Jia: A Novel of North Korea (9 page)

On the way there, I noticed several buildings under
construction in the middle of the city: much had changed
since the orphanage's sightseeing trip the previous year. I
had lived in Pyongyang for ten years, but I still felt like a
stranger there.

From the next day forward, I woke up at 5:30 A.M. and
had breakfast in a huge cafeteria on the first floor of the
dormitory at 6:00. In the gymnasium, 300 performers sang
and danced all day, under the intense direction of Teacher
Song. Megaphone in hand, she shouted at us from a balcony
where she ran back and forth. Whenever someone made a mistake, she scolded her from above. Her booming voice
kept us nervous and alert.

My name was the most famous among the dancers;
Teacher Song enjoyed driving me hard. I always hoped
someone else would come to instruct me, but it was always
she who showed up for my private lesson after dinner. I
couldn't believe she was over fifty; her body was elastic and
tireless. Eventually, she stopped pointing and reprimanding
me in front of the other students, but she didn't stop the
private training until I was finally selected as one of the
eleven dancers for one of the festival's main dancing performances, entitled "Unity." It supported the festival's theme,
"For Anti-Imperialist Solidarity, Peace, and Friendship."
Teacher Song wanted to express the goals of the festival
through our dance.

The number eleven is meant to symbolize the five oceans
and six continents, and in the Unity dance, five men and six
women wore different-colored clothes, designed by Teacher
Song. Each of us would wave a silk cloth, followed by a flag,
and then a farm implement. We struggled with this routine
in the beginning: Teacher Song demanded big, wild motions, and a different facial expression for each motion. We
were instructed to wrap others in our cloths, and then wrap
ourselves. Our struggle ended with the emergence of a boy
in a uniform. We surrounded him and danced around him.
We were unified through him: there would be no struggle,
no further conflicts. I also took part in two other performances, the fan dance and the flag dance.

Teacher Song changed the choreography constantly; she
never wanted us to be still. She continually emphasized that
177 countries had promised to participate in the festival.

"One single mistake would humiliate our country," she
said. This was her favorite threat.

I went to bed utterly worn-out every night, but I felt
alive. I felt as though there was a place for me.

My 19 roommates and I so looked forward to seeing the
many people from other countries. We had to study a
booklet titled 100 Questions and Answers for Foreigners, and
memorize all 100 to pass a test. We always carried a small
book of Russian and English words in order to memorize
them during our breaks. We had to be ready to welcome
our guests, to help them understand our country, our lives,
and the Great Leader.

My roommates and I were all selected for the fan dance.
They were especially trained for traditional dance and all
aspired to be professional traditional Korean dancers.

One day, Jangmi, after returning from a visit home, took
a small yellow bottle out of her backpack. Sora, who usually slept next to her, instantly snatched it from her hand.
"What is this?"

Jangmi closed her backpack and motioned for Sora to
smell her hair, moving closer to Sora's nostrils.

"You smell so good!" Sora exclaimed, sniffing at Jang-
mi's neck. The rest of us surrounded them at once.

Jangmi gave each girl a whiff of her hair. "My mom
bought it for me in a department store. It's shampoo. It came
from abroad," she said, smiling exultantly.

"What? Shampoo? Is it soap? Why is it in your hair?"

"This kind of soap is specifically for your hair."

"You can't use it to wash other parts, body and face?"

We moved our noses close to smell the bottle.

"No, just for hair. It makes it feel like velvet," she cooed.

"Let me see." Not satisfied with the smell, several girls
tried to touch the bottle.

"Be careful," she said, staring nervously at the other
girls.

That night, they all made urgent calls to their parents
and soon got their own bottles of shampoo. Except me, of
course.

On the first of July, 1989, all the dancers were aflutter. Everyone was talking about the World Festival of Youth and
Students. TV and radio broadcasters proclaimed its importance and repeated that only a powerful nation could host
such a massive festival. We were proud of our country, and
respect for our leader grew stronger. The festival opened
with a young flush-faced woman and a man lighting a ceremonial torch, installed on the roof of the May Day Stadium
for that night. I had never witnessed such a beautiful scene:
every street was lit up, and we easily forgot the fatigue of
our ceaseless rehearsals. It was fascinating to meet so many
different kinds of people.

The performances we had devoted our lives to for a solid year succeeded in capturing the attention of foreigners.
When I received a thunderous round of applause as I stood
onstage, I felt my life had finally begun.

We were asked to attend the dancing festivals on Restoration Street for several nights, and that was where we first
saw foreigners up close. Their dancing didn't have any rules,
it seemed; they just shook their bodies and moved their arms
and legs freely, with no sense of order. Watching them made
me sweat. When they asked us to dance, we were at a loss
for what to do. Without strict training, we didn't know how
to move to the strange musical accompaniment.

The festival felt unreal, completely disconnected from
our regular lives. We spent much of the time shouting for
joy. When the Great Leader showed up on his special platform, we cried out, waving the flags; his appearance swept
us off our feet. His image was so familiar-from my grandparents' house at the political offenders' camp to every wall
at the orphanage and at the gymnasium, his picture had
always followed me. When I had first seen his picture in the
orphanage, identical to the one at my grandparents' house, I
had felt a certain attachment to it, but fear as well. It seemed
that he was watching over everything that had happened to
me, and that he must have known about my past. And now
he was standing in front of me! I broke down. But I don't
know why the people around me were crying as well.

He was a part of my life. I had no way to choose otherwise.

