Black Flower (16 page)

H
O HUI,
a Chinese living in Mérida, met a group of Korean immigrants not far from the city’s downtown. He wrote an article about how shocked he was upon seeing them and sent it to the
Wenhsing Daily,
a Chinese newspaper published in San Francisco:

Once, they deceived and bought people in China, but then rumors spread and there were no more applicants, so now they are purchasing slaves in Korea . . . They are all dressed in tattered clothing and wear straw sandals that are falling apart. During a heavy rain that lasted for days, the Koreans were scattered to various henequen farms. When they work, the women hold their children in their arms and carry them on their backs as they wander through the streets. The sight of them was so like cattle and beasts and I could not witness it without tears . . . If they do not work properly on the farms they are brought to their knees and beaten, their flesh torn from their bodies and blood spattered everywhere. I could not contain my lamentation at this hideous sight.

Two Korean exchange students living in the United States, Jo Yeongsun and Sin Jeonghwan, read the article and hurriedly sent a letter to the Young Men’s Christian Association in Seoul. Jeong Seongyu, a young evangelist at the YMCA, reorganized this information and sent it on to the
Capital Gazette,
and on July 29, 1905, the article was published, with the title “Our People Have Become Slaves, So How Shall We Rescue Them?” In this roundabout way, the truth about the bond slaves in the Yucatán was made known to the Korean Empire.

Two days later the
Capital Gazette
urged that measures be taken, saying, “We cannot bear hearing about the plight of the emigrants to Mexico.” Emperor Gojong issued an imperial mandate the very next day, August 1. “Why did the government not prevent this when the companies were soliciting emigrants in the very beginning? We must devise a way to swiftly bring these thousand or so people home.” It was an extremely direct and forceful declaration for the emperor of a Confucian nation known for skirting all subjects. The one who had become their lord was shaking with shame. After this, the
Korea Daily News
attacked the government’s emigration policy. Public opinion around the nation condemning the impotent government had reached a boiling point. But Mexico was too far away, and the two countries had no diplomatic relations. Yet Yi Hayeong, the Korean foreign minister, sent a telegram to the Mexican government: “Although we have never established friendly relations with your honored nation, we request that you protect our citizens until we dispatch an official.”

The Mexican government sent this reply: “Stories of people being treated like slaves have been falsely reported. The Asian workers are in the Yucatán, but they are being treated very well, and an article on this was published in the
Beijing Times,
so please refer to this.”

O
N
A
UGUST
12, 1905, the Korean vice minister of foreign affairs, Yun Chiho, was drinking coffee in Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel. A meeting had been arranged by the pro-Japanese Durham Stevens, an American who worked as an adviser for the Korean Empire. Stevens began with a word of condolence. “I am sorry I could not visit you during your time of sorrow.” Yun Chiho observed etiquette and bowed his head. “There is no need for such a busy man to concern himself with every such matter, is there?” Yun Chiho had lost his Chinese wife, Ma Aifang, that February.

Stevens introduced the two Americans sitting next to him. One had a white face, and the other’s face was tanned dark by the sun. The white one was Heywood and the dark one was Swinsy, a representative of the Hawaii Sugar Planters’ Association. Swinsy had an affable personality and appeared to know much about Yun Chiho. “The Hawaiian plantation owners are very displeased with the measures the Korean Empire has taken. The owners say that Koreans are more than welcome there, as they work far harder than either the Japanese or the Chinese, and are well behaved, but if they are suddenly forbidden from going, where are the owners to find such a labor force?”

Yun Chiho replied, “Is that so?” Swinsy pulled his chair forward and asked, “Is there any possibility that this measure may be rescinded?” Yun Chiho pushed his glasses up. “Well, both government and public opinion on emigration is quite negative, so it will not be easy.”

At this, the diplomatic adviser Stevens interrupted. “Why don’t you visit Hawaii? If you go and see for yourself how the peasants are working, give them some encouragement, and put in a good word with His Majesty when you return, it will greatly help to foster friendly relations between Korea and the United States as well. The Hawaii Sugar Planters’ Association has said they will cover your expenses.” Swinsy nodded at this, suggesting that they had already agreed.

