Chapters 22.23: On the Proofs

22
Mrs. Euiseong Kim Recognizes Tschai, 1969

When I was married to Tschai in December, 1969, all things about me were in disarray. My parents had moved to Daejon City early that year, a much far greater place than Jumgock. My parents had come to the wedding which had been served at Andong Wedding Hall after all, in which my fifth- grade students of Kilan Elementary School and colleague teachers had been invited as major guests. My senior friend Gapp of Euiseong had come to the gala occasion, too.

It was a complicating cause that the Don and Boolim couple had moved to Daejon, by which Dano had subsequently been farther apart from his parents. Joongang University's commitment and Dano's trust in it had been a major cause for the Dons' transfer to Daejon City.

I had earlier staged a negotiation battle by correspondence with the Joongang University Administration in which I had expounded my future aspirations and a sincere hope for full scholarship benefits for the full semesters from the academy. Initially the school's scholarship administration had said yes. But the school had said sorry the following spring: "We have failed to register you as a sophomore student of the Law College." Another default.

Touched by the letter of the earlier commitment from a higher learning institution to guarantee his son a full financial support for the rest of the semesters and convinced by his son's determination to pass the judicial examination before the graduation, my family had decided to make a "daredevil" move to Seoul, disposing of all the properties including a well-built new house and a newly developed peach farm.

My father's dream, however short and mirage-like, of leaving the toils of the farm and making a decent life, was shattered at the last moment by “a person of default,” or an eternal loser who turned out to be none other than his son. So the meager amount of cash money made by the sale of a modicum of a real estate, if that were to be designated as such, had not been enough for the family to settle in the capital city of the nation. That's why my parents had decided to move to Daejon City where several relatives of the family clan had been living whereas their oldest son had to remain at Kilan with his wife Tschai, with Dano retaining his job as elementary school teacher.

Bin and his wife, my senior father and mother, or the oldest uncle and aunt, had held a reception party for me and my wife Tschai. That was good of us. But it was too bad that my grandmother, Mrs. Euiseong Kim was still kept in solitary confinement.

Although she had been uttering incoherent mumbling about identities of her offspring and grandchildren, when Tschai got to "the cage", touching and holding her hand, and called halmonim, my dear grandmother, with a choking voice, there erupted a shining moment of her sanity from across the confinement hole, with Mrs. Euiseong Kim saying with a clear yet subdued voice, "You must be Dano's wife." Which pleased and startled the pair at the same time. There were no others about. Hardly had the sympathetic pair tried to utter some more comforting words toward her when her expression suddenly darkened and she got her lips tightened up for ever, as if the gate to her consciousness was banged shut.

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The trip to Daejon City, the purpose of which was to make a post-honeymoon appearance, was a traumatic reminder of repentance and pity. Dano was so remorseful of his own past stupidities and so pitiful of his parents' plights that he was shedding heartful tears so profusely that he often glanced as if they might have been discovered.

Wife was silent all through the train travel to one of the four big cities in the republic where my parents, who might have been financially troubled and physically toilsome, must have been roughing it up. Guessing was loud all along the way but the situation on the spot was much more poignant.

A taxi of Daejon Station snaked its way to a poor-looking district to drop the young pair at a back alley, where shacks were put together like beehives. My parents were happy and embarrassed at the same time. "Why don't you send a telegram?" they wondered aloud. It was a little commotional with Mother, like Keystone Cops, getting in and out of the room, disposing of the mess and making a decent mat on which the senior couple should get seated to be presented with big bows from their first son and daughter-in-law couple.

After special foods, of which some of them had been delivered from a near Korean cafeteria, were partaken of, there occurred inquisitive conversations of abnormal type, which were hesitatingly put forward and reluctantly answered. There was not a black and white television set but a second-hand transistor radio in the room, which filled the awkward vacuum between the two couples with soap operas and situation comedies.

Almost all the resources of conversation done, Father told Mother to arrange the bedding for us. "It will be so inconvenient of you two," Mother said, looking apologetically at Tschai. "Not at all, Mother," Tschai held her mother-in-law's hand tightly. There was some room left even after the two couples had lain down for the night's sleep.

Don lay at the far end of the wall and me at the opposite end near the entrance; Mother and her daughter-in-law lay side by side but there was a considerable buffer area formed between the two because each bedding was separately shared with each other's husband. As Father switched off the light with a decent cough of "Good Night", the room turned into a labyrinth of pitched darkness.

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Joongang University Administration's promise to endow a full scholarship for the rest of the remaining six semesters on its freshman dropout was truly exhilarating, but the cancellation of its own commitment by dropping my registration of the pending spring semester as a sophomore student at the law college was a great shock. I damned the school administration for its repudiation. I hated every minute of its breach of faith, which would cause huge inconveniences, affect the routines, and distort my life pattern as well as my family's.

On afterthought, however, I was totally responsible for what the administration hadn't been convinced of my future cast. Or, it might have been God's punishment on my past misdeeds or mistakes or infractions. I should have had to bite the bullet by myself. Any pains or inconveniences should have had to be taken for granted. It's more like I'd incurred the comeuppance.

Granted, my parents' pains and inconveniences were inconceivable. The betrayal from the blind trust of the reckless son's mirage-like promise was just like thunderstruck. Uprooted from their roots of life, deprived of their cherished house and peach farm, they were forced to leave for a strange city. Even today four decades later, I get choked with emotion thinking of my parents' unfathomable pain on which I'd caused them, and their patience of the uncontrollable pain. If it had been me, I'd made a great scene, yelling at my son, stomping the ground, and wielding fists in the air.





23
On the Proofs, 1974~1980

Not since I had taken a job as a proofreader of the Korea Times had I done night shifts so often during those months. Each day was a continuation of night shifts. The problem was that of going back home after the shift work: The streets were totally deserted after midnight. There was no traffic at the time, of course, around two or three o'clock in the morning. The police were on the patrol of the deserted streets to check the enforcement of the curfew.

