The Aquariums of Pyongyang_ Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag - Chol-hwan Kang [14]
After completing high school, my father enrolled at the University of Kyoto to pursue his great artistic passion for photography—despite being slated, as the eldest son, to replace his father in the family’s thriving casino business. The other children were excellent students who seemed destined for great success. My first aunt was a pharmacist; my first uncle, who attended the Waseida University of Tokyo, was a journalist; and the other siblings studied medicine and biology.
The leaders of the Chosen Soren were very keen on seeing people with advanced education return to North Korea, and they continually played up the homeland’s need for individuals with knowledge and abilities. In North Korea a person could serve the people and the state rather than Japan, that pawn of American imperialism. Yet the Chosen Soren did not limit itself to recruiting the Korean elite, but worked tirelessly for the repatriation of every class of Korean emigrant. The true mastermind behind the Chosen Soren’s campaign was the North Korean state. In the 1960s, under Kim Il-sung’s direction, it made enormous efforts to lure Korean emigrants by representing itself as the last hope for reunification and the defense of national identity: for South Korea was reactionary and a puppet of the United States.
Koreans never had an easy time integrating into Japanese life and often were targets of prejudice. The North Korean propaganda thus resonated with many in the diaspora, and thousands responded to Kim Il-sung’s call to return. Well-to-do Koreans such as my grandparents could expect to be wooed with an equal measure of ideological arguments and fantastical promises: there were managerial positions awaiting them, they were entitled to a beautiful home, they would have no material worries, and their children would be able to study in Moscow. Grandfather was rather against the idea, Grandmother all for it. Interminable conversations followed, from which my grandmother ultimately emerged victorious. No one was particularly surprised. And so it was that the family found itself heading for North Korea.
THREE
NEXT YEAR IN PYONGYANG !
Grandfather agreed to the move, but he continued to drag his feet. The circumstances under which he ultimately arrived at his decision are rather comical, especially considering the political and economic stakes. Sometime in the past, Grandfather had become fast friends with the head yakusa, or boss, of the Kyoto mob. My grandfather was utterly enthralled by him and believed him to possess extraordinary intelligence, business acumen, courage, and, in a certain sense, honesty. My grandfather’s confidence in him was boundless. He and the yakusa were more than friends; they were like brothers, by which I infer they once took an oath of friendship. It is a common practice in the Far East, where two people become bound through an exchange of letters or of blood. What Europeans might consider a game for children is serious business for adults in that part of the world, and I’m sure that Grandfather and the local mafia boss truly considered theirs an oath for life. When time came for Grandfather to make up his mind, he naturally sought out this man’s advice, and it was this gangster who dispelled his last lingering doubts by telling him it was his duty to respond to the call of the fatherland, to help it flourish, and to change his life.
Thus was determined the fate of my family, and mine with it. Everyone—those, such as my Grandmother, who really wanted to leave and those, such as my father and most of his siblings, who were merely resigned to leaving—boarded the ship for Korea. Even my first uncle, who was