Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story (27 page)

F
ORTY-EIGHT

T
he next morning
I get up before my alarm goes off and take a cab to Mrs. Hong’s building. Before I can press 627 on the intercom, the security door buzzes open. I take the elevator to the sixth floor and go to Mrs. Hong’s apartment. Her door is open when I get there, and I go in.

She’s standing in the middle of the room facing me. She’s wearing her yellow
hanbok
, with long, loose sleeves. She has braided her hair and pinned it back with a beautiful ebony
binyeo
. She is stunning.

I greet her with a bow. “Are you ready?” I ask.

“I am,” she replies.

I pick up her travel bag and she takes my arm. We walk out to the cab. I help her in and climb in the other side. I give the driver the bus station address. We pull onto the street and make our way across the Han River and into the Shinchon area of Seoul. The streets are steep and all around are green hills, some topped with granite cliffs. The flat spaces between the hills are crammed with apartment buildings. Shinchon is alive with energy. We make our way through narrow streets and arrive at a bus terminal. I pay the cab driver and then help Mrs. Hong. She holds my arm as we walk through the bus station filled with college students carrying suitcases and backpacks. The students stare at Mrs. Hong in her
hanbok
. She keeps her eyes forward.

We find the bus to Munsan. Before I can help Mrs. Hong aboard, a short man in a black suit comes up to us. “I am Mr. Ryu,” he says from underneath twitchy eyebrows. “Who are you?”

I tell him and he checks us off a list. “Do you have the fee?” he asks.

I give him the envelope with ten thousand dollars inside. He does a quick count and lets us on the bus. We take seats near the front. The bus is less than half-full of people waiting silently.

“Are you comfortable?” I ask Mrs. Hong.

Her head shakes a little and I think she’s saying ‘no’. Instead, she says, “I am a little nervous.”

Yeah, I’m nervous too, although for a different reason. I’m not sure if Soo-hee will be in Panmunjom when we get there. It seems like this entire arrangement was a little too easy, a little too dependent on money. I’m worried that I’ve been scammed.

After a few minutes, an overweight bus driver in a white shirt and black cap climbs aboard and starts the bus. We pull away and Mr. Ryu takes a seat in the front row. The bus grinds through its gears and we head north. Soon, we’re out of the city. Rice paddies in amazing geometric patterns cover the hills. The morning sun makes diamonds in the paddy water. Farmers in straw hats bend over rice stalks. A crane stands like a statue at the edge of an irrigation pond.

Mrs. Hong sits straight with her hands in her lap. She looks out the window. Her reflection doesn’t show her wrinkles and scars and she looks like a much younger woman. Her head shakes again, as if she approves of what she sees outside.

The countryside changes from fields to forest. We pass through the city of Munsan and cross the Imjin River. I remember reading in my history class about the battle that took place here in 1592. The Japanese army defeated the Korean cavalry, forcing King Seonjo to seek an alliance with the Chinese. The battle of Imjin created a divided Korea. And now, over 400 years later, it’s still divided. How ironic.

A few miles later, we come to a gate and a high fence surrounded by razor wire. The sign over the gate reads ‘Camp Bonifas – In Front of Them All.’ Behind the fence are green military buildings and a huge tank with its gun facing the gate. An enormous American flag flies atop a tall flagpole. An American soldier holding some kind of assault rifle raises his hand. The bus stops and the soldier stands in front of it with his rifle at his chest. Another soldier walks around the bus with some devise that lets him see underneath.

An American sergeant sporting a crew cut, and a Republic of Korea soldier in a white helmet come through the gate and get on our bus. The American sergeant comes down the aisle asking to see everyone’s papers. My heart beats faster when he looks at my passport and says, “You’re an American?”

“Yes, sir,” I answer. “I’m here with my Korean grandmother. She’s meeting her sister.” I notice the large, black pistol on his hip.

He points at Mrs. Hong. “Why’s she dressed like that?”

I’m flustered and only manage a shrug. The sergeant glares at me over the top of my passport. “I don’t like it,” he says. “This is the most dangerous place on earth. We don’t allow just anyone through here. And I don’t like the way she’s dressed. Both of you need to go back.”