My night shifts helped, financially and otherwise. The overtime payment, though meager in amount, which was handed downright to Tschai, used to change hands from Tschai to a grocery store. The nocturnal shifts also turned out enlightening, indeed. That is, I used to be provided with lots of beneficial information from media pundits with prestigious academic backgrounds.

I discovered that my night shift works evoked nostalgic and retrospective memories. Less rushed in the amount of the articles to be dealt with, the night job gave me Dano enough breaks for coffees, for homesickness, and the recollections of things past. The young and always polite Tom Banes, my on- and off- night shift partner from across the street residence of the United States Embassy in Seoul, made efforts to keep good company.

The click- clacking noises of the linotype machines were unbearable at first, but as days passed they turned out very rhythmic. The odor of lead was revolting on the verge of disgusting, and the dust in the linotype room on the second floor of the building was terrible. In due course of their career, the linotype people made it a routinous habit to eat pork chops and drink makkoli to cleanse their dusty throats of toxic residues.

The six desk chiefs of the Korea Times took turns playing the role of commanding the night shift teams: politics, society, economy, culture, wire (foreign news), and editing, The night shift team consisted of a desk chief and four or five staff members including one or two proofreaders. The morning editions of the Korea Times were the products of their efforts made on the base of the evening editions which had been delivered previously to the provincial districts.

After the boring procedures done of desk reporters truncating some parts of the previous editions by replacing with the new, hearing the cantankerous typing by the huge linotype machines, I compared notes with the manuscripts, spotting the limping letters, correcting the misspelled words and misplaced lines. All that done, the chief of the night shift team put an O.K. signature on the final sheet around 3 or 4 a.m., with the night shift team hurriedly getting on board the "company limousine" to head for their homes. Me Dano, always left alone, mounted the company bedroom upstairs where I slumbered away the nights.

Chapter 21: Dano Meets Tschai

21
Dano Meets Tschai, 1969



There were deliberations of and worries about my lodging problems, which made my class of 1967 seek out ways for my bailout. I was indebted to a lot of allies: Y.C. Kwon, Y.S. Lee, D.I. Park, J.S. Hwang and others. They used to mob me on the rocky seat around the Blue Dragon Statue, whereby the leggy coeds passed by, with their collegial books on their bosoms, talking and laughing.

Some arranged temporary lodgings, some others sold their gold ring for me, and some others chipped in to make some allowance for me. It was too much for me and for them. It's time to blow a whistle. I thought it's time I ran. From Willowy, from the college campus, from the whole things that Seoul represented.

The mountain trail was so rough, my preparations were so lousy, my mindset was so impulsive and reckless, the snowstorm was so high that I decided to dismount. Another default.

My whimsical shift--changes of professional status from teaching to learning, and again to teaching-- could have been the butt of ridicule, or the subject of derision. I had quit the teaching profession and gone to college and, no more than a year later dropped out of it and reclaimed the earlier job.

Although my academic frustration was inevitably caused by a tight financial condition, my defective personality that used to give up on a pending task, not to face up to it, might have also been a major problem. Reporting for work by submitting a reappointment paper, I felt the eyes of suspicion, concern and antipathy showered on my face by the principal and the deputy principal of Kilan Elementary School.

But the faculty received me warmly. And my two alma maters were among the faculty. Once I was put in a square wooden classroom, adorned with glass windows on the south, reeking of dusty filth, and looking at the bright young kids playing on the school ground, I felt a deep sense of guilt.

Conveniently situated at the junction leading to Euiseong to the west, to Andong to the north, and to Cheongsong to the east, Kilan was a basin town sprawling along the river, surrounded by mountain hills, and populated by two thousand more or less residents and two thousand people more on the move. Educated by an elementary school and a middle school, administered by the myon office, protected by the security force of a police branch of Andong Police Station, and financed by a farming cooperative, Kilan was a functional town.

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The people of Kilan, or the Kilanese, had been known for their high sense of humor. A live legend had it that there had been Kilan Sampo, or three cannons of Kilan, that is, three notorious exaggerators: Ju Po, Shin Po, and Yang Po. The big talkers mixed among themselves, of course, and with other close friends as well, over a bowl of makkolli, spinning miles of yarns, giggling and guffawing.

I heard a hilarious episode myself about Shin po who had run into a brawler at the town bazaar which had used to open every five days. As things turned lousy and the brawler was about to go violent, Shin Po stepped forward, announcing with some bluffing, "I warn you. I am taekwondo samdan. (level three black belter) As soon as this had been said, the fists of the tall wide-shouldered guy flew, by which the Cannon Shin naturally got knocked down. Pulling himself up, the downer pronounced solemnly, gasping for breath, saying "You must be sadan. (fourth level black belter)

The town was caressed by stream rivers, which, upstream, were branched off valley creeks. The river was not running so fast, nor so slow, nor dry all the year round. The Kilan River Tributary was not so shallow but aptly wide. The tributary ran south west, sloped not steeply to the west, met with neighborly streams, finally converging on the Nakdong River proper.

The waters were full of fish, of which kkokji, or coreoperca herzi, were most popular. Like the energetic residents of the district, the fish were fast and energetic. The Kilanese knew how to handle the kkokji. They did not catch them by fish trap or something; They caught them by net throwing. They cast the fishing nets which would spread in the air just like the bamboo fans and retrieved the fish caught in them. The fish, aptly small and pretty, used to give a mild protest when caught with their sharp scales. The fish meat was delicious when eaten broiled with side dishes of vegetables and a bowl of makkolli.

Winds drive clouds and mist which turn into water drops which merge into a river and a sea. What a fate it is that some water drops fall onto the seas, singing and dancing the joy of the ocean life while some waters fall onto the pit of the cow manure, suffocated with the toxic odor. Some others satiate the thirst, feed and nurture all the living things.

