Jia: A Novel of North Korea (20 page)

The man examined the badge for a moment. "This one
has too many scratches. One hundred won."

Sangwon immediately grabbed my hand and said, "Let's
go, we can do much better. A badge with the two leaders
is worth more."

The man seized Sangwon's shoulder and grimaced.
"This kkot ebi-you know this place too well. Okay, a hundred and thirty won. Don't even think about more."

"Okay," Sangwon said, unpinning the badge from my
chest. "Here. Give me the money."

The man pointed at me with his chin. "Is she your sister?"

"No, she is my mom," Sangwon replied instantly.

The man sneered, looking at me, "Are you kidding?
Doesn't she sell flowers here?"

Sangwon growled back, "I said she's my mom. Of course
she doesn't sell flowers." He grabbed my hand firmly and
started to walk away.

The man shouted after us, "Let me know if you need
help. I like your deaf-mute sister."

"That dirty-mouthed-" Sangwon swore without looking back at him.

"Why did he buy the badge?" I asked.

"He can sell it to foreign travelers in China as a souvenir. It's one of the most popular items there, actually. In
China, you'll see Chinese selling North Korean items to foreign travelers everywhere. Here the badge is sacred, but
there it's like a toy."

I felt empty, as if I had lost a part of my body.

As though reading my mind, Sangwon said, "It's not as
important as our lives. It's just a souvenir now-what we
weed is money and food. You would have to throw it away as
soon as you crossed the border, anyway. Keeping it would
be dangerous." He pressed the money into my hand.

"By the way, why did he ask me whether I sell flowers?"
I asked. "I have seen so many women shouting that they're
selling flowers, but with no flowers to sell."

"What he asked was whether you'd sell your body to
him."

My face turned red with anger. I turned and saw the
man still standing there, leering.

"People find ways to survive," Sangwon said, pulling
me away toward the ticket booth.

People were shouting over each other for tickets, pushing and pulling like waves beating on the seashore. It was
far too crowded.

"Wait here for a moment," Sangwon said. "I'll buy a
ticket, just give me the money." I looked at him for a second. He was just a kkot ebi, looking for food and stealing
from others, but for some reason, I was sure he would come
back.

He took my money and was sucked into the crowd. A
few minutes passed. Did I even give him my travel permit?
I checked my pocket, growing anxious. I stood on tiptoe
and scanned the crowd-it was impossible to see him.

I was about to move away to look for him when I felt a
tap on my back. I wheeled around to find Sangwon's beaming face. "I got it!" he cried, holding up the ticket.

I was ashamed to have doubted him. Looking him up
and down, I asked, "Are you okay? Didn't you get hurt?"

"Sometimes a kid has an advantage," he said, handing
me the ticket and the rest of the money. "I even gave them
less than the fare. They didn't notice-they're just trying to
get rid of as many people as possible."

While we walked to the platform, Sangwon warned me,
"Even though you have a ticket, some crazy people will try
to take your seat, so never leave it. Go to the restroom before getting on the train."

The train didn't come for four days, and in all that time we
never left the platform. People complained that the trains
never ran on schedule; the railway employees said fuel had
run out. No one knew when the train might arrive. "Pretty
soon," the train employees said, but they didn't know. Some
people left to sleep in nearby inns. Women, young and old,
walked around shouting, "Clean, warm house while you
wait." I wouldn't go; I was afraid of missing the train. I
bought food with the rest of my money, and we tried to eat
as little as possible. Sangwon had a fever from the infection
in his feet and was limping harder.

When the train finally arrived, it was as if war broke
out. The distant whistle sounded and people jumped up and
grabbed their bags, screaming and shouting; suddenly the
whole place was alive with noise. The railroad police made
us stand in one line, and a policeman made an announcement about civic morality. People who didn't follow the
rules would be punished severely. Nobody listened.