Then, someone inside me takes over and I’m not flustered anymore. I stand to face the sergeant. “Sir,” I say, “I’m here to help my grandmother. I won’t cause any trouble. She’s dressed like this because it’s what Korean women wear on special occasions. Surely you and the American government don’t want to stop a meeting between two sisters who haven’t seen each other in over sixty years. Do you, sergeant?”

I return the sergeant’s stare. After a few seconds, he closes my passport and gives it back to me. “Be sure you follow the rules,” he orders. He goes back to the front of the bus and I take my seat next to Mrs. Hong. She nods at me.

The ROK soldier steps forward and talks to the passengers in Korean. He tells us the bus will take us to Panmunjom where there will be North Korean soldiers. He tells us to stay together and not make any gestures or even make eye contact with them. He says an ROK soldier will take us inside a building where our meetings will take place.

The ROK soldier and the American sergeant get off the bus. The soldier with the rifle in front of the bus steps aside and we drive on toward Panmunjom. The road goes past open fields and through another high fence with razor wire on top. We pass through a security gate and come to a row of pale blue, one-story barracks. Between each barracks is a ROK soldier at the taekwondo ready position. At the other end of the barracks, North Korean soldiers stand holding rifles to their chests. Mr. Ryu tells us to get off the bus and go inside the building in front of us. “Do not say anything until you are inside,” he says, firmly.

We let the other passengers go ahead of us and then follow them outside. The sun makes me squint. As a ROK soldier hurries me to the door, I catch a glimpse of a North Korean soldier at the other end of the barracks. He looks at me with hate-filled eyes.

We enter a long, plain room with metal tables and chairs. There are windows all around and a door at the opposite end. I help Mrs. Hong into a chair and sit next to her. As we wait, the North Korean soldier I saw outside peers through a window at us. I turn away before our eyes meet again.

One-by-one, people come in through the door at the far end and North Korean and South Korean loved ones meet again. They bow, hug, cry a little, and settle in to tell each other about their lives.

Mrs. Hong and I wait five minutes, then ten. I’m a basket case. There must have been a mistake—or maybe they've  scammed me. I look at Mrs. Hong. She has her hands in her lap, watching the door at the far end of the room. Her head no longer shakes.

We wait another five minutes. I’m about to ask Mr. Ryu where Soo-hee is when the door at the end of the room opens. Sunlight pours through and an old woman steps in. Her back is bent and she leans heavily on a cane. She’s wearing cheap gray slacks and a blue sweater over a white blouse. Deep wrinkles line her face and her left eye is white with cataract. She searches the room with her good eye.

Mrs. Hong slowly stands and steps to the middle of the room. In her
hanbok
, she moves with dignity and grace. Soo-hee sees her and comes to her. They stand apart, looking at each other for several seconds. Then, Soo-hee raises her hand and her sister reaches out and tenderly takes it. They clasp each other’s fingers making a single fist, and do the same with their other hands. As everyone in the room goes quiet, the sisters step close to each other, holding each other’s gaze. Without a word, they turn around each other in a slow dance and nod their approval.

*

I see Ja-hee and Soo-hee sitting in front of their home in the hills outside of Sinuiju playing
yut
. From the kitchen window, their mother looks on with a smile. Their father leans against the front door, arms crossed, watching his girls with obvious pride.

Ja-hee tosses the
yut
sticks in the air and all four land with the flat side down. She has tossed a mo, the highest possible score, and has won the game. She giggles with delight. Soo-hee pretends to be upset that she has lost. Ja-hee sidles up to her
onni
and Soo-hee puts an arm around her. “You are lucky at
yut
, little sister,” Soo-hee says. “You are lucky in everything. I think, someday, you will be an empress.”

And they sit together, side-by-side, under the persimmon tree, and watch the setting sun turn blood red.

####

AUTHOR’S END NOTE

Saving the Soul of a Nation

If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.”