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I ran into Tschai, who had been a seamstress and dressmaker at Kilan. She was pretty in her early twenties with a small face and medium height. She was present, so present that she was close at hand. She was running a roadside shop, sitting coyly at a sewing machine. I was at rough sea and she was a siren with a magnetic appeal. She was as transparent as crystal in her purple dress with short sleeves. Whereas Spear Handle had been celestial and Willowy wavering, Tschai was down to earth.

Dano had not been a gawking type. His stare had almost always been constant. He did not give sidelong glance at the roadside, the roadside people and things, that is. He made it a rule to walk straight with his shoulders upright. Dano, who had been on his way to the school from his lodging house, was called back from the roadside one day. It was the lanky Kim who had been working for the local tobacco association. "Mr. Park, why are you in such a hurry?" Dano looked to his left and found Kim sitting at the seamstress' shop, she working at the sewing machine and he giving an idle talk.

"Hi, do you say there is something good enough to stop me?"
"Mr. Park, why don't you take your time? Let's take a brief break coming here," he said, producing a refreshing soft drink for me Dano. "By the way, haven't you two met yet?" he casually introduced Tschai to me Dano and vice versa, adding that she was his cousin on his mother's side.

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Mrs. Euiseong Kim was uncomfortable ever, keeping a low profile since she had moved to her oldest son's house. Her removal from Don's to Bin's meant that her days were being numbered. The local tradition had it that the elderly parents were supposed to spend their final days at their first son's house because their welfare after death would be taken care of by their first son who was supposed to host funeral and annual memorial services, and take custody of their subterranean resting places. Mrs. Euiseong Kim, with her shoulders a little stooped and with unsteady gaits, began to show a strange habit of commuting between her two sons' houses.

When coming to Boolim's, her dear old naggee, my grandma turned to the obedient daughter-in-law of hers for the role model of her lifelong captive audience. She blurted out, for no end, her inconveniences she claimed she had been roughing it at Bin's, about which Boolim mildly protested and from time to time mildly rebuked, too. Then, her mother-in-law pouted and fitfully started hitting the unwelcome road back to Bin's, where she began to show a weird habit of pacing up and down the small clamped room.

She progressively began to get stuck in the woods of words in the process, stuttering and murmuring to herself. She got herself wired in the cobwebs of frustrated memories, swamped in the wetlands of hateful sights and faces. She began to show an evident sign of nomang, or the senile dementia. Arguments erupted among Bin, his wife, and their adult sons, raising their voices, over the justification of erecting isolation compartment for the poor mother and grandmother: Mrs. Euiseong Kim got caged, that is, got confined.

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What drove Don, from small hours of the morning till late at night, to dig and till a modicum of bare land? To lead a decent life. But the aim of the decent human condition was far from a grab. A considerable stash of cash at Manchuria had been stolen; The homecoming packs from Nagasaki, which had contained Japanese cash and war bonds, had been pulverized by sea bombs; The expectations of harvest bumper crops had been dashed by a severe drought; The grain inventory had been emptied by Boolim's accident and the subsequent hospital fees; What deposit money they had kept at a local farming cooperative was forced to be withdrawn because Dano had gone to college.

Still, my father did not give up, though. He was always at work on the land. Whosever land he did not care. He toiled during the summer's days on the others' paddy fields for a day's fees. He was tilling the wasteland with no tilling machine or something but with picks and shovels, removing the rocks. Rumor had it that the roosters of the village across the stream cuckoo by the cling and clang made when Don removed the rocks. He planted peach trees on his sweaty efforts himself. His lifelong motto was: Be constant.

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The human gravity might have worked. But the attraction was mutual: Dano was attracted to Tschai, and vice versa. To speak of the sophistication of the moment by means of a Freudian jargon, Tschai's libido might have reached its peak, and Dano's, too. In her later years, she confided to Dano about her motive of the eastward move, admitting to having consulted a fortuneteller who had advised her that she go to the east: "Go east, and you will run into your lifelong companion."

Tschai had traveled about 40 kilometers east and had set up a roadside siren's house: Me Dano had been ambushed. The initial amorous union had taken place at his boarding room at Kilan. In the process, he had casually seen a blood stain on a large towel spread which had given him a bizarre sensation of euphoria, which he had ignored, and of course not mentioned. Tear drops had oozed out of her eye corners which looked to be crystal. She later hummed love songs in his presence, reclining on his front, "Since I knew you, I've learned about love. Since I knew you, I've learned about tears..."

There happened an "i", or change. The wind met the water and the other way around. The water danced and the wind danced, also. Tschai turned garrulous and made the reticent Dano laugh by her gaffes. She kept many interesting tales by heart. The second daughter of the six sisters and one son, she was the darling of her father who used to take her along on his way out for the Kyeongju Lee clan meetings or local political gatherings. Her father had long been a local chief of the district opposition party chapter. So she had naturally had a lot of opportunities to get herself "enlightened" by the light jokes of the adult folks. She was a born story teller, indeed. Of the many amusing ones, the Story of Three Sisters was a really hilarious one. "May I come naked, or fully clothed?" was the title Dano later designated.

Almost all the weddings of the countryside towns in South Korea had been held at the brides' houses on the traditional protocols until the 1960s. The bridegroom's father and his party had used to lodge at the bride's on the eve of the wedding while the bridegroom and his company had used to appear on the very morning of the rite. And when all the hustle and bustle of the day's rites had subsided, with the roosters and hens starting nodding off on their perches and with the dogs of the village starting barking at the moon, the portable wooden tables laden with night snacks had started being served with the bride starting sitting on the yogang pot hidden on the patio in the rear garden because she was fitfully nervous.

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It was midnight, and the bridegroom coughed a few times at the door to inform the bride in the room of his presence. But nobody opened the door for him but the bridegroom himself. The bride noticed her nightly company to shuffle along the room, and sit opposite to her, but she hardly raised her eyes. Outside the room some girl pranksters had made holes on the paper windows to peep, with stifled giggles.

