WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 151: The Story of the Brothers 【Classic of Mountains and Seas】 (3)
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3. 1940, Older Brother Twenty-Five, Younger Brother Fifteen
1940 was the year the Japanese Empire began reflecting on itself.
About picking fights with the world?
No. About the way it viewed its own citizens.
Household registers? Come to think of it, was it not negligent to leave people within its territory without household registers? Education? Was it not a joy to have so much to teach those who knew nothing?
After its reflection, the Japanese Empire abolished every qualification required of those wishing to serve the Imperial Nation. Now, so long as one had all four limbs and understood human speech, one passed.
They even went door to door distributing the passing certificates themselves.
Han San received one too.
Kim Gang-cheol, Inje's proudly insane police constable, delivered it.
“Write your name here, young man!!!”
“Um... Constable. What if I can't write?”
“Put your fingerprint on it, young man!!!”
What if he did not want to leave a fingerprint either? There was no need to ask. Two Korean auxiliaries were holding the neighbor by the arms and helping him through the procedure for accepting his passing certificate.
“Waaah! No! I don't want to go to the coal mine!!”
“We sincerely thank you, subjects of the Imperial Nation[1], for your voluntary participation in labor conscription[2]!!”
Thus, through wholly complete free will and no coercion from anyone at all, the neighbor became a stepping stone for the development of the Imperial Nation.
Han San decided to leave his fingerprint himself.
He asked only one thing.
“Can you send my brother the address of where I'm going? We need to exchange letters.”
“Of course, young man!!! You're going openly to earn money, so why couldn't we send the address, young man!!!”
“Yes.”
His younger brother had skipped grades and graduated from elementary school in Buyeo. He was now in Gongju. Han San left him a letter and went to the place written on the passing certificate.
There, he met Im Baechil.
“S-San! You're San, right?!”
People stood in line to be examined and waited their turns. When Han San turned at the call of his name, he saw Im Baechil.
“Baechil? You're going too?”
At this point, Han San did not call Im Baechil hyung. Im Baechil scratched the back of his head.
“Y-yeah... It's been a while.”
“It has.”
Since the Great Flood of the Gap-sul Year, Han San had settled in Inje. He hardly ever went near Sebeom Valley, except to visit his parents' grave mound.
He sometimes crossed paths with that bastard Kim Tae-yang, who often came down to Inje, but this was his first time seeing Im Baechil since the flood.
“Y-yeah. They came to Sebeom Valley asking for people too, and I... Well, I'm big, you know...”
“Just you, Baechil? Weren't there some kids in Upper Hamlet too? Hyeok, or Cheol-min, or someone?”
Repeating the hazy names, Han San clicked his tongue. Im Baechil merely scratched the back of his head and smiled awkwardly.
“A-anyway, it's good to see you like this. Have this.”
Im Baechil rummaged through his bundle and handed him something.
It was precious injeolmi[3], a rice cake dusted with soybean powder. It had likely been made some time ago, but it was still soft.
Han San accepted it gratefully. It was nutty and chewy.
“Thanks. It's good.”
“R-right? My mother made it.”
At those words, Han San's throat tightened a little.
Rice cake was the sort of food that could stick in one's throat.
“Isn't your mother a widow? What will she do if you go?”
Im Baechil scratched the back of his head again. Then he said,
“T-the villagers will take good care of her. Yun Cheom-ji, Uncle Baek... Father Cho is there too. Old Woman Wangdae... And Uncle Park Il.”
“Mm.”
Han San swallowed his injeolmi.
His throat tightened even more.
“Right.”
“A-anyway, it's good to see you again. To be honest, I'm really anxious and scared...”
“Hey.”
Han San put an arm around Im Baechil's shoulders and patted his back. It was not something he had done while living in Sebeom Valley, but perhaps because they were meeting again after so long, or because they were in a place like this, it came naturally.
Perhaps it was because of the injeolmi.
Either way.
“It'll be fine.”
Im Baechil snapped his head up.
“Y-you think so?”
“Of course.”
In truth, Han San did not know. But words were still something one could say.
Of course, words had little value.
Han San and Im Baechil boarded the same train. After stopping and starting several times, they arrived in Gyeongseong, where their paths split.
Baechil went south, and Han San went north.
“Take care, Baechil. Stay strong.”
“Y-yeah! You too, San!”
