When My Name Was Keoko Read online

  That evening I was distracted during my kanji session with Abuji. He was showing me "north"—two men sitting back-to-back at the top of the world—as I stared not at the paper but at the shining new badge on my collar.

  The badge was the reason those boys had thrown stones and called me names. I was good at Japanese. They thought that made me chin-il-pa. I wasn't a traitor, was I? Could you be a traitor without knowing it? Even to be called one was shameful.

  Maybe I could take the pin off. But they'd all notice—my teachers, the principal, Abuji, everyone. Then I'd be in trouble at school as well.

  I tried to make myself laugh inside by recalling Uncle's favorite joke about the chin-il-pa: "They eat Korean rice, but their poop is Japanese." But not even this cheered me.

  Suddenly, Abuji put down the pencil and looked at me thoughtfully.

  "You know, Sun-hee, kanji was not originally Japanese."

  Not Japanese? What did he mean? I looked up at him, puzzled.

  "Both Korea and Japan long ago borrowed the system of character writing from China. The Japanese use it in their own way, of course, especially when they combine it with their alphabetic writing. But the characters are the same. This"—he picked up the pencil again and pointed to the page—"is the character for north' in Japanese and in Chinese. And in Korean as well."

  Abuji stacked the books neatly, rolled up the paper, and put away the ink pot. I stood and bowed to him, preparing to leave the room.

  He spoke again. "Your grandfather was a great scholar. He knew much of the important classical Chinese literature. In his time and for hundreds of years before his time we Koreans always considered Chinese the highest form of learning." He paused and looked at me calmly. "To excel at character writing is to honor the traditions of our ancestors."

  I hadn't realized that my worries were showing on my face, but Abuji had noticed. What he'd said was meant to comfort me and to make me feel proud inside myself again.

  I nodded, hoping he understood my silent thanks. If those boys called me chin-il-pa again, I could reach inside and hold on to the knowledge he'd given me.

  6. Tae-yul (1941)

  Abuji and Sun-hee spend hours studying kanji together. I sit with them sometimes, but I can't figure out why they think it's so interesting. Kanji is a complete bore.

  I do my best in school, but really I hate it. Not that I'm a bad student. I always know my lessons. Son of the elementary-school vice-principal—it would be shameful if I did poorly. But I've never been Class Leader either.

  Abuji doesn't scold me about my grades. When I was younger, I used to wonder about it, why he didn't get angry with me. Surely he felt angry. He was such a good scholar, just like his father. Both of them had been Class Leaders their whole lives. Whenever I show Abuji my marks, he always looks disappointed. But he never yells at me.

  Science and mathematics lessons aren't too bad. But we study those subjects for only a little while each day. Most of the time we study Japanese. Japanese and more Japanese. And kanji is the worst of all.

  Each word is a separate character, and some characters look alike. A single brushstroke makes the difference between "sky" and "big." Two characters close together often make a whole new word. Who thought up this stuff? They must have tried on purpose to make it confusing. I spend hours studying kanji, until the strokes and lines look like one big blur on the page.

  Sun-hee actually likes kanji. When she first started school, she asked for my help. But pretty soon she got really good at it. Now she knows as many characters as I do. More, probably.

  We study together every day after school. One day I throw my pencil down on the table. "I can't stand it anymore," I say, gritting my teeth. I feel like shouting, but Omoni's in the kitchen; I don't want her to hear.

  "What's the matter, Opah?" Sun-hee asks.

  "Kanjikanjikanji all day long—that's what's the matter. I'm sick and tired of staring at these stupid characters."

  She frowns. "They're not stupid."

  I roll my eyes at her. "You wouldn't understand."

  "You're right," she says. "I don't understand. I like studying kanji."

  "What's there to like about it," I grumble.

  I don't mean it to be a real question, but she answers anyway. "It's a story. Every character is like a story."

  "A story? What are you talking about? A character can't be a story, not by itself. You have to have a whole bunch of them to make a story."