The bride had a hard time, attired in a formal wedding dress and sitting in an upright position. But the bridegroom had not been trained in niceties and courtesies, or the manners needed in the course of the contacts toward his bride. Unreasonably enough, the bridegroom had not been mature but only appeared rash toward the night's union.

He tried to undress the bride by untying the knots at the long stripe of the jogori. The bride, naturally taken aback by the bridegroom's "indecent" advance, made a gesture of rejection by saying, "You can't." The bridegroom was astonished at the bride's blunt response, but he didn't quit because he had been coached by the older folks of his clan that the initial rejection on the part of the bride was a sure sign of a chaste woman.

But the bride's didn't loosen a bit because of the tips she had earlier gotten from the aunts of her clan that she would be considered "cheap" if she would allow the bridegroom to open her with ease. The night nearly ended as the bridegroom's advances and the bride's adamant rejections continued. In time, the roosters of the town started cuckooing at last. The bridegroom, deeply upset by the fact that he had failed in consummating by the bride's obstinate rejections, bolted the room and went back to his house.

Rumors that the first daughter had been jilted by her bridegroom on their "first" night must have been a fatal trauma. Naturally the rumors added wings that they flew over the town border. As a result, there were no more suitors and matchmakers for the first one.

The second daughter learned the lesson from her sister's sad fate on account of tough rebuffs and the subsequent desertion by the bridegroom. Another nuptial ritual was served and the fateful moment to which she was looking forward arrived at last. The bridegroom gave a few polite coughs and entered the room his bride had been waiting.

Hardly had the bridegroom taken a seat opposite to the bridegroom when she suddenly got up and stripped herself in a hurry. He was surprised. Dumfounded was the exact word for the occasion. He then got to his feet and left the town hurriedly as if he had seen an apparition. Sadly the second daughter had met the same plight as the first.

Time flew, so the third and the last daughter would get wedded. She was the "wisest" of the three. She was now more prudent than the other two. She prepared herself lest she should run into the worst occasion of being jilted. When the nuptial ritual was done and the moment of the trial came, she retired to another room adjacent to the bride's, where she asked, in a whispering voice, to the bridegroom in the room, saying "Mister, may I come in naked or fully clothed?"

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"You make me depressed," Willowy had once told me Dano in a warm spring afternoon's intimate gathering at a kids' classroom after they had gone back home. My tendency to demean dourly and to get moody might have played an unwholesome impact on her. Spear Handle might also have hesitated to move closer at the time of my earlier approach because she had felt heavy from my aloof attitudes. Tschai might also have intuited clouds on me Dano, but she loved them and allowed them to land on her garden where she changed them into rain for her flowers.

Tschai didn't mention Dano's low spirits but made efforts to cheer him up. She rattled off interesting clues. hilarious anecdotes to make him laugh. Although she hadn't given him a happy ending of consummation to the Story of Three Sisters, she invited me Dano to meet her parents. She had put up a sleeping quarter for me Dano at an inn of Pungsan not far from her home on the eve of the meeting so that I would be able to come early in the morning.

The father of six daughters, a mild-mannered farmer in his middle fifties, didn't give no for his answer. Asked, after receiving a greeting of a deep bow from me, to give me the honor of taking his dear daughter as wife, he said smiling, with his wife in her seeming early fifties beaming beside him, "I always welcome any young man who is willing to come to take my daughter."

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My father-in-law was a great tree, not so big nor so small, which had stood rainstorms. He was a gentleman of good personality who was warm and nice to every man and woman he had met. He was nice to his six daughters with undiminished affection for them.

He was a generous tree which was very tolerant of the nests that all sorts of birds built on it. The tree didn't mind the troubles the ugly nests of lousy architecture might have inflicted on it. He was nice to me. I appreciate his deep considerations toward me. I miss him very much.

Chapter 20:At Joongang University

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Chapters 18.19.:"Paging, Mr. Medic!"

18
At the Division Detention Barracks, 1965



The day was “not a bang but a whimper.” It had begun with a bang, of course, but ended up at a gaol. Immediately after the morning roll call, HQ Section Personnel Major Sergeant Bong announced with pride a company feast at the mountain valley of Hyeon someplace, Whatsisname County, one mile away from the company. "It will be a grand feast of porks and soju," the sergeant said. Under the command guidelines of Regiment Commander Colonel Kim, the medical company of the Nth Regiment of the ROK Nth Army Division raised pigs which would be consumed for a sort of nutritional supplementation. And it was the very day set for the whole company to enjoy a taste of the cooked pork and to allow its members the freedom of soju.

The air of the autumnal sky was crisp. The valley was long and deep whose creek bed was almost dry. Regiment Army Surgeon cum Company Commander Lt. Han got off the ambulance, with Administrating Officer Pang and his men attending to the surgeon leaving the passenger seat. The troops from the company kitchen helped erect a large cast iron pot to cook the pork and prepare the gourmet lunch. Major Sergeant Bong attended to the company commander and Sergeant so-and-so arranged the rest of the company troops to take their seats on the grass.

But hardly had the company troops made a first pick of the delicious meat dishes with their chopsticks with gusto when an army wireless phone beeped and paged the company commander, who relayed an urgent message that an emergency drill was issued by the division commander. On Sunday of all the days. Medic Corporal Dano that had been me and another medic Hoon, who had once been a ssirum wrestler, were ordered to go down to the 2nd Battalion HQ.

They did go wearing a medic armband and equipped with the first-aid kit but they did not join the roll call on the exercise gathering. They did it one better: The vulnerable innards of the two soldiers subsequently succumbed to the influence of soju and were actually knocked out with sound sleep on the barracks room of the HQ company. Finding the two medics deployed to the battalion drill knocked out on the barracks room, the battalion commander was enraged. "Lock 'em up in the division detention house," he yelled at the medical company commander via army telephone.

The two medics, Hoon and me, were roughly awoken by a battalion cadre by whom a summons order from the medical company commander was relayed to them. They found out belatedly that they had slept themselves through the drill on the barracks room. Seeing them racing up toward the medical company, the administrative officer told them in not so loud but in subdued voice to appear in the company ground in full combat gear.

