19
Dano Meets Tschai, 1969
There were deliberations of and worries about Dano's lodging problems, which made his class of 1967 seek out ways for his bailout. He was indebted to a lot of allies: Y.C. Kwon, Y.S. Lee, D.I. Park, J.S. Hwang and others. They used to mob him on the rocky seat around the Blue Dragon Statue, whereby the leggy coeds passed by, with their collegial books on their bosoms, talking and laughing.
Some arranged temporary lodgings, some others sold their gold ring for him, and some others chipped in to make some allowance for him. It was too much for him and for them. It's time to blow a whistle. Dano thought it's time he ran. From Willowy, from the college campus, from the whole things that Seoul represented.
The mountain trail was so rough, his preparations were so lousy, his mindset was so impulsive and reckless, the snowstorm was so high that he decided to dismount. Another default.
Dano's whimsical shift--changes of professional status from teaching to learning, and again to teaching-- could have been the butt of ridicule, or the subject of derision. He had quit the teaching profession and gone to college and, no more than a year later dropped out of it and reclaimed the earlier job.
Although his academic frustration was inevitably caused by a tight financial condition, his character that used to give up on a pending task, not to face up to it, was also a major problem. Reporting for work by submitting a reappointment paper, Dano felt the eyes of suspicion, concern and antipathy showered on his face by the principal and the deputy principal of Kilan Elementary School.
But the faculty received him warmly. And his two alma maters were among the faculty. Once he was put in a square wood classroom, adorned with glass windows on the south, reeking of dusty filth, and looking at the bright young kids playing on the school ground, he felt a deep sense of guilt.
Conveniently situated at the junction leading to Euiseong to the west, to Andong to the north, and to Cheongsong to the east, Kilan was a basin town sprawling along the river, surrounded by mountain hills, and populated by two thousand more or less residents and two thousand people more on the move. Educated by an elementary and a middle school, administered by the myon office, protected by the security force of a police branch of Andong Police Station, and financed by a farming cooperative, Kilan was a functional town.
The people of Kilan, or the Kilanese, had been known for their high sense of humor. A live legend had it that there had been Kilan Sampo, or three cannons of Kilan, that is, three notorious exaggerators: Ju po, Shin po, and Yang po. The big talkers mixed among themselves, of course, and with other close friends as well, over a bowl of makkolli, spinning miles of yarns, giggling and guffawing.
Dano heard a hilarious episode himself about Shin po who had run into a brawler at the town bazaar which had used to open every five days. As things turned lousy and the brawler was about to go violent, Shin Po stepped forward, announcing with pride, "I warn you. I am taekwondo samdan. (level three black belter) As soon as this had been said, the fists of the tall wide-shouldered guy flew, by which the Cannon Shin naturally got knocked down. Pulling himself upright, the downer pronounced solemnly, gasping for breath, saying "You must be sadan. (fourth level black belter)
The town was caressed by stream rivers, which, upstream, were branched off valley creeks. The river was not running so fast, nor so slow, nor dry all the year round. The Kilan River was not so shallow but aptly wide. The river ran south west, sloped not steeply to the west, met with neighborly streams, finally converging in the Nakdong River proper.
The waters were full of fish, of which kkokji, or coreoperca herzi, were most popular. Like the energetic residents of the district, the fish were fast and energetic. The Kilanese knew how to handle the kkokji. They did not catch them by fish trap or something; They caught them by net throwing. They cast the fishing nets which would spread in the air just like the bamboo fans and retrieved the fish caught in them. The fish, aptly small and pretty, used to give a mild protest when caught with their sharp scales. The fish meat was delicious when eaten broiled with side dishes of vegetables and a bowl of makkolli.
Winds drive clouds and mist which turn into water drops which merge into a river and a sea. What a fate it is that some water drops fall onto the seas, singing and dancing the joy of the ocean life while some waters fall onto the pit of the cow manure, suffocated with the toxic odor. Some others satiate the thirst, feed and nurture all the living things.
---------------
Dano ran into Tschai Lee, who had been a seamstress and dressmaker at Kilan. She was pretty in her early twenties with a small face and medium height. She was present, so present that she was close at hand. She was running a roadside shop, sitting coyly at a sewing machine. He was at rough sea and she was a siren with a magnetic appeal. She was as transparent as crystal in her purple dress with short sleeves. Whereas Spear Handle had been celestial and Willowy wavering, Tschai was down to earth.
Dano had not been a gawking type. His stare had almost always been constant. He did not give sidelong glance at the roadside, the roadside people and things, that is. He made it a rule to walk straight with his shoulders upright. Dano, who had been on his way to the school from his boarding house, was called back from the roadside one day. It was the lanky Kim who had been working for the local tobacco association. "Mr. Wang, why are you in such a hurry?" Dano looked to his left and found Kim sitting at the seamstress' shop, she working at the sewing machine and he giving an idle talk.
"Hi, do you say there is something good enough to stop me?"
"Mr. Wang, why don't you take your time? Let's take a brief break coming here," he said, producing a refreshing soft drink for Dano. "By the way, haven't you two met yet?" he casually introduced Tschai to Dano and vice versa, adding that she was his cousin on his mother's side.
------------------
Mrs. Euiseong Kim was uncomfortable ever, keeping a low profile since she had moved to her oldest son's house. Her removal from Toung Doung's house to Toung Jahng's meant that her days were being numbered. The local tradition had it that the elderly parents were supposed to spend their final days at their first son's house because their welfare after death would be taken care of by their first son who was supposed to host funeral and annual memorial services, and take custody of their subterranean resting places. Mrs. Euiseong Kim, with her shoulders a little stooped and with unsteady gaits, began to show a strange habit of a commuting journey between her two sons' houses.
When coming to Boolim's, her dear old naggee, she turned to the obedient daughter-in-law of hers for the role model of her lifelong captive audience. She blurted out, for no end, her inconveniences she claimed she had been roughing it at Toung Jahng's, about which Boolim mildly protested and from time to time mildly rebuked, too. Then, she pouted and fitfully started hitting the unwelcome road back to Toung Jahng's, where she began to show a weird habit of pacing up and down the small clamped room.
She progressively began to get stuck in the woods of words in the process, stuttering and murmuring to herself. She got herself wired in the cobwebs of frustrated memories, swamped in the wetlands of hateful sights and faces. She began to show an evident sign of nomang, or the senile dementia. Arguments erupted among Toung Jahng, his wife, and their adult sons, raising their voices, over the justification of erecting isolation compartment for the poor mother and grandmother: Mrs. Euiseong Kim got caged, that is, got confined.
What drove Toung Doung, from small hours of the morning till late at night, to dig and till a modicum of bare land? To lead a decent life. But the aim of the decent human condition was titillating. A considerable stash of cash at Manchuria had been stolen; The homecoming packs from Nagasaki, which had contained Japanese cash and war bonds, had been pulverized by sea bombs; The expectations to harvest bumper crops had been crushed by a severe drought; The grain inventory had been emptied by Boolim's accident and the subsequent hospital fees; What deposit money they had kept at a local farming cooperative was forced to be withdrawn because Dano had gone to college.
Toung Doung did not give up, though. He was always at work on the land. Whosever land he did not care. He toiled during the summer's days on the others' paddy fields for a day's fees. He was digging the wasteland with no digging machine or something but with picks and shovels, removing the rocks. Rumor had it that the roosters of the village across from the stream cuckoo by the cling and clang made when Toung Doung removed the rocks. He planted peach trees on his sweaty efforts himself. His lifelong motto was: Be constant.
-------------------
The human gravity might have worked. But the attraction was mutual: Dano was attracted to Tschai, and vice versa. To speak of the sophistication of the moment by means of a Freudian jargon, Tschai's libido might have reached its peak, and Dano's, too. In her later years, she confided to Dano about her motive of the eastward move, admitting to having consulted a fortuneteller who had advised her that she go to the east: "Go east, and you will run into your lifelong companion."
Tschai had traveled about 40 kilometers east and had set up a roadside siren's house: Dano had been ambushed. The initial amorous union had taken place at his boarding room at Kilan. In the process, he had casually seen a blood stain on a large towel spread which had given him a bizarre sensation of euphoria, which he had ignored, and of course not mentioned. Tear drops had oozed out of her eye corners which looked to be crystal. She later hummed love songs in his presence, reclining on his front, "Since I knew you, I've learned about love. Since I knew you, I've learned about tears..."
There happened an "i", or change. The wind met the water and the other way around. The water danced and the wind danced, also. Tschai turned garrulous and made the reticent Dano laugh by her gaffes. She kept many interesting tales by heart. The second daughter of the six sisters and one son, she was the darling of his father who used to take her along on his way out for the Kyeongju Lee clan meetings or local political gatherings. Her father had long been a local chief of the district opposition party chapter. So she had naturally had a lot of opportunities to get herself "enlightened" by the light jokes of the adult folks. She was a born story teller, indeed. Of the many amusing ones, the Story of Three Sisters was a really hilarious one. "May I come naked, or fully clothed?" was the title Dano later designated.
Almost all the weddings of the countryside towns in Korea had been held at the brides' houses on the traditional protocols until the 1960s. The bridegroom's father and his party had used to board at the bride's on the eve of the wedding while the bridegroom and his company had used to appear on the very morning of the rite. And when all the hustle and bustle of the day's rites had subsided, with the roosters and hens starting nodding off on their perches and with the dogs of the village starting barking at the moon, the portable wooden tables laden with night snacks had started being served with the bride starting sitting on the pot hidden on the patio in the rear garden because she was fitfully nervous.
