Dear Leader (16 page)

By the year 2000, there were some two million ethnic Koreans living in China. Perhaps because all that separated them from their
fellow Koreans to the south was a political border, the house of the ethnic Korean that I was led to did not look much different from a country hut in my homeland. It didn’t have a corrugated iron or cement roof like many of the other buildings surrounding it. These huts were called ‘earth huts’ in North Korea, because their shape suggested that they had been raised from the earth.

The hut was shabby. One corner of the mud wall was crumbling, and it had clearly not been looked after. Perhaps the only way it differed from a country hut in North Korea was that it was a larger building. I approached the gate and, when I tried to peer inside, a white dog put its head out and began to bark. I jumped and felt cold sweat trickle down my back. I worried that Young-min might think I was in trouble.

‘Who’s there?’ a middle-aged man shouted in Korean from a stable to the left of the inner courtyard. His beetle-browed face was that of a farmer, large, round and black like the lid of an iron cauldron. He wore a black imitation leather jacket, but his trousers looked funny. Perhaps he had borrowed those yellow trousers dotted with tiny pink flowers from his wife? He wasn’t wearing shoes. I knew it would be a waste of time to try to fool a local, so I reached for my cash. I took out seven US$100 bills from my pocket and showed them to him.

‘We’ve just crossed over that river. Could you take us to the city? Here’s what I can offer.’

The man hastened towards me as if he were falling forward and pulled me into the yard with the strength of an ox. I asked whether we were far from the city, but he ignored me. There was a strong smell of manure. When we went into the house, the heat made my face flush. There was
ondol
heating just like in North Korea, where a fire in the kitchen circulated the heat under the floor. When I took my shoes off and followed him in, the floor was deliciously hot beneath my feet. For wallpaper, there were sheets of Chinese newspaper glued in a type of papier mâché, and I even spotted a portrait of Mao
Zedong amid this collage. If someone had done such a thing in North Korea, inadvertently recycling the portrait of Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il, he would have been sent to a gulag. When I had time to reflect on what I had seen, I wondered whether the reason that China had been able to reform and become more open while North Korea had not lay in the fact that, although the Chinese Communist Party had its own version of the Supreme Leader and even shared a history of leadership cultification similar in some ways to ours, in China the cultification of one man had ceased to be the overriding priority and
modus operandi
of the state.

But these thoughts came later. My immediate focus was on the man, who was searching for something in his wardrobe, which appeared to have metal ox-shoes for handles. There was a low table with an unfinished meal on it, and on the floor there was a pitchfork, caked with dirt. I realised why he had come out into the yard without his shoes.

‘Here, I’ve found it,’ he said. He took out a faux black leather jacket similar to his own along with some dark brown trousers, and thrust them at me.

‘Put those on, quickly,’ he said in a North Hamgyong accent, distinctive for its characteristic stress on final syllables. Hamgyong Province was in the northernmost part of North Korea, and perhaps the close geography and history of the area led to the shared accent.

‘My clothes are made in Japan,’ I replied. ‘I was going to pass myself off as a tourist …’ I had dressed especially in Japanese-made clothes because I didn’t want to stand out in China with clothes that might give away my identity as a North Korean. My expensive coat was filled with down, and was good for keeping warm in the cold.

He shook his head. ‘No, you have to dress like a local. If you stand out, they’ll notice at the checkpoints. Don’t complain, lad. Do as I say. Ah yes, and that money, is that $700 for me?’

I passed seven $100 bills to him without a word, in the hope that he would trust me. He hastily counted the notes. His fingernails too were caked with mud.

I said, ‘I have a friend with me.’

Before recounting his money, the farmer looked up with eyes as wide as those of an ox that had just slipped on ice. ‘What? How many?’

‘One,’ I replied.

‘Well, what are you standing there for?’ he asked. ‘Bring him here.’

By the time I returned with Young-min, the farmer had changed into travelling clothes. The bus would arrive at the village in ten minutes, he explained. Impatiently, he helped us change into our new attire. Young-min looked at him in irritation. The black imitation leather jacket that I had put on wasn’t too bad, but Young-min had to wear an orange-coloured one with prominent Chinese lettering on the back. I stuffed my old clothes into the rucksack, and tucked the manuscript of my poetry into my coat pocket.