They did. They carried backpacks, but they did not carry rifles because the army medics had not been armed. The officer then delivered the order from the commander to the effect that the two negligent soldiers would be punished by the division commander on the grounds of the army service regulations.

Hoon and me had to go through two stages of disciplines. The first stage of punishment would be carried out immediately and in our own camp ground, and the other in the division compound in the form of one week's detention for the culprits' behavior modification and correctional purposes. We had first of all to do punitively jogging ten rounds of the regiment camp ground far down the company, and in full combat gear, of course. "On what counts?" the officer replied, "On charges of the disobedience to the commanding order."

With the discipline of the two taking a ground run, Sergeant Song, one of the five sergeant majors of the company, made sure that the two poor corporals would be ready to go to the Nth Military Police Headquarters under the jurisdiction of the Army Nth Division. He might have felt he had turned out a cattle farmer who would have to push his cattle to a slaughterhouse. So miserable. With the delivery procedure of the disciplined soldiers to the M.P. office done, Song got up from the seat. Turning around to Hoon and me, Sergeant Song said, "Sorry! I'll see ya soon." "Not at all, sir!" Hoon and me Dano snapped to attention to salute.

The schedules of the detention house were nothing more than Hoon and Dano could stand. The seven arrivals before them were not harsh on the two new arrivals. They didn't act cold nor tough as rumored around the barracks. "Don't worry," one said, smiling. "Don't be afraid of anything," the other soothed them. They didn't try any initiation ceremony on them, which was unexpected and for which the two new detainees were appreciative to a great degree. "You are supposed to keep things in memory, though" the one who looked to be the oldest and the highest-ranking said, pointing to the directives and notices posted on the wall. It was time for attention, for memory, and of reckoning.

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It was not the first time that Dano had experienced the police probe. Dano had been to the police station not long after from his high school graduation. Disappointed at the delay that his son should have been appointed as teacher, Don had shown casual discomfiture despite himself. The delayed notification of Dano's appointment was owing to his own poor school performance, of course, by which he had barely graduated at the bottom of his classmates. Not getting over the pressures, on one late spring afternoon, Dano had taken off, leaving his home on the sly, hitching a train ride at Euiseong Railroad Station to Busan.

The poor hitchrider was nabbed while hiding at a train lavatory at Soo Yeong, short of Busan, by a security officer on the train and taken to the Soo Yeong Police Station. "What a wrong time!" a middle-aged officer at the police station mildly rebuked Dano for his ill-timed travel, taking a reproachful glance at him. The officer pointed to the slogans hanging on the walls of street buildings. "Down with the Gangsters!" a slogan said of the necessity of eliminating the street hoodlums. "Long Live the Revolution!" another slogan expressed its support for the May 16th Coup, 1961 masterminded by Major General Park Jung Hee. "Free riders of the transit system could be mistaken for vagrants, who could be put into hard labor," he said, handing down a decision on the reckless juvenile delinquent to "pay the default fees of the punitive charges to the Euiseong Police Station."

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Two "revolutions" had taken place during and after Dano's school years at the interval of no more than one year. The initial revolution, the April 19 Revolution, had erupted on April 19, 1960, with high school students taking to the streets in the two southern parts of South Korea, Masan and Daegu, protesting against the ruling party's illegal voting practices of stuffing the ballot boxes for Candidate Syngman Rhee and with the university students and their professors organizing the mass demonstrations in the national capital. The May 16, 1961 Revolution, which had been so named by the military itself, had taken place on the heels of the Students' Revolution, to remedy the anarchic chaos caused by the free-wheeling and irresponsible politicos.

Hardly had the students in Seoul succeeded in driving out the corrupt and dictatorial government and taken control of the street order when the students in provincial districts were running amok on the streets and their school grounds. The belatedly irate crowd of Andong mobbed the mansion of then Congressman Kim somebody of the Liberal Party and set it on fire, destroying it.

The students of Andong Normal School went further. On a late spring day the class monitors convoked the school ground assembly, by alarming each other "Let's gather on the school ground!" A solemn atmosphere took over. Student Body President Tiang Huon presided over the entire session in which all the students of 600 played jurors. He took a stand below the pulpit and, alas, was questioning the poor principal. School Principal Oh on the pulpit responded to the insulting questions in an awkward and clumsy manner. In that public students' interrogation proceeded in a question- and- answer session, Principal Oh was "indicted and convicted." Mr. Oh, after a guilty plea, said, "People, I'll leave the school!"

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Dano was notified of his late appointment on an autumn day of September, 1961, whereas his peer graduates with good marks had earlier been appointed in March that year. Dano's initial service at Nakdong Elementary School, Sangju County, at age 19, as a teacher was not impressive. He was greatly impressed by the locals, by their convivialities, hospitalities and by the students' gaiety,

The locals were extremely gentle. Many parents of the students dropped by the school whenever they came to the local bazaar and said hellos to the young teacher, most of them handing "a piece of their mind" out to me Dano, in which a bottle of apple cider and a pack of rice cake was enveloped. Some locals, of whom the descendants of the Hanyang Cho clan were special, went to great lengths to invite the entire teaching staff, treating them to feasts. The senior teachers, of whom almost all the teachers were natives, were especially friendly, but me Dano wasn't friendly in kind. The ending-pitched Sangju accent was good to hear and the riverscape of Nakjong river ferry was dreamlike, too. but his classroom performances were not impressive, mostly clumsy and ineffective. He was a misfit, after all.

Despite his oft-repeated defaults on his boarding charges at Mr. Baik's and on the school text book fares for the following year which had resulted in the discomforts of the school children themselves, the encounter with Spear Handle was a great windfall during his young days. She was a sixth year student of the school who was medium height, slender, pretty and amiable.