   -- George Santayana

E
very Wednesday at noon
, a group of elderly women march on the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea. They march in the pouring rain, bitter cold and stifling humidity that only Seoul can dish out. They have not missed a single Wednesday in over twenty-one years. They are the last of an army of comfort women—women the Japanese military raped and tortured as sex slaves during World War II. They are all more than 80 years old now and many are in their 90s. The Koreans call them “grandmothers,” a term of honor and respect.

Their ranks are dwindling fast.

The estimated number of women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese varies depending on who is doing the counting. Some Japanese nationalists say there were fewer than 20,000 and that they were former prostitutes or willing volunteers. But the evidence supports a much higher number. Today most historians agree there were more than 200,000. 200,000 women serving an army of over seven million. That’s one woman for every thirty-five soldiers. They were Filipino, Chinese, even Dutch, but the vast majority were Korean. Some were as young as 13.

As the women march, you can still see the pain and humiliation in their faces seventy years later. The Japanese raped these women, these grandmothers, up to 40 times per day. They were repeatedly beaten and tortured. They suffered horribly from venereal disease and the Japanese forced them to have crude abortions when they got pregnant. Many were executed. And many committed suicide. The Japanese government has never formally apologized to them. And as the grandmothers march, the blinds on the Japanese embassy remain closed.

The Empire of Japan formally surrendered on September 2, 1945. Since then, it has issued a number of mostly informal apologies for its actions during the war. Many apologies were insincere at best. For example, on September 6, 1984, thirty-nine years after the war ended, a famously disingenuous ‘apology’ delivered to Korean President Chun Doo Hwan by Emperor Hirohito was stated as follows:

“It is indeed regrettable that there was an unfortunate past between us for a period in this century, and I believe that it should not be repeated again.”

In the early 1990’s, after a few comfort women finally found the courage to come forward, the Japanese issued a series of informal apologies. But just like the Hirohito apology, many were disingenuous. They often used the word
owabi
for “apology”—a word in Japanese only slightly weightier than “excuse me.” But the outrage grew around the globe and finally bowing to the pressure, the Japanese government set up the Asian Women’s Fund in 1995. The fund was a quasi-public organization to collect donations from Japanese citizens (there were no government contributions) to distribute compensation to comfort women. Run by volunteers (not the government) the fund collected less than $5 million and distributed it to only 285 of the 200,000 comfort women. The Japanese government closed it in March of 2007.

In 2006 in a special election, the Japanese Diet elected Shinzo Abe as Japan’s prime minister. Abe, the first prime minister born after World War II and a right-wing nationalist, is a historical revisionist. On the homepage of his website before he was prime minister, he questioned the extent to which the Japanese used coercion toward comfort women. Then, in March of 2007, Abe publicly stated that there was no evidence that the Japanese government had kept sex slaves. Abe also led the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform that published the New History Textbook that whitewashes the criminal actions of Japan during World War II. Schools throughout Japan use the textbook today.

Abe served as prime minister for two years, and was forced to resign after several scandals in his administration. But in the 2012 general election, he was reelected prime minister. And it appears that Japan is finally digging out from a two-decade-long economic slump. Under Abe, Japan might again become the leading economic and political global force it once was. But, given that Abe is a historical revisionist, it seems they will not take with them lessons from the past.

So outside the Japanese embassy the grandmothers march. They have simple demands.

1.  Admit the drafting of the Japanese military's "comfort women

2.  Apologize officially

3.  Reveal truths about the war crimes

4.  Erect memorial tablets for the victims

5.  Pay restitution to the victims or their families directly from the government

6.  Teach the truth in public schools, so the events are never again repeated

7.  Punish the war criminals

These seem reasonable. However, it’s unlikely Japan will ever meet them, especially with Shinzo Abe sitting in the Prime Minister’s office. It’s a shame—a tragedy really. Meeting these simple demands before all the grandmothers die could help restore a modicum of the dignity stolen from them seventy years ago.

But just as importantly, it would restore Japan’s own honor and save its very soul.

William Andrews

For more information or to donate, go to: http://www.comfort-women.org