We left the house and walked along the unpaved road for five minutes. The farmer, now wearing dark trousers instead of the yellow ones with pink flowers on them, looked much smarter than he did before. He introduced himself as Chang-yong. He looked more nervous than we were, and kept glancing around with suspicion in his eyes. He spoke quietly. ‘Don’t say a word when you get on the bus. There is a checkpoint on the way to Yanji. Sometimes they check, sometimes they don’t. If someone tries to make conversation, just pretend you’re deaf. If border guards come onto the bus, I’ll speak on your behalf. Remember, lads: don’t say a word! You’ll be fine. There are ethnic Koreans here who don’t speak Chinese. And if you have any more cash with you, give it to me. If you get caught, I can bribe the officers. How much more do you have?’

I pretended not to have heard his last question. I was not ready to entrust my life to a total stranger.

As we waited for the bus I wondered at the fact that there was a village so close to the border, and flinched nervously at the noise of a passing truck. On the North Korean side, apart from one or two military trucks on the road, the most common sight was a horse- or ox-drawn cart.

Just as farmer Chang-yong had promised, the bus soon arrived. Young-min and I looked at each other in amazement. It was nothing like the smirks we gave each other when the exceedingly late arrival of our delayed train in Musan was greeted with delighted cries from the passengers. In the capital of North Korea, buses never ran on time, but they seemed to do just that here, even in a rural Chinese border village. We found empty seats behind Chang-yong and sat down. When the bus door screeched shut, it was like being shut in a cell and I wished we had not boarded the vehicle. But seeing the Chinese around us in noisy conversation, carrying on with their daily routine, I relaxed a little and it seemed as though we had been welcomed into their world. Even though these were Chinese country folk, they seemed carefree in their prosperity. The men looked well fed and the women were as plump as the wives of Party cadres in North Korea. Some of them even wore gold jewellery. No one living in the North Korean countryside could make a display of personal wealth in that way because they would immediately become a target for thieves. Even in the bright colours of the clothes worn by these countryside Chinese, I felt I could glimpse an economic confidence.

When we looked out of the window, it was eerie to see the Tumen River and the North Korean lands beyond it. If we had hesitated instead of sprinting across the ice, we might still be standing there in desperation. The Chinese perhaps regarded the North Korean people with pity, as they gazed across at our hills bare of trees. Even we two, who had just crossed over from that country, cringed at the nakedness of the distant landscape. Although I did not understand a word of Chinese, it seemed to my ears that our fellow passengers
would be swearing at the North Korean regime for stripping its country bare.

About half an hour after the bus had set off, Chang-yong turned towards us and blinked. I had been drifting off in a daydream and, as the bus jerked to a halt, was startled to see what lay ahead of us. There was a camouflage-patterned obstacle on the road, with armed soldiers standing guard. They were wearing grass-coloured military coats that came down to their knees, in sharp contrast to the dark-yellow uniform worn by North Korean soldiers. One of them raised a white-gloved hand to stop the bus.

I was certain that they had been sent to arrest us. I felt very conscious of my manuscript of poetry, as I had been at Guard Post No. 6. My legs shook uncontrollably even though I was sitting down. Chang-yong’s still silhouette seemed to indicate his indifference, and I chided myself for so easily trusting a stranger. I looked around to see how we might escape from the bus if the soldiers came towards us. The only thing I could think of doing for now was to lean on Young-min’s shoulder, pretending to be asleep. When I opened my eyes a little to check on Young-min, I saw that his eyelids were trembling, although they too were closed. In an attempt to reassure him, I made faint snoring noises, being careful not to attract unwanted attention.

I heard the doors of the bus swing open. In the heavy sound of the stomping military boots, I could feel the weight of the soldiers’ rifles. One of them spoke, and the ring of his announcement in Chinese overwhelmed the chatter in the bus. I flinched, fearing he might be talking about us.