-----------------
It was midnight, and the bridegroom coughed a few times at the door to inform the bride in the room of his presence. But nobody opened the door for him but the bridegroom himself. The bride noticed her nightly company shuffle along the room, and sit opposite to her, but she hardly raised her eyes. Outside the room some girl pranksters had made holes on the paper windows to peep, with stifled giggles.
The bride had a hard time, attired in a formal wedding dress and sitting in an upright position. But the bridegroom had not been trained in niceties and courtesies, or the manners needed in the course of the contacts toward his bride. Unreasonably enough, the bridegroom had not been mature but only appeared rash toward the night's union.
He tried to undress the bride by untying the knots at the long stripe of the jogori. The bride, naturally taken aback by the bridegroom's "indecent" advance, made a gesture of rejection by saying, "You can't." The bridegroom was astonished at the bride's blunt response, but he didn't quit because he had been coached by the older folks of his clan that the initial rejection on the part of the bride was a sure sign of a chaste woman.
But the bride's didn't loosen a bit because of the tips she had earlier gotten from the aunts of her clan that she would be considered "cheap" if she would allow the bridegroom to open her with ease. The night nearly ended as the bridegroom's advances and the bride's adamant rejections continued. In time, the roosters of the town started cuckooing at last. The bridegroom, deeply upset by the fact that he had failed in consummating by the bride's obstinate rejections, bolted the room and went back to his house.
Rumors that the first daughter had been jilted by her bridegroom on their "first" night must have been a fatal trauma. Naturally the rumors added wings that they flew over the town border. As a result, there were no more suitors and matchmakers for the first one.
The second daughter learned the lesson from her sister's sad fate on account of tough rebuffs and the subsequent desertion by the bridegroom. Another nuptial ritual was served and the fateful moment to which she was looking forward arrived at last. The bridegroom gave a few polite coughs and entered the room his bride had been waiting.
Hardly had the bridegroom taken a seat opposite to the bridegroom when she suddenly got up and stripped herself in a hurry. He was surprised. Dumfounded was the exact word for the occasion. He then got to his feet and left the town hurriedly as if he had seen an apparition. Sadly the second daughter had met the same plight as the first.
Time flew, so the third and the last daughter would get wedded. She was the "wisest" of the three. She was now more prudent than the other two. She prepared herself lest she should run into the worst occasion of being jilted. When the nuptial ritual was done and the moment of the trial came, she retired to another room adjacent to the bride's, where she asked, in a whispering voice, to the bridegroom of the room, saying "Mister, may I come in naked or fully clothed?"
-------------------
"You make me depressed," Willowy had once told Dano in a warm spring afternoon's intimate gathering at a kids' classroom after they had gone back home. Dano's tendency to demean dourly and to get moody might have played an unwholesome impact on her. Spear Handle might also have hesitated to move closer at the time of his earlier approach because she had felt heavy from his aloof attitudes. Tschai might also have intuited clouds on Dano, but she loved them and allowed them to land on her garden where she changed them into flowers.
Tschai didn't mention Dano's low spirits but made efforts to cheer him up. She rattled off interesting clues. hilarious anecdotes to make him laugh. Although she hadn't given him a happy ending of consummation to the Story of Three Sisters, she invited Dano to meet her parents. She had put up a sleeping quarter for Dano at an inn of Pungsan not far from her home on the eve of the meeting so that he would be able to come early in the morning.
The father of six daughters, a mild-mannered farmer in his middle fifties, didn't give no for his answer. Asked, after receiving a greeting of a deep bow from Dano, to give him the honor of taking his dear daughter as wife, he said smiling, "I always welcome any youngman who is willing to come to take my daughter."
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
At Joongang University
18
At Joongang University, 1967
Dano went to college. That meant a greater event than the one that his family had moved to a great place from a remote mountain valley. Meant more than he had gone to Andong Normal School from a rustic village to become an elementary school teacher. It meant more than the sea change that the Toung Doung family had started using stick matches, getting rid of the flints. That meant that Dano had started doing away with primitiveness, entering into civilization.
The college was a sequence of novelty and wonder: a grand edifice flaunting its academic history, a college campus, adorned with well- groomed green grass and dotted with young folks, chatting and discussing on the lawn. Joongang University looked to be a paragon of the prestigious metropolitan academia, nestled in the sunny environs of Dongjak-dong on the Han River commanding the gorgeous view of a historic flow. Dano felt immensely proud of each step of his in the campus and every move from one auditorium to the other. Dano, who had been an army veteran, ages 25, in a casual clothing, looked a little awkward among the younger academic crowds.
Once Dano stepped into the college campus or into the classroom, he used to unplug. He felt he was getting himself unplugged. Unplugged from the family and worries about them. No, he tried to get himself disconnected from the sad images of dear grandmother who had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease, mother's worrisome faces and father's toilsome features who had been sweating himself under the heavy load on a wooden A-frame. The Joongang University campus was a great lake where there was no wind which stirred its surface. The lake was calm. All the noises of the outer world were cut off. Time stopped passing. The hours in the campus were euphoria itself.
---------------------
Dano's decision for the college attendance had been motivated by his academic curiosity and his determination made during his service in the army. Three full years' service in the Korean army gave him magnitude, of course. Magnitude in the scope of geographical experiences, and in the expanse of relationships. It was really great for the lonely boy of a remote mountain valley. The barracks life gave him a kind of verve, too, which helped him get over anxiety disease to a certain degree. But as he was discharged, the duct of timidity, trivialism and anxiety was newly connected, the knot tied again, and the cable plugged afresh. Grandma Mrs. Euiseong Kim, who had gone to her oldest son, began to show an early sign of nomang, senile dementia: Her memory flickered, which made her watchers worried. He wanted to run.
But craving for a collegial study, however strong, could not guarantee his attendance. Tuition and attendant fees were a big problem. Dano well knew his parents were short of resources, that is, strapped in cash. He had to earn his livelihood in the first place by returning to the teaching job which had been suspended by the army service, helping his parents with family livelihood. So he had gained a job at Jumgok Elementary School as teacher. West, who had been a financial manager at the Board of Education at Euiseong County, used his clout so that Dano might regain his teaching post at Jumgok-myon which would enable him to commute to and from the school by foot.
Toung Doung was taken aback when he was tipped off via his wife Boolim Lee on his son's intention to go to college. He felt a strong sense of betrayal. How did the goddamned son think and act like that? A goddamned son of sheer egoistic freak. "Please think how we are in, and in what way your mom and me have been living. Haven't you ever had any pity on the family?" deplored Toung Doung, with Boolim Lee silently wiping her tears.
Fall semester of Jumgok Elementary School had just ended when Toung Doung and his son Dano temporarily compromised on Dano's college attendance. "Parents will not prevail in the race against their offspring!" was comforting words for Toung Doung himself. The aspiring college was decided on as Joongang University, and the subjects, which Dano would have to take in his entrance exam, were: the English language, the Korean language, Korean history and social studies including economics. Two months plus some days seemed so short for the preparation for the college exam, so Dano decided to leave the subject of English out from his exam preparations. (There goes English!)
----------------
Toung Doung built a wooden-pillared and tile-roofed four-room house of his own for the first time in his life. He had never been a carpenter himself but he did every bit of a carpenter work with precision. Which was divinely amazing on the one hand and frustratingly mysterious on the other for Dano, who was so poor at hand job that he could neither build a kennel himself nor erect a wooden pole straight up.
Toung Doung had earlier made a wish that he would have a house of his own making, and he did make his dream come true. He sawed giant pines at Sun Valley, scraped bark off them and carried, on his A-frame carrier, four or more meter-long lumbers with ample enough diameter for becoming a house material all the way to his water mill house through seven or so kilometers' distance, one at a time for the period of a month or so, a Sisyphean toil by a herculean man, indeed.
He then scrubbed the surface of each lumber with a scrub plane, measured them, etched lines with Indian ink, made dovetail joints, and chiseled holes to fit wedges. He did them all by himself. The one thing that was missing in this great job of building a nice house, though, was a decent family livelihood with a decent income from a decent job--It was Dano and Dano's teaching profession which had been supposed to bring it. Dano insisted on going to college, nevertheless.
His determination approved by his parents, yet grudgingly, Dano launched on the project with verve. It was drawing to December, so study schedule was organized very tightly because time was running out until the examination day. It had to be a kind of crash course which could cram up the three subjects with a bang. To stave off drowsiness, he kept the room "cool" enough, so cool that the boarder could be frozen. He saw to it that the heating system by the ondol floor heating would not be at work. He shortened the sleeping hours to two, or two and a half each day and when he slept he kept the room open so that the seeping chill could keep him from deep sleep. He always imagined his name placed high up in the list of successful applicants. So exciting.
---------------
The city of Seoul was not a nether world, but it had been a stopover place most of the time in which he had made, during the term of his army service, some casual visits. Now Dano stepped into the inner bowels of the capital and started living it, in which the merry accents of young collegians were ringing in his ears and in which Sorbonne-educated Mademoiselle Kim was toiling over how the French word 'regardez' should be pronounced differently from the English word 'regard'.