  "The characters don't make the story, Opah," she says. "7 do. Look—"

  She writes down some characters. But first she sort of takes them apart, so you can see how they were formed. I've watched Abuji do this when the three of us study together, but I haven't paid attention like she has.

  Then she points to the characters one by one.

  "Mouth," she says.

  "Gate.

  "When you put them together, you get 'ask' or 'question,' right? It's a guard at the palace gate, and he's questioning Sim Chung's poor blind father—you know, the part where he almost gets turned away, but she recognizes him just in time."

  Uncle has told us that fairy tale lots of times, but it's not like the gate is a big important thing in the story. I don't know how she comes up with these ideas.

  "The story helps me remember," she continues. "Look, here's another.

  "Man.

  "Backpack.

  "Man with backpack—"

  "—and then you sort of square off all the lines to get 'heavy.' This man's been on a long trip, and his backpack is full of silk and jewels, lovely things for his family—"

  I flap my hand at her impatiently. "You think like that for every character?" I say. "That's crazy, you'll never remember them all."

  "No, Opah, it makes it easier to remember them. Shall I show you some more?"

  "No thank you!" I almost shout. She looks hurt for a moment, then presses her lips tight shut.

  I sigh and go back to my own work, wishing for the thousandth time that kanji had never been invented.

  I study what I have to, to pass my classes. Then I slip out to our workplace—Uncle's and mine—under the eaves at the back of the house. A workbench and shelves for our tools.

  Ever since I was little, I've liked mechanical stuff—things that move. Uncle once made me a top. You spun it, then kept it going by whipping it with a string on a stick. My friends and I had contests to see who could keep their top going the longest. I was good at it—I won nearly every time. The trick was in the timing. Whipping it at just the right moment to get it going really fast.

  That's what I like best: speed.

  The Japanese military have cars. And motor scooters. Sometimes I stand by our front gate, waiting. Sooner or later a car or scooter drives past. First the sound, from far away. Then—whoosh. My hair and clothes swishing as it goes past. So fast!

  Someday I'll have a scooter of my own. And then a car.

  For now, I have a bicycle. Or what will be my bicycle someday. Right now it's just part of an old bicycle that one of Uncle's friends threw away. It's in really bad shape, with only the frame and chain worth saving. But everything else we can put together ourselves. Eventually—I mean, it'll take time to get everything we need. And I can't work on it as much as I want.

  Sometimes when I go out to the work area, by myself or with Uncle, Abuji comes out, too. He watches for a little while, not saying anything. Maybe he wants to help. But he isn't good with his hands. Not like Uncle.

  And Abuji being there always makes me feel guilty. Like I should be studying. Uncle feels it, too. He always says we've done enough for today, and I have to go back inside.

  Still, I'm getting a lot done. I cleaned all the rust off the frame and repainted it. Then I made handlebars from lengths of pipe, pedals from sheet metal, a seat from a piece of wood. It took me a long time to whittle the wood into the right shape.

  Now I have to figure out how to pad the seat. Then the bike will be finished except for the tires. Uncle told me not to wor
ry about the tires. He'd take care of them somehow. But that was over a month ago. He's been working late at his printing shop, so we've hardly had any chance to work on the bike together. I check the rubbish heaps in town every day, hoping someone might throw out an old tire. But I never see one.

  Omoni helps with the seat—a cloth cover and straw padding. The cover is sort of a drawstring bag. The string loosens so the bag will fit over the seat and the straw, then pulls tight and ties underneath. I sit on the seat and jiggle around. The straw slides out of place a little but stays inside the cover.

  One day just before dinner, I'm trying to study. Uncle shouts from outside, "Nephew! Get out here, you lazy dog—am I supposed to do all the work myself?"

  I jump to my feet and rush out the door. Then I stop, halfway down the path.

  Uncle is coming through the gate. He's rolling one bicycle tire ahead of him. With a second around his neck like a giant rubber necklace.