It all passed so quickly. Although the festival ended and the
foreigners went home, I carried its joy with me, right to
the day that Teacher Song called me to her office. On the
last day of the festival, Teacher Song was dancing, jumping
around and embracing us, like a tiny, ebullient girl.

A few days later, I opened the brown door to her office
with a big smile still on my face. "Teacher Song, did you
call me?"

I found her sitting on the desk and talking on the phone,
her face distorted. "Why is it impossible?" she demanded.

I immediately erased my grin. Slamming the phone
down in a rage, she stood; the strict teacher had returned.
Her eyes drifted to a picture on the wall of her playing the
girl's role in Girl Selling Flowers. In the picture, she looked
much younger than me; she was captured in profile, and the angle highlighted a deep dimple on her cheek. I could
imagine her at that age. Nobody dared compete with her
passion for dancing.

"Jia, you accomplished your task as well as I expected."
She turned to me and gave a slight, tender smile. She never
complimented any student: finally, she had recognized me!
I was full of glee.

Teacher Song sat down on the ugly black sofa and
winked at me to have a seat before her. It was the first time
I'd seen her use the sofa. Cupping her chin in her hands and
leaning her elbows on her knees, she looked small.

"The festival is over. As I said a year ago, you have to
find another place to stay now. This place will be closed for
a while. I tried to put you in a professional university, but it
was `impossible.' You're supposed to go back to the orphanage and wait there until your next home is decided upon.
Do you want to go back?" she asked quietly.

My head was reeling. The end of the festival meant the
end of my life. I shook my head. "I don't want to go back
to the orphanage!" I cried. All I would do there is take
care of kids and cook. To readjust to that life would be too
hard-my mind was already far away.

Teacher Song sighed. "Go back to your room, Jia. Let's
figure out what we can do. I'll file a report with the Party
on your achievements in this festival and call you later. But
pack your things anyway."

Despite her reputation, I had become unafraid of Teacher Song. She had devoted her life to dancing and was the
most passionate person I had ever met. I wanted to stay
with her. There was still so much more to learn from her.

I went back to my room, dejected. The others were restless, halfheartedly packing their things, waiting for their parents to pick them up and talking about their new universities. I sneaked out of the room and sat down on the stairs
at the end of the hall. This year had been like a dream that
passed too quickly. I felt as if my life had skipped from my
childhood on the mountain to the present. I had changed:
my arms and legs were much longer; my shirts and pants
didn't cover my limbs. I could hear my heart beating. The
more I thought about the orphanage, the more pain I felt. I
remembered how happy the director of the orphanage had
been when I left to dance under Teacher Song! How strongly she had encouraged me never to return! To go back to
that dead world now was more than I could contemplate.

My roommates left, one by one. The building, once
boisterous, became as quiet as a mausoleum, and I paced
the halls like a restless spirit. At last, I packed my things and
waited for the call from Teacher Song. I knew my mother's
parents would not help me, if they remembered me at all. I
blamed myself for thinking about them at that moment.

Several days later, Teacher Song stopped by my room.
Leaning against the door, she spoke in a soft voice. "You
don't have many choices. The orphanage said they would
welcome you if you like to go back."

I held my backpack tightly to my chest and looked at her
with despair. I wanted to say that I would do anything to
stay, perform any task.

Teacher Song moved close to me and put her hand on
my shoulder. "I asked one of my friends, a government official, to give you a new job, and she found a good place.
You can dance over there, too. I didn't have time to discuss
it with you because I had to answer right away. If you'll
take it, we have to leave right now."

Teacher Song carried my backpack and I followed her, my face glowing with joy. As we walked, side by side, she
held my hand and said, "It won't be so bad there-you
can dance and sing and see how professional dancers live.
They'll give you your own house soon, and enough rations,
too. But it'll be a tiring job. I'll try to find a better one for
you, but for now I have no choice but to follow the order
from above. Let's see what happens." Her hand felt warm
and strange. She had been so harsh and cold, always scaring
the students. Her head was full of dance steps. We never had
time to get to know her or talk to her outside of class. How
could I ever thank her enough for opening the door to the
real world for me.

When I climbed into the dark-brown van, already waiting for me in front of the building, she let go of my hand.
I looked up at her with tearful eyes and gave her a letter I
had written. She looked down at the letter and was silent,
her eyes filling with tears. I hadn't expected her to cry for
me, but her tears didn't stop flowing.

She spoke slowly, without wiping her cheeks. "If your
mother had seen your performance, she would have been
so happy. She was the best student I've ever had and you
inherited her talent, Jia. When I first saw you on the stage
at the orphanage, I knew who you were. I thought my favorite student had returned to me."

As we drove off, I watched her with widened eyes, trying to keep her in sight, craning my neck as her figure
grew smaller and smaller. I didn't understand why my life
couldn't be my own, why there was always a chain, emerging from deep in the past, stretching into the present, that
bound me to my fate.

1 hirty minutes later, the van deposited me in front of
a tall, imposing building, my bag at my heels. The
driver shouted at a young man in a blue uniform standing
erect outside the glass doors. My gaze followed the building up to the sky. Two brown towers, like giant chopsticks,
pressed down on me. They looked like separate buildings
but were connected in the middle by a tunnel, like a bridge
across a river.

The Kaya Hotel was the one of the biggest hotels in
Pyongyang. Foreign guests stayed there during the 1989
festival. The building was visible from Rungra Island,
where I had stayed with other dancers during the festival,
but I had never seen it up close.