Yun Chiho was the ideal person for this job. He was a Christian who had studied in the United States, at Vanderbilt and Emory universities, and had an excellent command of three foreign languages: he spoke fluent English, was skilled in Chinese, and had learned Japanese when he had fled to Japan during the Coup of 1884. But he raised his hand and refused the offer to pay his expenses. “I cannot very well accept money privately while working for my country.”

Yun Chiho had never been fond of Stevens, who worked for the Japanese yet received a salary from the Korean government. The empire’s foreign ministry, which had no choice but to hire him, was in a pitiful situation. Stevens shook hands with Yun Chiho and rose from his seat. “Anyway, please think it over. After all, this is one of those things an official of the foreign ministry must do.”

I
JEONG WOKE UP
from a light sleep as raindrops spattered on the bridge of his nose. It was a welcome rain on the dry land of the Yucatán. The horses whinnied, glad for the water that fell on their hot bodies. The scent of dust rose from the ground. The horizon to the west was still bright. Ijeong could just see the steeple of the Mérida cathedral in the distance.

Dolseok poked Ijeong. Someone was walking toward them from far off, and his face looked like a Korean’s. The man must have thought it odd to see these two men tied up to a cart, for he stared piercingly at Ijeong and Dolseok as he approached. He wore a Western suit and carried a bundle on his back. When he finally reached them, he spoke first. “Are you Koreans?” He spoke Korean, but this was the first time they had ever seen him. The cart had stopped in the shade, as if the driver intended to rest.

“I heard that Koreans had arrived in Mérida, and I was on my way to find them.” He gladly took their hands. “My name is Bak Manseok. I sell ginseng in San Francisco, but I also travel to wherever there are Chinese to sell it. How have you come to this?” Bak Manseok looked at their hands and feet, bound to the pillar, and clucked his tongue. Dolseok said, “We’ve been in Mexico for two months, but there was a problem at our hacienda, so we are being sold to another hacienda.” Bak Manseok listened as Dolseok told him everything that had happened to them. Bak Manseok asked detailed questions, like how much they earned a day and how much of that they spent on food. Dolseok told him how one person had slept in a cave and been bitten by a poisonous snake, how the hacendado wielded his whip and yelled like he was driving cattle whenever he came out to the henequen fields . . .

Bak Manseok told them the situation at the other haciendas, having heard the news from the Chinese in Mérida. One hacienda had a Korean interpreter, but in an attempt to curry favor with the hacendado, he cursed the workers and whipped them; they said he was even crueler than the Mexican foremen. Ijeong and Dolseok could guess who that was. “He wasn’t that bad on the ship,” they said, and clucked their tongues. They were dressed in thin summer clothes and barefoot. Bak Manseok sympathized with their plight and took from his pocket two 1-peso bills and gave one each to Ijeong and Dolseok. “I will see that this news reaches Korea immediately. Hold on just a little longer.”

Bak Manseok did actually report everything he saw in letters he wrote on November 17, 1905, to the
Mutual Assistance News
and to the
Korea Daily News.
The letters arrived in Korea in December and were printed in the newspapers. As luck would have it, the day that he wrote the letters was the day the Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty was signed.

T
HE THIEF
C
HOE
S
EONGIL
skillfully cut up a watermelon with his knife and handed pieces to Father Paul and the shaman. Weary of the heat, they gobbled down the watermelon’s red flesh without a word. Days when the hacienda store stocked watermelons made them feel as if they were sitting in some lookout shed back in their hometowns. The watermelon didn’t taste that different either. They took the green rinds that were left over, cut them into thin slices, and mixed them with chili pepper flakes to ferment. Some called this watermelon kimchi, and others called it watermelon greens. Either way, they did not throw away a single bit of the watermelon.

They had been sold to Buena Vista hacienda, about forty miles from Mérida. The shaman had originally been sold to another hacienda, but a month later he had been moved to this one. Their tales of woe from the henequen fields were no different from those of the other haciendas, though these three had never farmed before and so suffered from an even more severe fatigue. Three bachelors, they came to live together in one paja.