Dano found her especially charming, so charming that he thought she would turn out to be a great woman companion befitting a great gentleman of an era. What had made her look so special was that she had not cried at the commencement ceremony that the rest of the girls had. She had rather been patting the backs of the peer students who had been crying, whispering soothing words to their ears. She had been the one and the only girl who had not acted according to the conventional idea that the graduating girls are supposed to cry, impressing and inspiring him enormously. But Spear Handle had remained another default on his own amorous journey.

It might have been a possessive thought that he had held. An obsession that he had to go to the army to get the bad habit of defaults to be done away with. He had not volunteered to serve the army, but he had been enlisted at the exact time of his military conscription. However, the self-inflicted motive was lofty, indeed, and the peer pressure was high that men should and could be reborn through the rigorous lives in the army barracks.

Contrary to his own anticipations, most of M1 rifle bullets on the firing range in the army boot camp of Nonsan had missed the target and he had almost always ended up at the tail of the file when his squadron had staged race competitions. Aside from the inferior performance at the Nonsan army boot camp, his performance ratings at Masan Army Medical School in the summer period of 1963 had been widely rumored to be around top, at the school, or similarly brilliant, but ended up outdone in the deployment assessment board.

I hadn't harbored any pent-up grudges toward the assessment board of the medical school, not envied peer medics their opportunities to serve in the army hospitals, either. Getting on board the truck heading the Third Reinforcement Battalion with the other co-graduates, I had been full of new expectations. In due course, I had been deployed, with the seven other co-enlisted men from Euiseong, at the medical company of the Nth regiment, the Nth Army Division, of whom two had had placements at the company dispensary and pharmacy, whereas I had become a medical squadron member. The barracks life at the front had been so boring to the extent that some higher-ups at the barracks room had had the urges to inflame the idle buttocks of the lower-ranking soldiers who were engaged in reading books or chatting gaily. The outdoor details had comprised the rest of the barracks routines.

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Like a girl in blue "not getting old" in A Beautiful Mind, my boy is not getting old, too. Touting lasting youth, shoving away the approaching age, and always dreaming the virile landmark, the boy materializes so casually in his own old man.

One of the undying landmarks my fatigued soul likes to haunt is the Nakjong Naru, where the tired passengers of the previous bus are waking up with shining eyes, getting on aboard the boat ship which is waiting for the bus that has just arrived from Euisong and Daegu districts.

The Nakjong Naru, one of the river junctions, which were formed along the Nakdong River of 605 kilo meters and its tributaries, was a dreamlike landmark. which carried out the transfer of people and things from the contiguous counties to Sangju. It's been a landmark place I did my transfer to adulthood.

When I arrived at the ferry village from Euiseong by bus, the sun usually was high above my right shoulder and shining its ray on the river far down and wide apart. One of the big boats floating on the river, sensing the bus' arrival, eased its way to the ferry. Then we the passengers aboard the previous bus get on aboard the boat.

It's the moment the land vehicle converted into the passenger, which would leisurely savor the beautiful riverscape unfolding before it, comforting itself for the trouble which had been hitting the rough roads all along. It's also the moment the human passengers would hear the melodious Sangju accents of the local women peddling the peanuts, dried cuttlefish and candies.



19
"Paging, Mr. Medic," 1965

The days needed for the full service as an enlisted army soldier were more than a year away, which had been termed as the 'waning days' up to the discharge. "Why don't you go down to the Anyang Armory Company," said Major Sergeant Bong of the personnel section, handing me the notification of deployment for an independent army unit stationed on the outskirts of Seoul as an on-the-spot medical assistant. "It will be easy and enjoyable," the sergeant said, "to kill the boredom of your last days in the army, getting some fun." I was of half a mind to begin a new shift, in fact, but I had to accept the offer because it was considered a kind of goodwill from a staff sgt.. "I will go, sir!"

A train travel up from Kapyong down to Seoul, not as a green private of a certain army unit, who had been controlled by the chain of command, but as a senior corporal at the final stage of a compulsory service, who became my own man to a great degree, rendered me emotional, giving me a choking sensation. I was able to sit on where I liked, and also able to search back alleys in the perimeter of Cheongnyangni Railroad Station and run into "a woman in red."

In the wide expanse of fields on both sides of a farmland road leading to the company, rice paddies were busy ripening. Farmers were randomly seen idly picking weeds among the paddies. It was getting dark when I negotiated through the farm roads to the ammo company and reported to the company chief.

I was taken aback by the ice-cold stares of the company troops when Company Commander Captain Hanshim introduced me Dano to his soldiers. They looked so evidently hostile. Some riflemen at the rear end of the crowd on the camp ground were heard muttering to each other to the effect that there was no more reason for any medic to stay. With the crowd having been dispersed, I approached a first sergeant who was lingering, looking like talking to me. "Excuse me," I spoke first, "What is it that you guys don't like me so much?"
"We don't dislike you, but we detested your predecessor sergeant," he said.
"Why is that?" I demanded to know.
"He did nothing, nothing at all." he blurted his complaint.
"What do you mean by that, doing nothing at all?" I asked.
"It means just that. It means nothing else. He did virtually nothing at all during his term of service here, idling away all his hours of duty at the civilian places," the sergeant said.

At the transition meeting of the shift of duty outside the company compound, over a pint of beer, my ex-medic First Sergeant Kang from Chungchong Province expressed to me Dano, with sonorous and slow accent, full of regrets and embarrassments. He ascribed, however, his negligence of duty to the shortage of medical supplies from the original company. He then was curious to know about my package contents. "The first-aid kit is all there is to it, and some essential items what have to be in there," I replied.

"That said it all," he elatedly said, shifting in his seat, as if trying to say that there had been no resources left to improve the condition.

"Don't you think that the deep hostility toward us medics is the problem, Sergeant Kang?" I said, "They say you did nothing, which is what you are not supposed to make excuses for your negligence of duty. You had to do something, sir!" I said.

"I know, I know," he fumbled something to say further, but he stopped short. "I am very sorry, Corporal Dano. I sincerely hope you will make up for my past misdeeds," he got up and held out his hand for a formal farewell..