The cafes in the perimeter of the campus were bustling with eager faces of which some were beaming in his direction when Dano stepped into it, They often addressed him as Mr. Wang or "Big Brother" from time to time. Professor S.K. Paik of politics, in which Dano was a major, who had been in his fifties with stout build and resonant voice, one day after an intermediate exam taken before the summer recess, called Dano in his research room, saying "Nice having you here as my student. You're the first I've ever given you full marks." He did not stretch out his hand to shake hands but threw a casual remark, saying "Are you married?"
It stirred his mind not a little bit that a renowned university professor had the question as regards a matter of intimate concern directed at Dano himself. "No, I am not, sir," Dano said, "but I have a girl friend in my home town." "That's good for you," Professor Paik said, giving Dano a beamy stare. Dano said it, which surprised himself and raised the fresh question of surety. He wondered about her existential meaning not once, not twice, but a very few times.
Willowy was his girl friend, yes, wasn't she? She was also an elementary school teacher. She thought too much. She was a woman of medium height, round beamy face and a low voice. She was a few years younger but she was more mature in character and behavior than Dano himself. Her penmanship was great on the verge of being perfect, distinguishing itself on the classroom blackboard, on the students' record papers, and on her lettering words sent to Dano.
Ambiguity might have been the very word defining their relationships. She did neither allow him any room for closer contact, nor give him any sure commitments. To have second thoughts, there might have been one, though. Correspondence, if any, was not voluntary on her part, but grudgingly responding. Dano had once missed her very much to a fever pitch. He did not dare to ask her but he wished she had been coming to Seoul to meet him during the summer recess that year of 1967. He more often than not had raced, in the streets of Seoul, to the women with similar dimensions in green jacket, to meet with startling faces. He had been crazy.
At Joongang University, 1967
Dano went to college. That meant a greater event than the one that his family had moved to a great place from a remote mountain valley. Meant more than he had gone to Andong Normal School from a rustic village to become an elementary school teacher. It meant more than the sea change that the Toung Doung family had started using stick matches, getting rid of the flints. That meant that Dano had started doing away with primitiveness, entering into civilization.
The college was a sequence of novelty and wonder: a grand edifice flaunting its academic history, a college campus, adorned with well- groomed green grass and dotted with young folks, chatting and discussing on the lawn. Joongang University looked to be a paragon of the prestigious metropolitan academia, nestled in the sunny environs of Dongjak-dong on the Han River commanding the gorgeous view of a historic flow. Dano felt immensely proud of each step of his in the campus and every move from one auditorium to the other. Dano, who had been an army veteran, ages 25, in a casual clothing, looked a little awkward among the younger academic crowds.
Once Dano stepped into the college campus or into the classroom, he used to unplug. He felt he was getting himself unplugged. Unplugged from the family and worries about them. No, he tried to get himself disconnected from the sad images of dear grandmother who had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease, mother's worrisome faces and father's toilsome features who had been sweating himself under the heavy load on a wooden A-frame. The Joongang University campus was a great lake where there was no wind which stirred its surface. The lake was calm. All the noises of the outer world were cut off. Time stopped passing. The hours in the campus were euphoria itself.
---------------------
Dano's decision for the college attendance had been motivated by his academic curiosity and his determination made during his service in the army. Three full years' service in the Korean army gave him magnitude, of course. Magnitude in the scope of geographical experiences, and in the expanse of relationships. It was really great for the lonely boy of a remote mountain valley. The barracks life gave him a kind of verve, too, which helped him get over anxiety disease to a certain degree. But as he was discharged, the duct of timidity, trivialism and anxiety was newly connected, the knot tied again, and the cable plugged afresh. Grandma Mrs. Euiseong Kim, who had gone to her oldest son, began to show an early sign of nomang, senile dementia: Her memory flickered, which made her watchers worried. He wanted to run.
But craving for a collegial study, however strong, could not guarantee his attendance. Tuition and attendant fees were a big problem. Dano well knew his parents were short of resources, that is, strapped in cash. He had to earn his livelihood in the first place by returning to the teaching job which had been suspended by the army service, helping his parents with family livelihood. So he had gained a job at Jumgok Elementary School as teacher. West, who had been a financial manager at the Board of Education at Euiseong County, used his clout so that Dano might regain his teaching post at Jumgok-myon which would enable him to commute to and from the school by foot.
Toung Doung was taken aback when he was tipped off via his wife Boolim Lee on his son's intention to go to college. He felt a strong sense of betrayal. How did the goddamned son think and act like that? A goddamned son of sheer egoistic freak. "Please think how we are in, and in what way your mom and me have been living. Haven't you ever had any pity on the family?" deplored Toung Doung, with Boolim Lee silently wiping her tears.
Fall semester of Jumgok Elementary School had just ended when Toung Doung and his son Dano temporarily compromised on Dano's college attendance. "Parents will not prevail in the race against their offspring!" was comforting words for Toung Doung himself. The aspiring college was decided on as Joongang University, and the subjects, which Dano would have to take in his entrance exam, were: the English language, the Korean language, Korean history and social studies including economics. Two months plus some days seemed so short for the preparation for the college exam, so Dano decided to leave the subject of English out from his exam preparations. (There goes English!)
----------------
Toung Doung built a wooden-pillared and tile-roofed four-room house of his own for the first time in his life. He had never been a carpenter himself but he did every bit of a carpenter work with precision. Which was divinely amazing on the one hand and frustratingly mysterious on the other for Dano, who was so poor at hand job that he could neither build a kennel himself nor erect a wooden pole straight up.
Toung Doung had earlier made a wish that he would have a house of his own making, and he did make his dream come true. He sawed giant pines at Sun Valley, scraped bark off them and carried, on his A-frame carrier, four or more meter-long lumbers with ample enough diameter for becoming a house material all the way to his water mill house through seven or so kilometers' distance, one at a time for the period of a month or so, a Sisyphean toil by a herculean man, indeed.
He then scrubbed the surface of each lumber with a scrub plane, measured them, etched lines with Indian ink, made dovetail joints, and chiseled holes to fit wedges. He did them all by himself. The one thing that was missing in this great job of building a nice house, though, was a decent family livelihood with a decent income from a decent job--It was Dano and Dano's teaching profession which had been supposed to bring it. Dano insisted on going to college, nevertheless.
His determination approved by his parents, yet grudgingly, Dano launched on the project with verve. It was drawing to December, so study schedule was organized very tightly because time was running out until the examination day. It had to be a kind of crash course which could cram up the three subjects with a bang. To stave off drowsiness, he kept the room "cool" enough, so cool that the boarder could be frozen. He saw to it that the heating system by the ondol floor heating would not be at work. He shortened the sleeping hours to two, or two and a half each day and when he slept he kept the room open so that the seeping chill could keep him from deep sleep. He always imagined his name placed high up in the list of successful applicants. So exciting.
---------------
The city of Seoul was not a nether world, but it had been a stopover place most of the time in which he had made, during the term of his army service, some casual visits. Now Dano stepped into the inner bowels of the capital and started living it, in which the merry accents of young collegians were ringing in his ears and in which Sorbonne-educated Mademoiselle Kim was toiling over how the French word 'regardez' should be pronounced differently from the English word 'regard'.
The cafes in the perimeter of the campus were bustling with eager faces of which some were beaming in his direction when Dano stepped into it, They often addressed him as Mr. Wang or "Big Brother" from time to time. Professor S.K. Paik of politics, in which Dano was a major, who had been in his fifties with stout build and resonant voice, one day after an intermediate exam taken before the summer recess, called Dano in his research room, saying "Nice having you here as my student. You're the first I've ever given you full marks." He did not stretch out his hand to shake hands but threw a casual remark, saying "Are you married?"
It stirred his mind not a little bit that a renowned university professor had the question as regards a matter of intimate concern directed at Dano himself. "No, I am not, sir," Dano said, "but I have a girl friend in my home town." "That's good for you," Professor Paik said, giving Dano a beamy stare. Dano said it, which surprised himself and raised the fresh question of surety. He wondered about her existential meaning not once, not twice, but a very few times.
Willowy was his girl friend, yes, wasn't she? She was also an elementary school teacher. She thought too much. She was a woman of medium height, round beamy face and a low voice. She was a few years younger but she was more mature in character and behavior than Dano himself. Her penmanship was great on the verge of being perfect, distinguishing itself on the classroom blackboard, on the students' record papers, and on her lettering words sent to Dano.
Ambiguity might have been the very word defining their relationships. She did neither allow him any room for closer contact, nor give him any sure commitments. To have second thoughts, there might have been one, though. Correspondence, if any, was not voluntary on her part, but grudgingly responding. Dano had once missed her very much to a fever pitch. He did not dare to ask her but he wished she had been coming to Seoul to meet him during the summer recess that year of 1967. He more often than not had raced, in the streets of Seoul, to the women with similar dimensions in green jacket, to meet with startling faces. He had been crazy.
Paging, Mr. Doctor!
17
"Paging, Mr. Medic," 1965
The days needed for the full service as an enlisted army soldier were more than a year away, which had been termed as the 'waning days' up to the discharge. "Why don't you go down to the Anyang Armory Company," said Major Sergeant Bong of the personnel section, handing Dano the notification of deployment for an independent army unit stationed on the outskirts of Seoul as an on-the-spot medical assistant. "It will be easy and enjoyable," the sergeant said, "to kill the boredom of your last days in the army, getting some pastimes." Dano was of half a mind to begin a new shift, in fact, but he had to accept the offer because it was considered a kind of goodwill from a senior cadre. "I will go, sir!"