  Uncle isn't tall like Abuji. He's short and sturdy. He looks so funny—that tire around his neck hanging way down past his waist.

  I laugh at first. Then I let out a shout and run to meet him.

  7. Sun-hee

  It wasn't fair. Why couldn't girls ride bicycles? It wasn't like the old days when girls had to wear long skirts. Omoni still wore long skirts, and so did a lot of older women. But young women and girls like me wore trousers. Omoni had told me it was the Japanese who had brought in this style. A lot of people hadn't liked it, but I couldn't understand why. Trousers were much easier to wear, and better for playing in.

  I could have ridden a bicycle. It didn't look that hard. Tae-yul fell off a few times when he was first learning, but it wasn't long before he was able to wobble around the outer courtyard, and then up and down the lane. By the third day he was so good at it that he took off to ride around town, and I couldn't even watch him anymore.

  When I turned to walk back up the path to the house, I stumbled on a little stone and twisted my ankle. I crouched down and rubbed the sore spot, then stood up and kicked the stone with my other foot as hard as I could.

  The stone went skipping down the path; I watched it until it slowed down and finally rolled to a stop. Not like Tae-yul on the bicycle. He wasn't very good at stopping; he always slammed on the brakes and fell off.

  I went in to help Omoni with dinner. Abuji was listening to the radio. He and Uncle listened a lot these days. There was a war in Europe, and a lot of news about a German leader named Hitler. It didn't really interest me—a strangesounding name from a place I knew little about.

  When I heard it was just war news on the radio again, I went into the kitchen. It was my job to prepare the rice every evening. I looked in the rice barrel. Empty. I was finding it empty more and more often these days.

  It was because of the war, but not the one in Europe—the one in Manchuria. Japan was at war there, fighting against the Chinese. This was why they'd taken over Korea in the first place; it was only one step from the northern border of Korea into Manchuria.

  The Japanese army always needed supplies. For years they'd taken part of every rice crop to send to the troops in Manchuria or to ship to Japan. Sometimes there was no rice in the marketplace; other times it was very expensive. To make it last longer, Omoni had started mixing it with barley.

  Barley was cheaper than rice. We thought of it as food for poor people. It was chewier and coarser and had a strong flavor. Neither Tae-yul nor I liked barley; we used to pick out the brownish grains and eat only the rice.

  But soon there was more barley than rice in our bowls. We couldn't pick it out anymore—there would've been hardly anything left to eat. I guess you could say we got used to it, but there were still times when I missed having a whole bowl of pure white rice.

  It seemed we'd be having only barley tonight. I picked up the barley bag and was startled by how light it was. There wasn't enough for a meal. "Omoni—" I started to ask.

  "Here," she said, handing me another bag. I opened it and looked inside.

  It was millet. Little round yellow grains that farmers used as chicken feed. Startled, I looked up at Omoni again, and she nodded reassuringly. "It's quite nutritious," she said. "Who knows, perhaps it will even make a nice change."

  I said nothing. I could hardly believe we were cooking animal food for our dinner.

  As usual I served Abuji, Uncle, and Tae-yul their food first. Tae-yul took one look at the yellow grains in his bowl and said, "Omoni, what's this?"

  It was very rude of him to comment on the food at all, and even ruder to ask such a question of Omoni. Abuji looked at him sternly. It was Uncle who answered.

  "That's millet, nephew. Come, now—chickens and pigs love it, so I'm sure it will be good for you too!"

  Uncle smiled at Tae-yul and took a big bite. "Your mother is such a good cook, she can make even millet taste delicious. Now, then, eat when you are eating, talk when you are finished." That was one of our traditional sayings; it was good manners to pay full attention to your meal.

  Uncle's words had been said in his usual cheerful joking manner, but there was a hint of a warning behind them. I heard it, and I knew Tae-yul did, too, for he ate his dinner without another word.

  Millet had a grassy taste and felt awful in my mouth—half mushy, half crunchy. I never got used to it, even though we had it nearly every day from then on. The bowls of yellow grain made me long for rice even more.