I, who made an initial survey of the armory men in physical distress on the next day of my deployment, discovered that patients suffering from various categories of diseases had been abandoned for a long time. Of all the damned diseases, hoobalzzi whanzza, or the fusariosis patients topped the list.

Back neck Fusariosis patients, to be exact. I had discovered a lot of hoobalzzi patients among my boot camp troops at Nonsan a few years ago. I had surmised then that the fungi on the beddings, particularly in the dirty blankets and pillows were the cause of the disease, attacking the skins, particularly the necks of the soldiers. Having watched the sick soldiers then, now I had to take care of them.

I had to make a list of sick ammo men based on the triage and selection method. Of all the listed men in trouble, I had to select seven and make a convoy of them. When I reported the immediate personal convoy to the old man he balked at the idea. "You have to go through the channel of the decision-making process from the company to the regiment command," he declared.
“The condition of the patients is severe, sir" I said, "They need immediate care, sir! I'll convoy the men to Soodo Army Hospital myself, sir!"
"It's impossible. I understand that the army patients must be transported by ambulance," Captain Hanshim gave me an annoying look.
"A city bus will do at times, sir!" I did not budge. The captain was finally convinced, saying "O.K. You may go ahead."

My company and me took a walk for Anyang early in the next morning at daybreak. The pedestrian travel to Anyang from the company compound and from there the bus ride on board Inter-city Bus No. 104 to Samchong-dong, Seoul City, took about two and a half hours.

There was a row at the entrance of the army hospital, though, over the army regulations or something whether to accept the convoy of the army patients by an enlisted medic. I excused the remoteness and isolation of an independent unit, and first of all things, the need for the immediate medical treatment of the diseases, for the omission of the inevitable procedures.

A receptionist disappeared into the hospital building and the next thing he knew, an officer and some soldiers materialized from the building to see what was going on. "You are Dano, aren't you?" a soldier shouted from the crowd, dashing toward me. "You are Osam!" I exclaimed with surprise, moving in the direction of a classmate of Andong Normal,"

Osam introduced me to a medical officer, saying "Meet Surgeon Lieutenant Park who I work for. This is my classmate Dano, sir! A maverick, sir!" I saluted the army surgeon. "So nice to meet you, sir!"

"What's so nice for you, medic?" Lt. Park said, beaming.
"Because I know things will be going very smoothly here, sir!" I answered. Lt. Park nodded approvingly. In the meantime, Osam did all the reception paper work for his school friend from afar, and showed me and my ailing foot soldiers inside the army hospital building. Surprisingly, Osam was not the only schoolmate. Five more medics, tipped by Osam, in freshly starched and ironed khaki military uniform and shiny shoes, mobbed around me in no time, greeting simply and touting their army hospital insignias.

A little while later at the waiting room, one patient after another was called into the treating room, with me Dano watching the whole process for his later practice. The doctor made it sure that the patients could be treated from the hubalzzi disease with ease. The surgeon demonstrated a sophisticated dressing for the treatment of the infective part, or, the mass of pus in the neck.

I was astonished at the width and depth with which the skin lesion was developing. A whole length of the lieutenant's index finger was penetrating into the bottom of the lesion and a surprising part was that the young patients did not freak out or scream when the surgeon was draining out the pus golem.

They were so determined. After the pus draining was done, the disinfection powder was sprayed over and the dressing part got sealed with antiseptic bandages. Finally, a penicillin type shot was given on the poor buttocks, during which time the military surgeon casually recommended hostacillins which could be had at a civilian pharmacy to me if and when I would "handle" the hubalzzi patients at his Anyang Ammunition Camp.

After the whole process of treatment was done, and when they were parting, in memory of the unexpected encounter, the Samaritan medics collected a bagful of medicines, aids for dressing and small-sized medical appliances for me Dano, a small bit each in amount, though. The kind-hearted surgeon went to great lengths to promise future welcomes for later visits for me Dano and to reveal some procedural instructions for the treatment of the cervical plague. Medic Dano's escortees were buoyed both at what they were treated at a nice military medical facility on the highest level with good words of perfect healing from the doctors and in the manner with which their company medic was warmly received with an armful of presents from his friendly medics and medical doctors.

It was a triumphant return. The ammo camp troops sensed the feat of the medic and his party, looking at the expressions of glee on the faces of the returnees from the Soodo Army Hospital. Corporal Dano went to the company commander's office but the captain was not there. The ailing KGIs, who had been treated in no other place than the highest-ranking army hospital located in the capital of the country, on a rare occasion and with sincere care, were busy bragging about "our doc." He was so well connected to each and every department of the high army hospital that he was provided with various medical supplies, that they were and would be treated to their disease without much noise of red tapes. He was really different and would make difference in the future. In an instant, the atmosphere of die-hard hostility in the company barracks rooms shifted to that of warm amicability.

The following morning was the day of sea change. Inflated rumors indicating my finesses might have made rounds through the camp the previous night. which I thought was O.K. An unexpected episode after episode occurred. When I was standing in line for my morning chow, holding my tray in my hand, an ammo private approached me and took it for me. An HQ man took the trouble of arranging a cozy spot near the barracks room fireplace, which had not been in operation, for me to hit the sack.

But you had to get things done, which was what counted. The sick privates were transported to the army hospital and effectively treated. The medics and medical doctors of the army hospital in the capital city were as kind as ever. All the KGIs treated for the hubalzzi were amazed at the speed and completeness with which the ailment was cured. The atmosphere of the whole camp town turned bright.

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Routine messages containing parental cares and brotherly concerns were relayed late to me Dano owing mostly to technicalities of the army postal service, touring places and shifting hands. My brother and sister said in their tardy letters that grandma Mrs. Euiseong Kim had made a grudging move to her eldest son's, which might have rendered his poor mother free of her nagging torments.