Han San was conscripted to the Yalu River.
The Sup'ung Dam[4] construction site.
The Japanese Empire had been building the dam since 1937, saying something about 700,000 kilowatts of generating capacity and how it could supply electricity to the entire Korean Peninsula. The plan was to put it into operation in 1941.
Construction was falling behind, so people had to be ground into it. Han San became one of those people.
“Can that really work?”
“It has to.”
To make it work, they had to make concrete.
They mixed cement, sand, gravel, and water. Having worked construction sites while getting by in Inje, Han San adapted quickly.
Then, one day, something caught his eye.
“Why did they pile up those stones like that?”
Wire cages filled with stones were stacked in layers. Gabions.
The foreman glanced over and answered.
“They hold back the water.”
“But it all leaks through the gaps.”
“I said they hold it back. They don't block it. When water passes through the gaps between stones, does it speed up or slow down?”
To hold back water, one first had to kill its momentum.
Han San suddenly remembered that day in the Gap-sul Year, then the torrential rain that came two years later in the Byeongja Year. Then he remembered the Gap-sul Year again.
Sawada had said the Byeongja Year rains were worse, and Inje really had been devastated. Bada had even read him a newspaper article saying some guy called Hitler had sent relief money. But whenever Han San thought of floods, he could not forget that July of the Gap-sul Year, when rain beat steadily against the roof.
“If they'd had something like that back then.”
Han San murmured without realizing it, then returned to work.
4. 1942, Older Brother Twenty-Seven, Younger Brother Seventeen
The Sup'ung Dam was completed.
The river became a lake. Trapped between mountains, the lake turned the peaks into islands. It was a grand construction project that would remain in the peninsula's history.
During that grand project.
The people conscripted and brought there were ground down in the literal sense, and like all things ground down, they were crushed to death.
Han San did not die.
“You're lucky.”
He had truly been lucky, nothing more.
For some reason, Han San could tell that the luck which had prevented crucial catastrophes all that time had vanished in the year forced labor conscription began.
The man who survived through luck heard news of a man who had not been so lucky.
A man who had come with him from Inje said,
“San. You said you were from Sebeom Valley, right? Gangwon?”
“Yes. Why?”
“The guy from there. The big guy. The one who took the same train as us as far as Gyeongseong. The guy who stuck close to you.”
Im Baechil.
“Yes. What about him?”
“They say he's dead.”
Han San froze.
The man scratched the back of his head hard as he spoke.
“They say he was sent across the sea to the Mainland. Some coal mine in Kyushu[5], or somewhere. A tunnel collapsed, and he was buried alive. They couldn't even find the body.”
“I see.”
Han San said that. I see.
I see.
“He had bad luck.”
Han San returned to work. Even after the dam was complete, there was plenty to do.
That was why it was fortunate, Han San thought.
“I really am lucky.”
Ten days later.
The man who had been lucky enough to survive and who worked to shake off his feelings heard news of a man even more outrageously lucky than himself.
Another man who had come with him from Inje said,
“Hey, San! You came with me, right? From Gangwon?”
“Yes, why?”
“You know that big friend from there. The one whose rice cakes you got. He gave me one too.”
Im Baechil.
“Yes. What about him?”
“They say he went home!”
Han San blinked.
“What?”
“A tunnel collapsed while he was working in the coal mine, but that guy went, ‘Uwooo!’ and saved everyone! He's built like a mountain, you know. He saved nearly ten people by himself, and one of those people happened to be some high-ranking Japanese official on an inspection!”
Clicking his tongue in envy, the man continued.
“So he got a fat reward and a commendation. That wasn't all. They even offered him a house in the Mainland as a model citizen, but he said he was fine, that he had to go home and care for his mother. So they said, fine, go, and immediately released him from conscription and sent him back.
“How can someone have such insane luck? It's a legend. A legend.”
A legend.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Who knows? I don't remember where. Anyway, I heard it.”
Han San placed the two reports side by side.
- Im Baechil died buried in a collapsed mine tunnel.
- Im Baechil saved ten people and returned home.
He did not know which was true. Kyushu was across the sea, but he did not know exactly where in the Japanese islands it was. He knew even less where this Kyushu coal mine was.
Han San had no way to verify it.
The two reports carried equal weight. Han San should not take either side.
But he wanted to believe the latter.