As soon as he arrived at Buena Vista, Choe Seongil understood the reality he faced. There was no way to make money on the hacienda. Everyone was broke. There wouldn’t be anything for him to steal. Earn much, my brothers, Choe Seongil silently pleaded. Fortunately, his brothers worked hard. While the Mayans could gather no more than four thousand henequen leaves a day, after only a few months his Korean brothers cut more than ten thousand leaves a day. Though the blood flowed freely from their hands, they continued to work. The men cut the leaves and the women removed the thorns. The children took string and tied the henequen into bundles. When the men got drunk they whimpered, wondering whether this was the cost of their nation’s sins, the sins of society, their own sins, or simply fate. Choe Seongil was not fond of such a sentimental attitude. What use was it to argue about whose sin it was? The important thing was that they were here in Mexico. Perhaps nostalgia made them forget: they had not lived well in Korea either. Life had always been rough. Droughts, floods, and famines were yearly events. And the landlords of Korea were no better than the landlords of Mexico. At least here, no one froze to death.

Choe Seongil worked slowly, so he did not earn much, but he made extra money for food by gambling, which was practically swindling for him. It was hard working under the blazing sun, but gradually he got the hang of it, and it was no longer so hard that his breath rasped in his dry throat, as it had at first. He was more bothered by the nightmares that had begun on the ship, though they were far too vivid to be called nightmares. On nights when they visited him, he could not sleep until early morning. They always played out the same. A black shape whose face he could not clearly see appeared and approached him. As on the ship, the shape said, “I have come to claim the price for my life.” At other times the shape said nothing. Choe Seongil tried to flee with all his might, but his body was rooted fast to the ground like a tree and he couldn’t move an inch. He tried to scream with a voice that made no sound, and when he awoke he often found himself lying in a strange place.

The shaman who lived with him only glanced at him, but said nothing. When Choe Seongil drew close and asked him about his nightmares, the shaman shook his head and said he didn’t know, but it was clear that he had seen something, too. Finally, the shaman could no longer stand the sight of him nodding off in the fields because he couldn’t sleep at night, and he said, “Your shoulders are heavy, aren’t they? An old man is sitting on your shoulders. He has a long beard and no hair. He looks mischievous. He’s a wicked fellow. It’s the ghost of a drowned man. He’s fretting now because he wants to go back to the water. It looks like he’s been with you since Jemulpo. How long has this been going on?”

Choe Seongil did not believe him at first. But after listening to him, he thought that his shoulders did truly feel heavy. Why did some blasted old ghost have to go sitting on someone else’s shoulders? “Shouldn’t we have a ritual or something?” He glanced at the shaman. The shaman was drawing something strange on the dirt floor. “What’s that?” Choe Seongil asked, and the shaman laughed and said it was nothing. “Just something I was drawing out of boredom.” Choe Seongil spit on the floor. “Don’t go drawing strange things, that’s bad luck. My dreams are troubled enough as it is.” The shaman used his foot to erase the shape he had been drawing. After he had erased it, Choe became even more curious as to what it had been. “Ah, damn it.” Choe Seongil went outside where Father Paul was sitting on a stump and looking up at the stars. “What are you doing?” Choe Seongil asked, and Father Paul scratched his head. “Looking at the stars.” Choe Seongil sucked on a cigarette. “If you look up at the stars, will they give you rice, or rice cakes? If you’ve got nothing to do, go to sleep. Don’t get bitten by mosquitoes for no reason.”

Father Paul laughed good-naturedly and stood up. “Now that you mention it, I was just thinking of doing that.” Paul didn’t usually go inside when the shaman was in the paja, particularly when he was performing some ceremony. When Paul did go inside, Choe Seongil raised his arms and stretched. From far off he heard the murmuring of people at the hacendado’s house. From what he had heard, there was to be some great event at the hacienda on Sunday. Noble guests were coming from somewhere, and it sounded like some special Mexican festival. There might even be something for him to steal. But armed guards stood watch, and one mistake could mean a trip to the afterworld. And anyway, if he stole something valuable, where would he sell it? He couldn’t speak Spanish and didn’t know his way around. Choe Seongil gave up right there and went back into the paja. The shaman was bowing before an altar he had made of straw and crude pieces of wood. Though he had tired of being a shaman, he was never lax in serving his god. The candlelight flickered and cast shadows on the ceiling. Maybe those shadows resembled the god he served. Now Choe Seongil wondered if it was the shaman who was tormenting his dreams, and he stared piercingly at the back of the shaman’s head.