I was missing Spear Handle. After chores were done of dressing for treating scars and changing bandages, when I was left alone, with fresh air coming through the open window of the barracks, I was missing Spear Handle. The image of her always smiling and comforting her weeping sixth graders popped without warning.

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Now and then some incidents on barracks humor proportions occurred to the enlisted men of low ranks. The predator in an army cop might have sensed the perfect target prey in sight, who appeared beleaguered. The poor private was given leave of absence, after having been treated for some disease with uncanny attributes, for the purchase of a unit of hostacillin for the last phase injection at a local drug store. (*It could be had at a pharmacy without prescription then.)

An MP vehicle on the routine patrol spotted a vulnerable prey on a leisurely stroll and approached him for a spot check. The ammo man fumbled for excuses, and failed to produce an apt document for his leave. Then the army cop put him on board the baikcha, or the "white car", and gave him a "free tour" of the local county capital for an indefinite span of time.

The poor private, abandoned at dusk on a deserted roadside after an unexplained ride, was pissed off enormously, tossing his medicine box into the air. Taken to task by the squadron chief for his failing to keep punctuality for the evening roll call, and getting scolded for the throwaway by Company Medic me Dano, the poor soldier burst out crying. It was an unlucky day for him, after all.

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It was a windy summer's day. More than once, all at once, it evoked a sentimental journey to the past, to the familiar folks, and to everything. At an instant the chilly noisy air whistled by rattling the barracks window, the company speaker system boomed out a message "paging Mr. Medic!", which sounded urgent. Dano, who had his dressing job done on several ammo men in the healing stage, got up from his seat, came out racing to the HQ office. A young man stranger in civilian clothes was waiting for me. "Come with me, Mr. Doctor!" he said with a quivering voice.

Looking back, the bizarre encounter could not have taken place, and I should not have responded to the call. I should have stayed at the barracks room. I did not have to shift place. (I am sorry, sir. I am not a doctor!) If and when a nearby civilian citizen had asked for a medical help, I should have refused to meet him in the first place.

Why? Because I was not a doctor who had been trained to do a serious medical job. In short, I should have realized the professional borderline that I was a mere stretcher guy that had been trained to be a member of auxiliary personnel for the army doctors. But, alas, the ignorant and proud Dano did not say no to the caller, hitting the road for the house of a person alleged to be in trouble who was waiting for his medical aid, with the first-aid pack on his shoulder. Oh, boy!

I got to the place after 10 or so minutes' walk, a small tin-roofed house with the architectural mode of the hangul digut (ㄷ). Getting into the entrance, the escort informed to the room of my arrival. The sarangbang (the room for the men) door opened. The apprehensive-looking folks got up to greet me. Entering, I found a frail-looking young man lying in the middle of the room surrounded by the male families and relatives, looking aimlessly at the ceiling.

"How and where" was what I wanted to know about. An old man sat down and pulled open the covering of a young man under which his groin was bared. But the surprising part was that his testicles were not those of an adult man but those of an ox. My astonishing eyes were asking him about the cause of the weirdry by which the human testicles were swollen to the size of those of a bull.

The old man who looked to be the patriarch of the family introduced himself and "briefed" the situation for the visiting "doctor." The young patient was newly married so much so that the male members of the family, including his older brothers and uncles, got concurrence that he needed a sort of stamina complementation with reptiley nutrition. In due process, he was made to drink duly cooked snake soup, which turned out what it looked like: a disaster.

You would have to take another path, turn around, or detour if the path had been an ill-chosen one. There might be just one way or the other for the human beings to correct their original mistakes or misjudgments. So I had to say to the head of the distressed family to the effect that he was not the one up to the task. Go see the doctor, please.

Even if I had turned and run, there shouldn't have been a person who would dare call me a coward. I nevertheless opted to keep going without hesitation. I opted to ignore any unexpected results or side effects of his action. Such uncertainties did not occur to my mind at all.

Ignorance was surely a bliss. My "medical" assessment at that time was that the venom of the snake was clogging his penile gland or something, so anybody in the room would mind going to get an antidote injection?

While the errand man was pedaling his way to an Anyang pharmacy, I got my syringe sterilized in boiling water and prepared myself for the treatment. To look back, there was a last resort left for me to turn the situation around. It was a very dangerous attempt so I had to stop the treatment because I would be likely to kill a person. It was illegal, too.

I nevertheless went ahead with my own treatment process. In 30 minutes or so, the errand man arrived with the antidote bottle which I gave the patient lying on the room floor a shot in his ugly ass. Reaction was slow to appear.

Suspenseful tension gripped the whole room. In one and a half hours, thick liquid of a small amount came out of the penis, and in two hours drop by drop of yellow liquid was oozing out of the poor organ. The patient, who had been suffering from shortness of breath, was beginning to breathe in normal cadence. In due passage of time, drops turned into the form of urinal shot, and the swollen testicles started shrinking to the original size. At an early night, Medic Corporal Dano returned to the ammo camp, with the remarks of reassurance shared. "Your son will have been all right until tomorrow morning."

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Civilization means division of labor and its specification. In the meantime, savagery, or uncivilization means a state of confusion in which all the elements that could be categorized, defined and specified are mixed up, comprising a mess.

Medicine and pharmacy were mixed up. The division of medicine and pharmacy didn't exist in the 1960s, of course. Their division was materialized at the end of the 1990s in South Korea.

I'm tempted to issue a warning, that is, a grave warning, indeed, to Dano, a tempestuous and reckless young man of me to exercise his proper discretion to the behavior of extremely important dimension.

I'm not in a mood to blame the medic corporal who had hit the road to convoy the army soldiers that had been suffering from illnesses to the highest military hospital by himself, nor in a mood to applaud him. He'd rather consulted the ladders of command.

Above all, the house call was a sheer nonsense. I shouldn't have done that. It shouldn't have taken place. The young man of me had put himself in a very dangerous position to endanger his own reputation and jeopardize the life of an innocent and unsuspecting civilian adult.