As the policeman was finishing his announcement, a dozen men rushed the platform and scaled the gate. Hundreds
of people pushed madly after them, and the railroad police were overwhelmed. Some thieves made the most of the
opportunity, cutting the bottom of one unsuspecting man's
bag with a knife and catching the corn that ran out in their
own bag. A flock of kko jebi rushed to get their share. Finally the man realized what was going on and bawled, "Damn
these hoodlums," kicking the kko jebi. They didn't budge
until they had collected all the corn.

Railroad inspectors tried to check each passenger's ticket
and travel permit, but it was useless. They beat anyone they
found without proper documents, but the crowd pushed
past them. They shouted, "You can't get on the train without a ticket and a card. We'll inspect you sons of bitches
again on the train!"

People dashed for it anyway, some dropping off the train
like falling leaves. Those who didn't have tickets or permits
climbed up on the roof. The inspectors didn't care about
them, saying they would all die of cold or electric shock.

Sangwon and I rushed to find a seat. Finding one, he
said, "Sit here and don't move. Put your bag next to you. If
people swear at you about having your backpack like that,
don't listen. And don't be scared. If they scream, you yell at
them too. Okay? I'll be right back."

I grabbed at his coat. "Where are you going?"

"I don't have a travel permit. I'll be back after the ticket
inspectors pass this compartment."

I looked at him anxiously, but he winked and said, "Don't
worry about me. I'm a professional. Be careful, some people
seize this chance and steal other people's things. Don't take
your eyes off the bag."

Sangwon slipped through the crowd and disappeared.
His tiny body could fit anywhere.

The train gave several long whistles and the employees shouted, "The train is leaving." Those stuck on the platform tried to climb in through broken windows. The train
started moving, and when I looked through the window,
I saw a man running alongside. He threw his bag inside
first and put his hand on the windowsill. His face distorted
with pain for an instant from the shards of glass in the sill,
but he didn't give up. When half his body was through the
window, a railroad policeman outside harshly grabbed him
from behind and yanked him down. I stuck my face out of
the window to see if he was okay, and he looked at me and
shouted, "My bag! My bag! Throw it back to me."

When I turned to find his bag, it wasn't his bag anymore. Passengers in the train were fighting over it. A big
soldier stood up and pushed away the others. He seized the
bag with a threatening look.

Nobody resisted as the soldier took the bag to his seat
and opened it. It was filled with bundles of clothes. I saw
some tattered gray pants tangled up with yellowish underwear.

The soldier angrily sifted through the bundles. "What
are these stinky things?" Then, opening a bundle, he found
machine parts. The soldier's companions grabbed the bag
and began rummaging through the clothes. Several more
machine parts came out. Then a rice ball, some fried tofu,
and bean sprouts-the owner's lunch.

The soldier said, "They are still hot. Let's take care of
these for him." Looking around intimidatingly, he and his
companions ate the food on the spot.

I was worried about Sangwon. The inspectors were
harsh to people who didn't have tickets, and I doubted his
age would make much difference.

Finally, a good while after the ticket inspectors had passed by, Sangwon reappeared, and we shared the seat. He fit in
the space where my bag was, so I held my bag to my chest.

"Where did you hide?"

His hands were black with dust. He crowed, "Those
people who work here aren't thorough enough to search
between compartments. They don't care about kko jebi anyway-we don't have anything for them. If we don't make
trouble, they ignore us."

As we rode, Sangwon spoke about how he had lost his
family. It's a common story in North Korea, and the reasons are always death by starvation or punishment by the
government. He was an absolute orphan, but he smiled and
said, "It's better this way; I don't have any pressure to take
care of my family. Many kkot ebi have to beg for food for
their parents or grandparents."

As an only son, Sangwon was adored by his hardworking
parents. Both worked in a fertilizer factory in Hungnam,
north of Kowon, and Sangwon remembered the chimneys
shooting fat plumes of gray smoke up into the sky. The
floods of 1995 and 1996 hit his hometown hard, and the
polluted water brought disease and death. All the factories
closed, and starving people started pillaging them for machine parts to sell on the black market or in China. Sangwon's parents were no exception. When they left him at
home to travel to the border to sell some parts, their bus
tumbled into a bloated waterway and was swallowed up.
Sangwon heard the news of their deaths, but their bodies
were never found.