A train travel up from Kapyong down to Seoul, not as a green private of a certain army unit, who had been controlled by the chain of command, but as a senior corporal at the final stage of a compulsory service, who became his own man to a great degree, rendered him emotional, giving him a choking sensation in his throat. He was able to sit on where he liked, and also able to search back alleys in the perimeter of Cheongnyangni Railroad Station and run into "a woman in red."
In the wide expanse of fields on both sides of a farmland road leading to the company, rice paddies were busy ripening. Farmers were randomly seen idly picking weeds among them. It was getting dark when he negotiated through the farm roads to the ammo company and reported to the company chief.
Dano was taken aback by the ice-cold stares of the company troops when Company Commander Captain Han Shim introduced Corporal Dano to his soldiers. They looked so evidently hostile. Some riflemen at the rear end of the crowd on the camp ground were heard muttering to each other to the effect that there was no reasonable ground for any medic to stay. With the crowd having been dispersed, Dano approached a first sergeant who was lingering, looking like talking to him. "Excuse me," Dano spoke first, "What is it that you guys don't like me so much?"
"We don't dislike you, but we detested your predecessor sergeant," he said.
"Why is that?" Dano demanded to know.
"He did nothing, nothing at all." he blurted his complaint.
"What do you mean by that, doing nothing at all?" Dano asked.
"It means just that. It means nothing else. He did virtually nothing at all during his term of service here, idling away all his hours of duty at the civilian places," the sergeant said.
At the transition meeting of the shift of duty outside the company compound, over a pint of beer, his ex-medic First Sergeant Kang from Chungchong Province expressed to Dano, with sonorous and slow accent, full of regrets and embarrassments. He ascribed, however, his negligence of duty to the shortage of medical support from the original company. He then was curious to know about Dano's package contents. "The first-aid kit is all there is to it, and some essential items what have to be in there,"Dano replied.
"That said it all," he elatedly said, shifting in his seat, as if trying to say that there had been no resources left to improve the condition.
"Don't you think that the deep hostility toward us medics is the problem, Sergeant Kang?" Dano said, "They say you did nothing, which is what you are not supposed to make excuses for your negligence of duty. You had to do something, sir!" Dano said.
"I know, I know," he fumbled something to say further, but he stopped short. "I am very sorry, Corporal Dano. I sincerely hope you will make up for my past infractions," he got up and held out his hand for a formal farewell..
Dano, who made an initial survey of the armory men in physical distress on the next day of his deployment, discovered that patients suffering from various categories of diseases had been abandoned for a long time. Of all the damned diseases, hoobalzzi whanzza, or the fusariosis patients topped the list.
Back neck Fusariosis patients, to be exact. Dano had discovered a lot of hoobalzzi patients among his boot camp troops at Nonsan a few years ago. He had surmised then that the fungi on the beddings, particularly in the dirty blankets and pillows were to blame, attacking the skins, particularly the necks of the soldiers. Having watched the sick soldiers then, now he had to take care of them.
Dano had to make a list of sick ammo men based on the triage and selection method. Of all the listed men in trouble, he had to select seven and make a convoy of them. When he reported the immediate personal convoy to the old man he balked at the idea. "You have to go through the channel of the decision-making process from the company to the regiment command," he declared.
“The condition of the patients is severe, sir" Corp. Dano said, "They need immediate care, sir! I'll convoy the men to Soodo Army Hospital myself, sir!"
"It's impossible. I understand that the army patients must be transported by ambulance," Captain Han gave Dano an annoying look.
"A city bus will do at times, sir!" Dano did not budge. The captain was finally convinced, saying "O.K. You may go ahead."
Dano and his company hit the road for Anyang early in the next morning at daybreak. The pedestrian travel to Anyang from the company compound and from there the bus trip on board Inter-city Bus No. 104 to Samchong-dong, Seoul City, took about one and a half hours.
There was a row at the entrance of the army hospital, though, over the army regulations or something whether to accept the convoy of the army patients by an enlisted medic. Dano excused the remoteness and isolation of an independent unit, and first of all things, the need for the immediate treatment of the diseases, for the omission of the inevitable procedures.
A receptionist disappeared into the hospital building and the next thing he knew, an officer and some soldiers materialized from the building to see what was going on. "You are Dano, aren't you?" a soldier shouted from the crowd, dashing toward him. "You are Changsoo!" Dano exclaimed with surprise, moving in the direction of a classmate of Andong Normal,"
Changsoo introduced Dano to a medical officer, saying "Meet Surgeon Lieutenant Kim who I work for. This is my classmate Dano, sir! A maverick, sir!" Dano saluted the army surgeon. "Very nice to meet you, sir!"
"What's so nice for you, medic?" Lt. Kim said, beaming.
"Because I know things will be going very smoothly here, sir!" Dano answered. Lt. Kim nodded approvingly. In the meantime, Changsoo did all the reception paper work for his school friend from afar, and showed Dano and his ailing foot soldiers inside the army hospital building. Surprisingly, Changsoo was not the only schoolmate. Five more medics, tipped by Changsoo, in freshly starched and ironed khaki military uniform and shiny shoes, mobbed around Dano in no time, greeting simply and touting their army hospital insignias.
A little while later at the waiting room, one patient after another was called into the treating room, with Dano watching the whole process for his later practice. The doctor made it sure that the patients could be treated from the hubalzzi disease with ease. The surgeon demonstrated a sophisticated dressing for the treatment of the infective part, or, the mass of pus in the neck.
Dano was astonished at the width and depth with which the skin lesion was developing. A whole length of the lieutenant's index finger was penetrating into the bottom of the lesion and a surprising part was that the young patients did not freak out or scream when the surgeon was draining out the pus golem.
They were so determined. After the pus draining was done, the disinfection powder was sprayed and the dressing part got sealed with antiseptic bandages. Finally, a penicillin type shot was performed on the poor buttocks, during which time the military surgeon casually recommended hostacillins which could be had at a civilian pharmacy to Dano if and when he would "handle" the hubalzzi patients at his Anyang Ammunition Camp.
After the whole process of treatment was done, and when they were parting, in memory of the unexpected encounter, the Samaritan medics collected a bagful of medicines, aids for dressing and small-sized medical appliances for Dano, a small bit each in amount, though. The kind-hearted surgeon went to great lengths to promise future welcomes for later visits for Dano and to reveal some procedural instructions for the treatment of the cervical plague. Medic Dano's escortees were buoyed both at what they were treated at a nice military medical facility on the highest level with good words of perfect healing from the doctors and in the manner with which their company medic was warmly received with an armful of presents from his friendly medics and medical doctors.
It was a triumphant return. The ammo camp troops sensed the feat of the medic and his party, looking at the expressions of glee on the faces of the returnees from the Soodo Army Hospital. Corporal Dano went to the company commander's office but the captain was not there. The ailing KGIs, who had been treated in no other place than the highest-ranking army hospital located in the capital of the country, on a rare occasion and with sincere care, were busy bragging about "our doc." He was so well connected to each and every department of the high army hospital that he was provided with various medical supplies, that they were and would be treated to their disease without much noise of red tapes. He was really different and would make difference in the future. In an instant, the atmosphere of die-hard hostility in the company barracks rooms shifted to that of warm amicability.
The following morning was the day of sea change. Inflated rumors indicating Dano's feats might have made rounds through the camp the previous night. which Dano thought was O.K. An unexpected episode after episode occurred. When he was standing in line for his morning chow, holding his tray in his hand, an ammo private approached him and took it for him. An HQ man took the trouble of arranging a cozy spot near the barracks room fireplace, which had not been in operation, for Dano to hit the sack.
But you had to get things done, which was what counted. The sick privates were transported to the army hospital and effectively treated. The medics and medical doctors of the army hospital in the capital city were as kind as ever. All the KGIs treated for the hubalzzi were amazed at the speed and completeness with which the ailment was cured. The atmosphere of the whole camp town turned bright.
-----------------
Routine messages containing parental cares and brotherly concerns were relayed late to Dano owing mostly to technicalities of the army postal service, touring places and shifting hands. His brother and sister said in their late letters that grandma Mrs. Euiseong Kim had made a grudging move to her oldest son's, which might have rendered her poor mother free of her nagging torments.
Dano was missing Spear Handle. After chores were done of dressing for treating scars and changing bandages, when Dano was left alone, with fresh air coming through the open window of the barracks, he was missing Spear Handle. The image of her always smiling and comforting her weeping sixth graders popped without warning.
Now and then some incidents on barracks humor proportions occurred to the enlisted men of low ranks. The predator in an army cop might have sensed the perfect target prey in sight, who appeared beleaguered. The poor private was given leave of absence, after having been treated for some disease with uncanny attributes, for the purchase of a unit of hostacillin for the last phase injection at a local drug store. (*It could be had at a pharmacy without prescription then.)
An MP vehicle on the routine patrol spotted a vulnerable prey on a leisurely stroll and approached him for a spot check. The ammo man fumbled for excuses, and failed to produce an apt document for his leave. Then the army cop put him on board the baikcha, or the "white car", and gave him a "free tour" of the local county capital for an indefinite span of time.