  But Omoni always made our meals taste better by cooking lots of vegetables—squash, sweet potatoes, cucumbers. She was a skilled gardener, and the vegetable patch flourished no matter what the weather.

  I liked helping her prepare the bed—chopping and crumbling the dirt until it was like silk between my fingers, then planting the seeds or seedlings in nice straight rows and giving each of them a drink. And later in the year I loved it when she'd tell me to run out to the garden and gather vegetables for our dinner. But I hated weeding and often found an excuse to be doing something else when Omoni went out to weed.

  Along the back of the vegetable patch was a row of small trees. Really, they were more like large shrubs. In the summer they blossomed—big pink- or white-petaled flowers with magenta throats. They were rose of Sharon trees, the national tree of Korea. Omoni had planted them years before, when she and Abuji had first moved to this house.

  One evening in the fall Uncle brought home more news. The government had issued another official order. All families who had cherry trees were to dig up shoots and saplings from around their trees and bring them to police headquarters. The little cherry trees were to be planted all over town, and everyone was supposed to take good care of them.

  The government order spoke of wishing to make our land more beautiful, with thousands of cherry trees. But it wasn't just a wish for beauty. The cherry tree was a national symbol of Japan.

  And the final part of the order was that all rose of Sharon trees had to be uprooted and burned. The military police would be inspecting gardens to see that the order had been followed.

  Omoni stayed inside the house; she couldn't bear to watch as Tae-yul chopped down the rose of Sharon trees one by one and dug out their roots. It was a difficult job; the trees were old and their roots reached deep into the ground. I helped him by dragging the fallen trees to a corner of the yard, where they'd be burned later.

  Tae-yul had reached the last tree—a small one that Omoni had planted only a few years before. As he began to dig, Omoni came out of the house and said, "Tae-yul, wait. First go fetch a big pot, or a basin or something."

  "What kind of pot?"

  "I don't know—it needs to be big. Oh, wait—where you keep the tools, there's an old ceramic pot, with a crack in it. That will do."

  I helped Tae-yul carry the pot out to her. It was quite large, as large around as my two arms could make a circle.

  "Now," Omoni said, pointing to the last little tree. "Dig in a circle, and be careful not to cut any of the roots. I want you to bring the whole root ball out of the gr
ound."

  This took a long time. Tae-yul had used an ax to chop up the roots of the other trees and make it easier to dig them out. Now he could only use the shovel. Omoni returned to the house, but she came out from time to time to watch him work.

  At last he put down the shovel and wiped his brow. "I think I can get it out now," he said. Although it had been the smallest tree, it was nearly as tall as me. Tae-yul pulled it carefully out of the hole and laid it down on the ground.

  "Omoni!" I called.

  She came out again and patted Tae-yul's shoulder. "You did a good job," she said. She walked around the little tree. "I think you will need to cut off about this much—" She pointed to a spot about a third of the way down from the top.

  While Tae-yul chopped away with the ax, Omoni took up the shovel and began to fill the ceramic pot with dirt from where the trees had been dug up. Now I knew what she was doing. I got a trowel from the tool shelf and helped scoop dirt into the pot.

  Omoni and Tae-yul lifted the little tree and settled it into the pot. Then we packed more dirt and mulch around it. Finally, I fetched a basin of water and gave the tree a drink.

  The three of us stepped back and looked at the tree and then at each other. We were tired and dirty, but we managed to smile. We'd hardly spoken throughout the entire task, yet we'd all known what to do. It felt good to have done this together.

  All the same, I was troubled: Omoni was breaking the law. If she got caught—if the guards discovered the little tree—what would happen? Would she be arrested? A cold wind blew through me.

  I was afraid for her. But I was proud of her, too. How could I be proud of my mother for breaking the law? I shook my head, trying to clear it of these confusing thoughts, and looked at Omoni again.

  She was watching as Tae-yul lifted the heavy pot onto an old burlap sack. There was something in her face I hadn't seen before.