.
He had known that long ago.
“Bada.”
The older brother looked at his younger brother. His younger brother was looking at him.
“You decide, hyung.”
His younger brother said so, and thus his older brother decided.
Han San bowed his head.
“Please!”
That was how it was decided.
Only after it was decided did it truly sink in.
So he could not help asking.
“And what must I do in return...?”
“What? Ah-ha-ha.”
Toono laughed. Han San raised his head and understood the meaning of that laugh.
It was a fond expression.
The exact same smile Han San had worn when his younger brother picked wild raspberries for him, back when they lived in Sebeom Valley.
The Imperial baron did not say that Han San should worry about himself first, but Han San heard it.
Still, because the baron had cared for his younger brother’s future, the older brother could not help saying it.
“I will repay you as best I can...”
Toono still smiled. But he adjusted his posture, becoming somewhat serious.
“That is insufficient.”
After thinking for a moment, he added,
“Let us speak of it when you are no longer insufficient.”
The baron sent the brothers away. As they left, his gaze remained on Han Bada’s back the entire time.
The older brother spent time with his younger brother.
“Bada. When you go to Buyeo, um. I don’t know where it is, but. It’ll be a better place than here. School... Um. If you learn many things there, if you learn them, then...”
The older brother swallowed his words. He did not know what came next.
In truth, he did not know the part before that either. Where Buyeo was. Whether it was truly better than here. What exactly was good about attending school. What would be good about it. Because, well, he had never been to Buyeo, and he had never attended school, but.
But there was one thing.
“What I can do for you...”
As he spoke, something rose from his heart. Something hot.
“You are clever. Unlike someone like me.”
He had learned that in front of the noticeboard.
No. He had known even before then.
“What I can do for you... What I, for you... Bada.”
“Hyung.”
His younger brother rose onto his toes and wiped his older brother’s cheek with the back of his hand.
“Thank you.”
A week later, his younger brother left for Buyeo.
The brothers would meet again after liberation.
Footnotes:
[1] Chosun was Korea's historical name and a common Korean designation for their country under Japanese colonial rule.
[2] The Army Special Volunteer Soldier System was Imperial Japan's 1938 program recruiting Korean colonial subjects for military service under the guise of volunteering.
[3] A household register was the official family registry that established a person's legal identity and access to state-recognized rights and services.
[4] "Imperial Nation" was a Japanese ultranationalist term presenting Japan as a sacred state centered on the emperor.
Han San’s name can be read as “Han Mountain,” while Han-san is also “Han” with the Japanese honorific -san. The Classic of Mountains and Seas is an ancient Chinese compendium of mythic geography, peoples, and fantastic creatures.
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