Private Ultari, abandoned at dusk on a deserted roadside after an unexplained ride, was pissed off enormously, tossing his medicine box into the air. Taken to task by the squadron chief for his failing to keep punctuality for the evening roll call, and getting nagged for the throwaway by Company Medic Dano, the poor soldier burst out crying. It was an unlucky day for him, after all.
It was a windy summer's day. More than one, all at once, it evoked a sentimental journey to the past, to the people, and to everything. At an instant the chilly noisy air whistled by rattling the barracks window, the company speaker system boomed out a message "paging Mr. Medical Soldier!", which sounded urgent. Dano, who had his dressing job done on several ammo men in the healing stage, got up from his seat on the floor, came out racing to the HQ office. A young man stranger in civilian clothes was waiting for him. "Come with me, Mr. Doctor!" he said with a quivering voice.
In hindsight, the bizarre encounter could not have taken place, and Dano should not have responded to the call. He should have stayed at the barracks room. He did not have to shift place. ((I am sorry, sir. I am not a doctor!) If and when a nearby civilian citizen had asked for a medical help, Dano should have refused to meet him in the first place.
Why? Because he was not a doctor who had been trained to do a serious medical job. In short, he should have realized the professional limits that he was a mere stretcher guy who had been trained to be a member of auxiliary personnel for the army doctors. But, alas, the ignorant and proud Dano did not say no to the caller, hitting the road for the house of a person alleged to be in trouble who was waiting for his medical aid, with the first-aid pack on his shoulder. Oh, boy!
He got to the place after 10 or so minutes' walk, a small tin-roofed house with the architectural mode of the hangul digut (ㄷ). Getting into the entrance, the escort informed to the room of Dano's arrival. The sarangbang (the room for the men) door opened. The apprehensive-looking folks got up to greet him. Entering, Dano found a frail-looking young man lying in the middle of the room surrounded by the man families and relatives, looking aimlessly at the ceiling.
"How and where" was what Dano wanted to know about. An old man sat down and pulled open the covering under which his groin was bared. But the surprising part was that his testicles were not those of an adult man but those of an ox. Dano's astonishing eyes were asking him about the cause of the weirdry by which the human testicles were swollen to the size as large as those of a bull.
The old man who looked to be the patriarch of the family introduced himself and "briefed" the situation for the visiting "doctor." The young patient was newly married so much so that the male members of the family, including his older brothers and uncles, reached a consensus that he needed a sort of stamina complementation with reptiley nutrition. In due process, he was made to drink duly cooked snake soup, which turned out what it looked like: a disaster.
You would have to take another path, turn around, or detour if the path had been an ill-chosen one. There might be just one way or the other for the human beings to correct their original mistakes or misjudgments. So Dano had to say to the head of the distressed family to the effect that he was not the one up to the task. Go see the doctor, please.
Even if he had turned and run, there shouldn't have been a person who would dare call him a coward. Dano nevertheless opted to keep going without hesitation. He opted to ignore any unexpected results or side effects of his action. Such uncertainties did not occur in his mind at all.
Ignorance was surely a bliss. His "medical" assessment was that the venom of the snake was clogging his penile gland or something, so anybody in the room would mind going to get an antidote injection?
While the errand man was pedaling his way to an Anyang pharmacy, Dano got his syringe sterilized in boiling water and prepared himself for the treatment. To look back, there was a last resort left for him to turn the situation around. It was a very dangerous attempt so he had to stop the treatment because he would be likely to kill a person. It was illegal, too.
He nevertheless went ahead with his own treatment process. In 30 minutes or so, the errand man arrived with the antidote bottle which Dano gave the patient lying on the room floor a shot in his buttocks. Reaction was slow to appear.
Suspenseful tension gripped the whole room. In one and a half hours, thick liquid of a small amount came out of the penis, and in two hours drop by drop of yellow liquid was oozing out of the poor organ. The patient, who had been suffering from shortness of breath, was beginning to breathe in normal cadence. In due passage of time, drops turned into the form of urinal shot, and the swollen testicles started restoring the original size. At an early night, Medic Corporal Dano returned to the ammo camp, with the remarks of reassurance shared. "Your son will have been all right until tomorrow morning."
"Paging, Mr. Medic," 1965
The days needed for the full service as an enlisted army soldier were more than a year away, which had been termed as the 'waning days' up to the discharge. "Why don't you go down to the Anyang Armory Company," said Major Sergeant Bong of the personnel section, handing Dano the notification of deployment for an independent army unit stationed on the outskirts of Seoul as an on-the-spot medical assistant. "It will be easy and enjoyable," the sergeant said, "to kill the boredom of your last days in the army, getting some pastimes." Dano was of half a mind to begin a new shift, in fact, but he had to accept the offer because it was considered a kind of goodwill from a senior cadre. "I will go, sir!"
A train travel up from Kapyong down to Seoul, not as a green private of a certain army unit, who had been controlled by the chain of command, but as a senior corporal at the final stage of a compulsory service, who became his own man to a great degree, rendered him emotional, giving him a choking sensation in his throat. He was able to sit on where he liked, and also able to search back alleys in the perimeter of Cheongnyangni Railroad Station and run into "a woman in red."
In the wide expanse of fields on both sides of a farmland road leading to the company, rice paddies were busy ripening. Farmers were randomly seen idly picking weeds among them. It was getting dark when he negotiated through the farm roads to the ammo company and reported to the company chief.
Dano was taken aback by the ice-cold stares of the company troops when Company Commander Captain Han Shim introduced Corporal Dano to his soldiers. They looked so evidently hostile. Some riflemen at the rear end of the crowd on the camp ground were heard muttering to each other to the effect that there was no reasonable ground for any medic to stay. With the crowd having been dispersed, Dano approached a first sergeant who was lingering, looking like talking to him. "Excuse me," Dano spoke first, "What is it that you guys don't like me so much?"
"We don't dislike you, but we detested your predecessor sergeant," he said.
"Why is that?" Dano demanded to know.
"He did nothing, nothing at all." he blurted his complaint.
"What do you mean by that, doing nothing at all?" Dano asked.
"It means just that. It means nothing else. He did virtually nothing at all during his term of service here, idling away all his hours of duty at the civilian places," the sergeant said.
At the transition meeting of the shift of duty outside the company compound, over a pint of beer, his ex-medic First Sergeant Kang from Chungchong Province expressed to Dano, with sonorous and slow accent, full of regrets and embarrassments. He ascribed, however, his negligence of duty to the shortage of medical support from the original company. He then was curious to know about Dano's package contents. "The first-aid kit is all there is to it, and some essential items what have to be in there,"Dano replied.
"That said it all," he elatedly said, shifting in his seat, as if trying to say that there had been no resources left to improve the condition.
"Don't you think that the deep hostility toward us medics is the problem, Sergeant Kang?" Dano said, "They say you did nothing, which is what you are not supposed to make excuses for your negligence of duty. You had to do something, sir!" Dano said.
"I know, I know," he fumbled something to say further, but he stopped short. "I am very sorry, Corporal Dano. I sincerely hope you will make up for my past infractions," he got up and held out his hand for a formal farewell..
Dano, who made an initial survey of the armory men in physical distress on the next day of his deployment, discovered that patients suffering from various categories of diseases had been abandoned for a long time. Of all the damned diseases, hoobalzzi whanzza, or the fusariosis patients topped the list.
Back neck Fusariosis patients, to be exact. Dano had discovered a lot of hoobalzzi patients among his boot camp troops at Nonsan a few years ago. He had surmised then that the fungi on the beddings, particularly in the dirty blankets and pillows were to blame, attacking the skins, particularly the necks of the soldiers. Having watched the sick soldiers then, now he had to take care of them.
Dano had to make a list of sick ammo men based on the triage and selection method. Of all the listed men in trouble, he had to select seven and make a convoy of them. When he reported the immediate personal convoy to the old man he balked at the idea. "You have to go through the channel of the decision-making process from the company to the regiment command," he declared.
“The condition of the patients is severe, sir" Corp. Dano said, "They need immediate care, sir! I'll convoy the men to Soodo Army Hospital myself, sir!"
"It's impossible. I understand that the army patients must be transported by ambulance," Captain Han gave Dano an annoying look.
"A city bus will do at times, sir!" Dano did not budge. The captain was finally convinced, saying "O.K. You may go ahead."
Dano and his company hit the road for Anyang early in the next morning at daybreak. The pedestrian travel to Anyang from the company compound and from there the bus trip on board Inter-city Bus No. 104 to Samchong-dong, Seoul City, took about one and a half hours.
There was a row at the entrance of the army hospital, though, over the army regulations or something whether to accept the convoy of the army patients by an enlisted medic. Dano excused the remoteness and isolation of an independent unit, and first of all things, the need for the immediate treatment of the diseases, for the omission of the inevitable procedures.
A receptionist disappeared into the hospital building and the next thing he knew, an officer and some soldiers materialized from the building to see what was going on. "You are Dano, aren't you?" a soldier shouted from the crowd, dashing toward him. "You are Changsoo!" Dano exclaimed with surprise, moving in the direction of a classmate of Andong Normal,"
Changsoo introduced Dano to a medical officer, saying "Meet Surgeon Lieutenant Kim who I work for. This is my classmate Dano, sir! A maverick, sir!" Dano saluted the army surgeon. "Very nice to meet you, sir!"
"What's so nice for you, medic?" Lt. Kim said, beaming.