That week, a letter came from his younger brother. His younger brother was still in Gongju, a second-year student at Gongju Public Middle School.
[ Hyung. ]
Since becoming a middle school student, his younger brother no longer called him hyung-ah.
[ I read a book called The Great Gatsby. Mr. Toono sent it to me. In its first paragraph, there was a line like this. ]
Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.
[ Hyung, I think that is a very cowardly thing to say. ]
It was cowardly.
But the words struck Han San like a revelation.
‘Im Baechil is not dead.’
Im Baechil, that village fool Baechil, that idiot from Upper Hamlet, the guy who could not fit in with the children of Upper Hamlet and instead played with him from Middle Hamlet and Kim Tae-yang from Lower Hamlet, that bachelor who lived with his widowed mother.
Baechil hyung.
‘Baechil hyung's whereabouts are unknown.’
That was what Han San decided.
Someday, he would learn where Baechil was.
Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.
Or perhaps he did not want to know.
The older brother wrote back to his younger brother.
[ There must be people who have to cling to those words in order to live. ]
His younger brother's reply was as follows.
[ Is that really living? ]
What a cheeky brat, Han San thought, and smiled.
He could smile. Baechil hyung's whereabouts were merely unknown. Perhaps he had saved ten people, received a fat reward, and already returned home. Perhaps he was living well while caring for his widowed mother.
He could smile.
5. 1945, Older Brother Thirty, Younger Brother Twenty
August 15, 1945. It was probably daytime.
Japanese words came from the loudspeaker. They were difficult Japanese words to understand.
Han San understood them.
Soon, the Japanese broadcast was cut off, and excited Korean voices rang out from the loudspeaker. Then everyone else understood too.
“It’s over.”
Someone said.
“It’s over.”
Someone else said.
“It’s over.” “It’s finished.” “The end.” “It’s over.” “It’s over.”
It was that simple.
About half the people threw down their work. The other half watched the situation, then half of those quietly set down their tools as well.
By that night, even the last half of the remaining half had left their posts.
Han San was already heading home when the first broadcast ended.
Home... if it could be called home. Gangwon. Inje. In any case, the place where he had lived for so long.
Inje lay north of the 38th parallel[6].
Chuncheon. Cheorwon. Inje. Sokcho. The Mount Seorak region. All lay north of the 38th parallel. Sebeom Valley too. When the peninsula was cleaved at the waist, Sebeom Valley was on the northern side.
Well, it did not mean much.
It was an era when everyone just muddled through. People were especially careless right after liberation.
They said the Soviet Union would administer this area and America that area, but nobody gave a fuck.
That was how it was then.
Besides, Han San had come from the north too. He simply walked into Sebeom Valley.
It had been eleven years since that day in the Gap-sul Year.
Lower Hamlet was gone. Middle Hamlet too. Only traces remained. Go Tae-chon's house, Choi Seo-bang's home, Park Seo-bang's home, So Seobang's home, Cho Seo-bang's home. He could not find any of them.
Instead, the Seonangdang shrine tree had grown.
It had shot up as though it had swallowed Middle Hamlet whole. Or perhaps it had always been that large, and he simply remembered it wrong because he had been young.
Probably.
No, certainly.
Han San shook his head. Looking at the Seonangdang shrine tree, he realized he had no idea why he was staring at it and was about to turn away. He meant to visit his parents' grave mound, if it was still there.
Then.
“San... hyung?”
Someone called out, and Han San turned around.
A neat, handsome man stood there.
Han San recognized him.
“Cheol-min... was it?”
“...Hyung.”
Yun Cheom-ji's maternal grandson, the twenty-seven-year-old young master of Upper Hamlet, stood there with a complicated expression on his face.
Footnotes:
[1] “Subjects of the Imperial Nation” was Imperial Japan’s ideological designation for peoples expected to serve the emperor and empire.
[2] Labor conscription was the compulsory wartime mobilization of colonial Koreans for work, often under coercive conditions.
[3] Injeolmi is a chewy Korean rice cake coated in roasted soybean powder.
[4] Sup'ung Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Yalu River constructed by colonial Japan.
[5] Kyushu is Japan’s southwestern main island and was historically a major coal-mining region.
[6] The 38th parallel became the initial division between Soviet-occupied northern Korea and U.S.-occupied southern Korea after Japan’s 1945 surrender.
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