The Aquariums of Pyongyang_ Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag - Chol-hwan Kang [94]
I am indebted to all those women for one of the most important times in my life. A current of sympathy ran among us, growing stronger with time. Our hostess, whom I will call Madame Yi, eventually proposed that she and I join in an oath to make us like brother and sister. I was deeply moved and accepted immediately. From that point forward, our mutual affection would be unconditional, vulnerable only to death. Once our pact was sealed, I was allowed to discover that, aside from her escort service, this energetic woman also ran another business, whose secrecy was more scrupulously maintained. Most of her earnings came from smuggling snakes into South Korea, where they are a rare and highly prized delicacy. I had eaten them myself at Yodok, but that was only because I was dying of hunger. As far as I knew, there was no shortage of food in the South! Madame Yi laughed at my naivete and explained that virility-obsessed South Koreans ate snakes for the supposed aphrodisiacal virtues they shared with eel, ginseng, deer antlers, bear bile, and, of course, seal’s penis—the be-all and end-all of sexual aids.
Madame Yi bought the reptiles from a network of local roughnecks who caught them in the mountains. She had a warehouse not far from her apartment where she kept the snakes until she could arrange transport—she had her connections—aboard a South Korea–bound ship. The most difficult part of the affair was keeping the snakes in their boxes until shipping time: they could slip through the smallest of holes. The police already had been called out once by frightened neighbors and needed to be paid off with money and girls. Madame Yi bought the snakes for less than 100 yuan and resold them to specialized dealers for $10 apiece. With two deliveries a month, each of one thousand snakes, it was a highly lucrative business.
An-hyuk and I played it safe and went out as little as possible. Our hostess advised us to keep a low profile, though she was equally worried we might be turned in by one of her employees, a girl whose father was none other than president of the Association of Koreans in Dalian. Madame Yi had little cause for concern though: the girl was not only the prettiest of the bunch, she was the most generous, too. She had fallen in love with An-hyuk and took meticulous care of him when he fell ill. Neither did she hesitate to dip into her own nest egg to help us. With several Pyongyang agents among her clients, she even promised to warn us if she ever got wind of impending danger. I had such trust in her that I told her my real name. If she wanted to turn me in, so be it. Perhaps it’s naive, but I’ve always had the belief that women would shield and protect me from the vicissitudes of fate.
After a month in Dalian, I offered to work for my hostess. I didn’t want to continue living off her good graces. She refused at first, saying that as long as I was in China, I was her guest; my turn to help her out would come one day, too. I insisted so much, though, she finally started giving me odd jobs around the snake warehouse. A little later, when she needed a discreet, reliable assistant, she chose me. As for the girls, they generally hung around the apartment, joking and flirting with us until a customer called. At night they went out to the docks. When they met someone they didn’t mind spending some time with, they asked him for a little present.
One night, one of them told me a North Korean navy ship had pulled into port. Having by this time grown less timid, An-hyuk and I decided to check it out, taking four girls along for company. Down by the docks we walked up to several sailors and stared in mock wonderment at the Kim Il-sung badges attached to their uniforms.
“Are you from the North?” I asked in Korean. “We’re Chinese of Korean descent. I even lived in the North for a while.”
Delighted at meeting semicompatriots, they all shook our hands. I was finding the situation rather amusing. They wanted