Sangwon found himself alone in his house, with no
idea what to do. For the first time he could play outside
with abandon; nobody controlled him, and he didn't have
to hear his mother's nagging. It was starvation, however, that came to control him. Soon he stopped going out. A
neighbor said the government would take care of him, so
he waited for them. When the government finally did pay
Sangwon a visit, they said they would take his house, that
it belonged to them. The only place he could go was the
orphanage or a camp for children in similar situations.

The day before he was to depart for the orphanage,
Sangwon heard there would be a public execution. A family was accused of eating human flesh. The family had been
hungry for a long time, and they decided to sell their house
and use the money to buy pork for soup. They went to a
butcher's shop, bought the pork, made the soup, and ate
well. Shortly thereafter, the police stormed into their house
and arrested the entire family. The butcher had been selling
human flesh, and they were all charged with murder, along
with the butcher.

Out of curiosity, Sangwon walked to the public execution grounds. He found the street market completely closed.
A crowd had gathered around the accused family and the
butcher. A judge announced the charges as the crowd stood
hushed in anticipation; only the family's sobbing could be
heard. The judge asked the accused whether they acknowledged their crime, and a middle-aged man, who appeared
to be the father, said they really didn't know what they had
eaten, and begged for forgiveness. The judge declared they
would not be excused for their crime. The youngest in the
family, a boy, looked no older than six or seven, but the
police said that he was 16-the minimum age to receive the
death penalty. No one believed the police, but they dared
not argue that he was only a boy. Perhaps they thought it
would be better for the family to leave this world together.

Sangwon knew the boy was younger than he was. Their eyes locked for the briefest moment, and he watched as the
boy's eyes filled with fear. Policemen fastened the family
members and the butcher to several long stakes and covered
their mouths and eyes with towels. The family sobbed and
pleaded for mercy. Moments later, the sound of simultaneous gunshots. The sobbing stopped at once.

People turned away and returned quietly to their houses. Some gathered in the street market to sell and buy goods
again. Sangwon stood there for a while before heading
home and packing his things in haste. He vowed never to
feel fear such as he saw in the boy's eyes.

This was how Sangwon's journey began. By the time I
met him, he had already crossed the border three times and
been arrested three times in China. On the first occasion,
the Chinese police caught him on the street and handed
him over to North Korea. After the North Korean authority interrogated him, they simply warned him not to cross
the border again and let him go. The second episode was
the same. But, the third time, he ran into the same investigator and was taken to the 927.

Sangwon looked at me and giggled. "You know, when
some people are arrested and have to be interrogated, they
put their money inside their bodies so it won't be taken
away by the investigators. Women put money wrapped in
plastic bags in their.. .down there," he said, pointing between his legs. He continued, "Some people eat their bags
of money or put it up their butts. If the police suspect them,
they force people to eat food that causes diarrhea and then
follow them to the restroom. Then the policemen search
their shit to see if there is any money or valuables, like gold
or silver rings and necklaces."

Sangwon taught me a song describing the kkot ebi's life. He said he learned it in the street market and that all the
kko jebi knew it. The lyrics were a dialogue between an old
man and a kko jebi.

Old man: What is your name?

Kkotjebi: My name isjebi (swallow)

0: It sounds pretty

K: But, it is kkot-jebi (flower-swallow: beggar)

0: What do you eat?

K: I eat on (duck)

0: You must be rich

K: But, I eatguksu-ori (noodle-duck: low quality noodles)

0: Where do you live?

K: I live in sudo (the capital)

0: You live in a nice place

K: But, it is ha-sudo (sewer)

The train was pandemonium-slow and cold pandemonium. An icy wind came through broken windows, and in
the dark before dawn, I saw a black lump drop from the sky
and past my window.