"Because I know things will be going very smoothly here, sir!" Dano answered. Lt. Kim nodded approvingly. In the meantime, Changsoo did all the reception paper work for his school friend from afar, and showed Dano and his ailing foot soldiers inside the army hospital building. Surprisingly, Changsoo was not the only schoolmate. Five more medics, tipped by Changsoo, in freshly starched and ironed khaki military uniform and shiny shoes, mobbed around Dano in no time, greeting simply and touting their army hospital insignias.
A little while later at the waiting room, one patient after another was called into the treating room, with Dano watching the whole process for his later practice. The doctor made it sure that the patients could be treated from the hubalzzi disease with ease. The surgeon demonstrated a sophisticated dressing for the treatment of the infective part, or, the mass of pus in the neck.
Dano was astonished at the width and depth with which the skin lesion was developing. A whole length of the lieutenant's index finger was penetrating into the bottom of the lesion and a surprising part was that the young patients did not freak out or scream when the surgeon was draining out the pus golem.
They were so determined. After the pus draining was done, the disinfection powder was sprayed and the dressing part got sealed with antiseptic bandages. Finally, a penicillin type shot was performed on the poor buttocks, during which time the military surgeon casually recommended hostacillins which could be had at a civilian pharmacy to Dano if and when he would "handle" the hubalzzi patients at his Anyang Ammunition Camp.
After the whole process of treatment was done, and when they were parting, in memory of the unexpected encounter, the Samaritan medics collected a bagful of medicines, aids for dressing and small-sized medical appliances for Dano, a small bit each in amount, though. The kind-hearted surgeon went to great lengths to promise future welcomes for later visits for Dano and to reveal some procedural instructions for the treatment of the cervical plague. Medic Dano's escortees were buoyed both at what they were treated at a nice military medical facility on the highest level with good words of perfect healing from the doctors and in the manner with which their company medic was warmly received with an armful of presents from his friendly medics and medical doctors.
It was a triumphant return. The ammo camp troops sensed the feat of the medic and his party, looking at the expressions of glee on the faces of the returnees from the Soodo Army Hospital. Corporal Dano went to the company commander's office but the captain was not there. The ailing KGIs, who had been treated in no other place than the highest-ranking army hospital located in the capital of the country, on a rare occasion and with sincere care, were busy bragging about "our doc." He was so well connected to each and every department of the high army hospital that he was provided with various medical supplies, that they were and would be treated to their disease without much noise of red tapes. He was really different and would make difference in the future. In an instant, the atmosphere of die-hard hostility in the company barracks rooms shifted to that of warm amicability.
The following morning was the day of sea change. Inflated rumors indicating Dano's feats might have made rounds through the camp the previous night. which Dano thought was O.K. An unexpected episode after episode occurred. When he was standing in line for his morning chow, holding his tray in his hand, an ammo private approached him and took it for him. An HQ man took the trouble of arranging a cozy spot near the barracks room fireplace, which had not been in operation, for Dano to hit the sack.
But you had to get things done, which was what counted. The sick privates were transported to the army hospital and effectively treated. The medics and medical doctors of the army hospital in the capital city were as kind as ever. All the KGIs treated for the hubalzzi were amazed at the speed and completeness with which the ailment was cured. The atmosphere of the whole camp town turned bright.
-----------------
Routine messages containing parental cares and brotherly concerns were relayed late to Dano owing mostly to technicalities of the army postal service, touring places and shifting hands. His brother and sister said in their late letters that grandma Mrs. Euiseong Kim had made a grudging move to her oldest son's, which might have rendered her poor mother free of her nagging torments.
Dano was missing Spear Handle. After chores were done of dressing for treating scars and changing bandages, when Dano was left alone, with fresh air coming through the open window of the barracks, he was missing Spear Handle. The image of her always smiling and comforting her weeping sixth graders popped without warning.
Now and then some incidents on barracks humor proportions occurred to the enlisted men of low ranks. The predator in an army cop might have sensed the perfect target prey in sight, who appeared beleaguered. The poor private was given leave of absence, after having been treated for some disease with uncanny attributes, for the purchase of a unit of hostacillin for the last phase injection at a local drug store. (*It could be had at a pharmacy without prescription then.)
An MP vehicle on the routine patrol spotted a vulnerable prey on a leisurely stroll and approached him for a spot check. The ammo man fumbled for excuses, and failed to produce an apt document for his leave. Then the army cop put him on board the baikcha, or the "white car", and gave him a "free tour" of the local county capital for an indefinite span of time.
Private Ultari, abandoned at dusk on a deserted roadside after an unexplained ride, was pissed off enormously, tossing his medicine box into the air. Taken to task by the squadron chief for his failing to keep punctuality for the evening roll call, and getting nagged for the throwaway by Company Medic Dano, the poor soldier burst out crying. It was an unlucky day for him, after all.
It was a windy summer's day. More than one, all at once, it evoked a sentimental journey to the past, to the people, and to everything. At an instant the chilly noisy air whistled by rattling the barracks window, the company speaker system boomed out a message "paging Mr. Medical Soldier!", which sounded urgent. Dano, who had his dressing job done on several ammo men in the healing stage, got up from his seat on the floor, came out racing to the HQ office. A young man stranger in civilian clothes was waiting for him. "Come with me, Mr. Doctor!" he said with a quivering voice.
In hindsight, the bizarre encounter could not have taken place, and Dano should not have responded to the call. He should have stayed at the barracks room. He did not have to shift place. ((I am sorry, sir. I am not a doctor!) If and when a nearby civilian citizen had asked for a medical help, Dano should have refused to meet him in the first place.
Why? Because he was not a doctor who had been trained to do a serious medical job. In short, he should have realized the professional limits that he was a mere stretcher guy who had been trained to be a member of auxiliary personnel for the army doctors. But, alas, the ignorant and proud Dano did not say no to the caller, hitting the road for the house of a person alleged to be in trouble who was waiting for his medical aid, with the first-aid pack on his shoulder. Oh, boy!
He got to the place after 10 or so minutes' walk, a small tin-roofed house with the architectural mode of the hangul digut (ㄷ). Getting into the entrance, the escort informed to the room of Dano's arrival. The sarangbang (the room for the men) door opened. The apprehensive-looking folks got up to greet him. Entering, Dano found a frail-looking young man lying in the middle of the room surrounded by the man families and relatives, looking aimlessly at the ceiling.
"How and where" was what Dano wanted to know about. An old man sat down and pulled open the covering under which his groin was bared. But the surprising part was that his testicles were not those of an adult man but those of an ox. Dano's astonishing eyes were asking him about the cause of the weirdry by which the human testicles were swollen to the size as large as those of a bull.
The old man who looked to be the patriarch of the family introduced himself and "briefed" the situation for the visiting "doctor." The young patient was newly married so much so that the male members of the family, including his older brothers and uncles, reached a consensus that he needed a sort of stamina complementation with reptiley nutrition. In due process, he was made to drink duly cooked snake soup, which turned out what it looked like: a disaster.
You would have to take another path, turn around, or detour if the path had been an ill-chosen one. There might be just one way or the other for the human beings to correct their original mistakes or misjudgments. So Dano had to say to the head of the distressed family to the effect that he was not the one up to the task. Go see the doctor, please.
Even if he had turned and run, there shouldn't have been a person who would dare call him a coward. Dano nevertheless opted to keep going without hesitation. He opted to ignore any unexpected results or side effects of his action. Such uncertainties did not occur in his mind at all.
Ignorance was surely a bliss. His "medical" assessment was that the venom of the snake was clogging his penile gland or something, so anybody in the room would mind going to get an antidote injection?
While the errand man was pedaling his way to an Anyang pharmacy, Dano got his syringe sterilized in boiling water and prepared himself for the treatment. To look back, there was a last resort left for him to turn the situation around. It was a very dangerous attempt so he had to stop the treatment because he would be likely to kill a person. It was illegal, too.
He nevertheless went ahead with his own treatment process. In 30 minutes or so, the errand man arrived with the antidote bottle which Dano gave the patient lying on the room floor a shot in his buttocks. Reaction was slow to appear.
Suspenseful tension gripped the whole room. In one and a half hours, thick liquid of a small amount came out of the penis, and in two hours drop by drop of yellow liquid was oozing out of the poor organ. The patient, who had been suffering from shortness of breath, was beginning to breathe in normal cadence. In due passage of time, drops turned into the form of urinal shot, and the swollen testicles started restoring the original size. At an early night, Medic Corporal Dano returned to the ammo camp, with the remarks of reassurance shared. "Your son will have been all right until tomorrow morning."
At the Detention Barracks
16
At the Division Detention Barracks, 1965
The day was “not a bang but a whimper.” It had begun with a bang, of course, but ended up at a gaol. Immediately after the morning roll call, HQ Section Personnel Major Sergeant Bong announced with pride a company feast at the mountain valley of Hion Li, Kapyong County, one mile away from the company. "It will be a grand feast of porks and soju," the sergeant said. Under the command guidelines of Regiment Commander Colonel Kim, the medical company of the Seventh Regiment of the ROK Sixth Army Division raised pigs which would be consumed for a sort of nutritional supplementation. And it was the very day set for the whole company to enjoy a taste of the cooked pork and to allow its members the freedom of soju.