I heard the approach of boots and the murmuring of passengers. What would I see if I opened my eyes now? Was the soldier watching us? I sat there feeling the goose pimples rise along my arms and kept my eyes shut. The boots stomped away from us and I heard the door of the bus close again. I could not quite believe what was happening,
but the wheels of the bus began to turn. When I finally dared to open my eyes, I saw that the bus was really moving again.

Turning to look behind us, I could see the backs of three soldiers as they signalled to the driver of an approaching truck. I shook Young-min, whose eyes remained closed. He began to laugh, still with his eyes shut and in time with the swaying of the bus.

Chang-yong quickly got out of his seat and turned to us with a broad grin. He whispered quickly, ‘Well done, lads! Keep it up. The soldiers don’t bother checking every vehicle thoroughly. Sometimes they come onto the bus and just look round once. They’re here to look for North Korean refugees. They’re easy to spot because they’re underfed, have flaky skin, and look dirty after living rough. But your skin is like ours, so you don’t stand out.’

I looked at Chang-yong’s skin. It was dark, and clearly marked him out as a farmer who spent his days labouring under the sun.

He continued, ‘Pyongyang people like you are obviously different. There’s one more checkpoint. Just do the same thing again.’

We had listened happily to his explanation until he mentioned another checkpoint ahead. Once was lucky, but how could we risk our lives again on the basis of clean skin? I tried to get out of my seat, but Chang-yong gripped my knees and stopped me.

He said, ‘If you walk, they’ll suspect you even more. Many North Koreans don’t have money for a bus so they go by mountain roads, and get caught by the border guards there. There’s lots of traffic on the road today, I’m sure they won’t inspect thoroughly. I’m telling you, take it easy.’

The local farmer’s instinct turned out to be spot on. At the second checkpoint, our bus was let through without even being stopped. Nevertheless, I was soaked in sweat. I was no less on edge than when we had crossed the river.

As our bus entered wider avenues, Chang-yong came to sit across from us and told us that we were now safe. My panic finally began to
subside. Just as he had described, the mountains that rose up around us disappeared to make way for open fields. There were private residences here and there. There were pedestrians, more people on motorcycles, and, finally, we saw red cars with TAXI written on them.

Young-min pointed to a huge sign that towered above the road like a gateway into a new world. It read ‘Yanbian looks to the world, the world to Yanbian!’ in large, red Korean script. It was surprising enough to find our writing in a foreign land, but I was astonished by the fact that even a provincial border town in China wanted to open itself to the world. In North Korea, we had slogans such as ‘Let’s install mosquito nets to keep out the winds of Capitalism!’ or ‘Let’s install barred windows!’ The openness of China moved me deeply. I had certainly made the right choice, to escape from a system that had kept us so deliberately isolated. Away from the border patrols, we would now hide ourselves among 1.3 billion Chinese. I could not shout out my exhilaration aloud, but my heart rang with it.

‘
HEY! PLEASE STOP
for us here!’ Chang-yong called out to the driver and the bus sputtered to a halt. When I stepped out I realised that although the road was wider, we were still very much in the countryside and it seemed that we had just been dumped in the middle of nowhere.

‘Now, if you walk along this road, it’ll take you just half an hour to get to Yanji’s city centre. There’re no more checkpoints. I guess I’m done here. Take care, lads, and good luck.’ Chang-yong reached out to shake my hand.

I couldn’t return his handshake. It was soon going to turn dark, and we didn’t speak a word of Chinese. Where would we go from here? I shivered with the cold. I replied, ‘I’m really sorry, but could you stay with us for a little bit longer? Would you please tell us what we should do next, and give us some idea of how to keep away from the authorities?’

Chang-yong seemed surprised. ‘What? You don’t know anyone in Yanji? But you told me you had to get here! You mean you crossed the river without a plan?’

Young-min stepped forward and said, ‘We do have relatives here, but we don’t know how to contact them.’

Chang-yong was at a loss, but he decided to take pity on us. Opening his mobile phone, he began to dial. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ll be coming home tonight. Yes, of course I’ve got my fee. We’re near your mother’s place and I was going to stop by anyway. Would you call her to say that two more are coming? It’ll just be for the one night.’