The air of the autumnal ethereal blue was crisp. The valley was long and deep whose creek bed was almost dry. Regiment Army Surgeon cum Company Commander Lt. Han got off the ambulance, with Administrating Officer Pang and his minions attending to the surgeon's leaving the passenger seat. The troops from the company kitchen helped erect a large cast iron pot to cook the pork and prepare the gourmet lunch. Major Sergeant Bong attended to the company commander and Sergeant So and So arranged the rest of the company troops to take their seats on the grass.
But hardly had the company troops made a first pick of the delicious meat dishes with their spoons and chopsticks with gusto when an army wireless phone beeped and paged the company commander, who relayed an urgent message that an emergency drill was issued by the division commander. On Sunday of all the days. Medic Corporal Dano and another medic Hoon Kwang, who had once been a ssirum wrestler, were ordered to go down to the 2nd Battalion HQ.
They did go wearing a medic armband and equipped with the first-aid kit but they did not join the roll call on the exercise gathering. They did it one better: The two soldiers during emergency exercise were actually knocked out in sound sleep on the barracks room of the HQ company. Finding the two medics detached to the battalion drill knocked out on the barracks room, Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Hong Minh was enraged. "Lock 'em up in the division detention house," he yelled at the medical company commander via army telephone.
The two medics were roughly awoken by a battalion cadre by whom a summons order from the medical company commander was relayed to them. They found out belatedly that they themselves had slept their way through the drill on the barracks room. Seeing them racing up toward the medical company, the administrative officer told them in not so loud but in subdued voice to appear in the company ground in full combat gear.
They did. They carried backpacks, but they did not carry rifles because the army medics had not been armed. The officer then delivered the order from the commander to the effect that the two negligent soldiers would be punished by the division commander on the grounds of the army service regulations.
They had to go through two stages of disciplines. The first stage of punishment would be carried out immediately and in their own camp ground, and the other in the division compound in the form of one week's detention for the culprits' behavior modification and correctional purposes. They had first of all to do punitively jogging ten rounds of the regiment camp ground far down the company, and in full combat gear, of course. "On what counts?" the officer replied, "On charges of the disobedience to a commanding order."
With the discipline of doing the double done, Sergeant Song, one of the five sergeant majors of the company, made sure that the two poor corporals would be ready to go to the 3rd Military Police Headquarters under the jurisdiction of the Army Sixth Division. He felt he had turned out a cattle farmer who would have to push his cattle to a slaughterhouse. So miserable. With the delivery procedure of the disciplined soldiers to the M.P. office done, Song got up from the seat. Turning around to Dano and Hoon, Sergeant Song said, "Sorry! I'll see ya soon." "Not at all, sir!" Dano and Hoon snapped to attention to salute.
The schedules of the detention house were nothing more than Dano and Hoon could stand. The seven arrivals before them were not harsh on the two new arrivals. They didn't act cold nor tough as rumored around the barracks. "Don't worry," one said, smiling. "Don't be afraid of anything," the other soothed them. They didn't try any initiation ceremony on them, which was unexpected and appreciative to a great degree. "You are supposed to keep things in memory, though" the one who looked to be the oldest and the highest-ranking said, pointing to the directives and notices posted on the wall. It was time for attention, for memory, and of reckoning.
-----------------
It was not the first time that Dano had experienced the police probe. Dano had been to the police station not long after from his high school graduation. Disappointed at the delay that his son should have been appointed as a teacher, Toung Doung had shown casual discomfiture despite himself. The delayed notification of Dano's appointment was owing to his own poor school performance, of course, by which he had barely graduated at the tail of his classmates. Not getting over the pressures, on one late spring afternoon, Dano had taken off, leaving his home on the sly, hitching a train ride at Euiseong Railroad Station to Busan.
The poor hitchrider was nabbed while hiding at a train lavatory at Soo Yeong, short of Busan, by a security officer on the train and taken to the Soo Yeong Police Station. "What a wrong time!" a middle-aged officer at the police station mildly reprimanded Dano for his ill-timed travel, taking a reproachful glance at him. The officer pointed to the slogans hanging on the walls of street buildings. "Down with the Gangsters!" a slogan said of the necessity of eliminating the street hoodlums. "Long Live the Revolution!" another slogan expressed its support for the May 16th Coup masterminded by Major General Park Jung Hee. "Free riders of the transit system could be mistaken for vagrants, who could be put into hard labor," he said, passing a decision on the reckless juvenile delinquent to "pay the default fees of the punitive charges to the Euiseong Police Station."
------------------
Two "revolutions" had taken place during and after Dano's school years at the interval of no more than one year. The initial revolution, the April 19 Revolution, had erupted on April 19, 1960, with high school students taking to the streets in the two southern parts of South Korea, Masan and Daegu, protesting against the ruling party's illegal voting practices of stuffing the ballot boxes for Candidate Syngman Rhee and with the university students and their professors organizing the mass demonstrations in the capital. The May 16 Revolution, which had been so named by the military itself, had taken place on the heels of the Students' Revolution, to remedy the anarchic chaos caused by the free-wheeling and irresponsible politicos.
Hardly had the students in Seoul succeeded in driving out the corrupt and dictatorial government and taken control of the street order when the students in provincial districts were running amok on the streets and their school grounds. The belatedly irate crowd of Andong mobbed the mansion of then Congressman Kim so and so of Liberal Party and set it on fire, destroying it.
The students of Andong Normal School went further. On a late spring day the class monitors convoked the school ground assembly, by alarming each other "Let's gather on the school ground!" A solemn atmosphere took over. Student Body President Tiang Huon presided the entire session in which all the students of 600 played jurors. He took a stand below the pulpit and, alas, was questioning the poor principal. School Principal Oh Hio on the pulpit responded to the insulting questions in an awkward and clumsy manner. In that public students' interrogations proceeded in a question- and- answer session, Principal Oh was "indicted and convicted." Mr. Oh, after a guilty plea, said, "People, I'll leave the school!"
----------------
Dano was notified of his late appointment on an autumn day of September, 1961, whereas his peer graduates with good marks had earlier been appointed in March that year. Dano's initial service at Nakdong Elementary School, Saangju County, at age 19, as a teacher was not impressive. He was greatly impressed by the locals, by their convivialities, hospitalities and by the students' gaiety,
The locals were extremely gentle. Many parents of the students dropped by the school whenever they went to the local bazaar and said hellos to the young teacher, most of them handing "a piece of their mind" out to Dano, in which a bottle of apple cider and a pack of rice cake was enveloped. Some locals, of whom the descendants of the Hanyang Cho clan were special, went to great lengths to invite the entire teaching staff, treating them to feasts. The senior teachers, of whom almost all the teachers were natives, were especially friendly, but Dano wasn't friendly in kind. The ending-pitched Saangju accent was good to hear and the landscape of Nakjong river ferry was dreamlike, too. but his classroom performances were not impressive, mostly clumsy and ineffective. He was a misfit, after all.
Despite his oft-repeated defaults on his boarding charges at Mr. Baik's and on the school text book fares for the following year which had resulted in the discomforts of the school children themselves, the encounter with Spear Handle was a great windfall during his young days. She was a sixth year student of the school who was medium height, slender, pretty and amiable.
Dano found her especially attractive, so attractive that he thought she would turn out to be a great woman companion befitting a great gentleman of an era. What had made her look so special was that she had not cried at the commencement ceremony that the rest of the girls had. She had rather been patting the backs of the peer students who had been crying, whispering soothing words to their ears. She had been the one and the only girl who had not acted according to the conventional idea that the female graduates had been supposed to cry, impressing and inspiring him enormously. But Spear Handle had remained another default on his own amorous journey.
It might have been a possessive thought that he had held. An obsession that he had to go to the army to get the bad habit of defaults done away with. He had not volunteered to serve the army, but he had been enlisted at the exact time of his military conscription. However, the self-inflicted motive was lofty, indeed, and the peer pressure was high that men should and could be reborn through the lives in the army barracks.
Contrary to his own anticipations, most of M1 rifle bullets on the firing range in the army boot camp of Nonsan had missed the target and he had almost always ended up at the tail of the file when his squadron had staged race competitions. Aside from the inferior performance at the Nonsan army boot camp, his performance ratings at Masan Army Medical School in the summer period of 1963 had been widely rumored, at the school, to be brilliant, but ended up outdone in the deployment assessment board.
Dano hadn't harbored any pent-up grudges toward the assessment board of the medical school, not envied peer medics their opportunities to serve in the army hospitals, either. Getting on board the truck heading the Third Reinforcement Battalion with the other co-graduates, he had been full of new expectations. In due course, he had been deployed, with the seven other co-enlisted men from Euiseong, at the medical company of the 7th regiment, the Sixth Army Division. of whom two had had placements at the company dispensary and pharmacy, whereas Dano had become a medical squadron member. The barracks life at the front had been so boring to the extent that some higher-ups at the barracks room had had the urges to inflame the idle buttocks of the lower-ranking soldiers engaged in reading books or chatting gaily. The outdoor details had comprised the rest of the barracks routines.
At the Division Detention Barracks, 1965
The day was “not a bang but a whimper.” It had begun with a bang, of course, but ended up at a gaol. Immediately after the morning roll call, HQ Section Personnel Major Sergeant Bong announced with pride a company feast at the mountain valley of Hion Li, Kapyong County, one mile away from the company. "It will be a grand feast of porks and soju," the sergeant said. Under the command guidelines of Regiment Commander Colonel Kim, the medical company of the Seventh Regiment of the ROK Sixth Army Division raised pigs which would be consumed for a sort of nutritional supplementation. And it was the very day set for the whole company to enjoy a taste of the cooked pork and to allow its members the freedom of soju.
The air of the autumnal ethereal blue was crisp. The valley was long and deep whose creek bed was almost dry. Regiment Army Surgeon cum Company Commander Lt. Han got off the ambulance, with Administrating Officer Pang and his minions attending to the surgeon's leaving the passenger seat. The troops from the company kitchen helped erect a large cast iron pot to cook the pork and prepare the gourmet lunch. Major Sergeant Bong attended to the company commander and Sergeant So and So arranged the rest of the company troops to take their seats on the grass.
But hardly had the company troops made a first pick of the delicious meat dishes with their spoons and chopsticks with gusto when an army wireless phone beeped and paged the company commander, who relayed an urgent message that an emergency drill was issued by the division commander. On Sunday of all the days. Medic Corporal Dano and another medic Hoon Kwang, who had once been a ssirum wrestler, were ordered to go down to the 2nd Battalion HQ.
They did go wearing a medic armband and equipped with the first-aid kit but they did not join the roll call on the exercise gathering. They did it one better: The two soldiers during emergency exercise were actually knocked out in sound sleep on the barracks room of the HQ company. Finding the two medics detached to the battalion drill knocked out on the barracks room, Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Hong Minh was enraged. "Lock 'em up in the division detention house," he yelled at the medical company commander via army telephone.
The two medics were roughly awoken by a battalion cadre by whom a summons order from the medical company commander was relayed to them. They found out belatedly that they themselves had slept their way through the drill on the barracks room. Seeing them racing up toward the medical company, the administrative officer told them in not so loud but in subdued voice to appear in the company ground in full combat gear.
They did. They carried backpacks, but they did not carry rifles because the army medics had not been armed. The officer then delivered the order from the commander to the effect that the two negligent soldiers would be punished by the division commander on the grounds of the army service regulations.
They had to go through two stages of disciplines. The first stage of punishment would be carried out immediately and in their own camp ground, and the other in the division compound in the form of one week's detention for the culprits' behavior modification and correctional purposes. They had first of all to do punitively jogging ten rounds of the regiment camp ground far down the company, and in full combat gear, of course. "On what counts?" the officer replied, "On charges of the disobedience to a commanding order."
With the discipline of doing the double done, Sergeant Song, one of the five sergeant majors of the company, made sure that the two poor corporals would be ready to go to the 3rd Military Police Headquarters under the jurisdiction of the Army Sixth Division. He felt he had turned out a cattle farmer who would have to push his cattle to a slaughterhouse. So miserable. With the delivery procedure of the disciplined soldiers to the M.P. office done, Song got up from the seat. Turning around to Dano and Hoon, Sergeant Song said, "Sorry! I'll see ya soon." "Not at all, sir!" Dano and Hoon snapped to attention to salute.
The schedules of the detention house were nothing more than Dano and Hoon could stand. The seven arrivals before them were not harsh on the two new arrivals. They didn't act cold nor tough as rumored around the barracks. "Don't worry," one said, smiling. "Don't be afraid of anything," the other soothed them. They didn't try any initiation ceremony on them, which was unexpected and appreciative to a great degree. "You are supposed to keep things in memory, though" the one who looked to be the oldest and the highest-ranking said, pointing to the directives and notices posted on the wall. It was time for attention, for memory, and of reckoning.
-----------------
It was not the first time that Dano had experienced the police probe. Dano had been to the police station not long after from his high school graduation. Disappointed at the delay that his son should have been appointed as a teacher, Toung Doung had shown casual discomfiture despite himself. The delayed notification of Dano's appointment was owing to his own poor school performance, of course, by which he had barely graduated at the tail of his classmates. Not getting over the pressures, on one late spring afternoon, Dano had taken off, leaving his home on the sly, hitching a train ride at Euiseong Railroad Station to Busan.
The poor hitchrider was nabbed while hiding at a train lavatory at Soo Yeong, short of Busan, by a security officer on the train and taken to the Soo Yeong Police Station. "What a wrong time!" a middle-aged officer at the police station mildly reprimanded Dano for his ill-timed travel, taking a reproachful glance at him. The officer pointed to the slogans hanging on the walls of street buildings. "Down with the Gangsters!" a slogan said of the necessity of eliminating the street hoodlums. "Long Live the Revolution!" another slogan expressed its support for the May 16th Coup masterminded by Major General Park Jung Hee. "Free riders of the transit system could be mistaken for vagrants, who could be put into hard labor," he said, passing a decision on the reckless juvenile delinquent to "pay the default fees of the punitive charges to the Euiseong Police Station."
------------------
Two "revolutions" had taken place during and after Dano's school years at the interval of no more than one year. The initial revolution, the April 19 Revolution, had erupted on April 19, 1960, with high school students taking to the streets in the two southern parts of South Korea, Masan and Daegu, protesting against the ruling party's illegal voting practices of stuffing the ballot boxes for Candidate Syngman Rhee and with the university students and their professors organizing the mass demonstrations in the capital. The May 16 Revolution, which had been so named by the military itself, had taken place on the heels of the Students' Revolution, to remedy the anarchic chaos caused by the free-wheeling and irresponsible politicos.
Hardly had the students in Seoul succeeded in driving out the corrupt and dictatorial government and taken control of the street order when the students in provincial districts were running amok on the streets and their school grounds. The belatedly irate crowd of Andong mobbed the mansion of then Congressman Kim so and so of Liberal Party and set it on fire, destroying it.
The students of Andong Normal School went further. On a late spring day the class monitors convoked the school ground assembly, by alarming each other "Let's gather on the school ground!" A solemn atmosphere took over. Student Body President Tiang Huon presided the entire session in which all the students of 600 played jurors. He took a stand below the pulpit and, alas, was questioning the poor principal. School Principal Oh Hio on the pulpit responded to the insulting questions in an awkward and clumsy manner. In that public students' interrogations proceeded in a question- and- answer session, Principal Oh was "indicted and convicted." Mr. Oh, after a guilty plea, said, "People, I'll leave the school!"
----------------
Dano was notified of his late appointment on an autumn day of September, 1961, whereas his peer graduates with good marks had earlier been appointed in March that year. Dano's initial service at Nakdong Elementary School, Saangju County, at age 19, as a teacher was not impressive. He was greatly impressed by the locals, by their convivialities, hospitalities and by the students' gaiety,
The locals were extremely gentle. Many parents of the students dropped by the school whenever they went to the local bazaar and said hellos to the young teacher, most of them handing "a piece of their mind" out to Dano, in which a bottle of apple cider and a pack of rice cake was enveloped. Some locals, of whom the descendants of the Hanyang Cho clan were special, went to great lengths to invite the entire teaching staff, treating them to feasts. The senior teachers, of whom almost all the teachers were natives, were especially friendly, but Dano wasn't friendly in kind. The ending-pitched Saangju accent was good to hear and the landscape of Nakjong river ferry was dreamlike, too. but his classroom performances were not impressive, mostly clumsy and ineffective. He was a misfit, after all.
Despite his oft-repeated defaults on his boarding charges at Mr. Baik's and on the school text book fares for the following year which had resulted in the discomforts of the school children themselves, the encounter with Spear Handle was a great windfall during his young days. She was a sixth year student of the school who was medium height, slender, pretty and amiable.
Dano found her especially attractive, so attractive that he thought she would turn out to be a great woman companion befitting a great gentleman of an era. What had made her look so special was that she had not cried at the commencement ceremony that the rest of the girls had. She had rather been patting the backs of the peer students who had been crying, whispering soothing words to their ears. She had been the one and the only girl who had not acted according to the conventional idea that the female graduates had been supposed to cry, impressing and inspiring him enormously. But Spear Handle had remained another default on his own amorous journey.
It might have been a possessive thought that he had held. An obsession that he had to go to the army to get the bad habit of defaults done away with. He had not volunteered to serve the army, but he had been enlisted at the exact time of his military conscription. However, the self-inflicted motive was lofty, indeed, and the peer pressure was high that men should and could be reborn through the lives in the army barracks.
Contrary to his own anticipations, most of M1 rifle bullets on the firing range in the army boot camp of Nonsan had missed the target and he had almost always ended up at the tail of the file when his squadron had staged race competitions. Aside from the inferior performance at the Nonsan army boot camp, his performance ratings at Masan Army Medical School in the summer period of 1963 had been widely rumored, at the school, to be brilliant, but ended up outdone in the deployment assessment board.
Dano hadn't harbored any pent-up grudges toward the assessment board of the medical school, not envied peer medics their opportunities to serve in the army hospitals, either. Getting on board the truck heading the Third Reinforcement Battalion with the other co-graduates, he had been full of new expectations. In due course, he had been deployed, with the seven other co-enlisted men from Euiseong, at the medical company of the 7th regiment, the Sixth Army Division. of whom two had had placements at the company dispensary and pharmacy, whereas Dano had become a medical squadron member. The barracks life at the front had been so boring to the extent that some higher-ups at the barracks room had had the urges to inflame the idle buttocks of the lower-ranking soldiers engaged in reading books or chatting gaily. The outdoor details had comprised the rest of the barracks routines.
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