GO!
by
Kazuki Kaneshiro
translated by Paul
Sminkey
INTRODUCTION:
Kazuki Kaneshiro won the Naoki Prize for this highly entertaining
novel about the attempts of a young Korean-Japanese to adjust to
mainstream Japanese society after entering a Japanese high school.
Through the witty commentary of Sugihara, the protagonist,
GO condemns the various forms of discrimination that ethnic
Koreans living in Japan encounter.
What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
—Romeo and Juliet
1
“Hawaii?”
I was fourteen years old the first time my old man used that word
in front of me. We were watching some New Year’s special
where these three sexy actresses head to Hawaii and keep calling
out excitedly : “How beautiful! How delicious! How great it
feels!” I should mention that in our house Hawaii had always
been referred to as the “symbol of corrupt
capitalism.”
My old man was fifty-four at the time and held North Korean
citizenship. A communist and follower of Marx, he was what is
referred to in Japan as a zainichi chousenjin, or North
Korean resident of Japan.
Let me make this clear, though. This is a story about a love affair
I had, and communism—or democracy, capitalism, pacifism,
Epicureanism, vegetarianism, or any other -ism for that
matter—has nothing to do with it. Just wanted to make that
clear.
So anyway, when my old man mentioned Hawaii for the first time, my
old lady, who also had North Korean citizenship, pumped her fist in
victory. As she told me later, “It was his old age that did
him in.”
We were hit by quite a cold spell that year, and I guess his
fifty-four-year-old body really felt it: he was incessantly moaning
about his arthritis and rubbing his joints. He was born and spent
his childhood in the mild climate of Cheju, an island below the
South Korean mainland that has, by the way, proclaimed itself the
“Hawaii of the Orient.”
My old lady, on the other hand, was born and raised in Japan. She
was nineteen when my old man picked her up in the Ameyoko section
of Okachimachi in Tokyo, and she gave birth to me when she was
twenty. She didn’t miss a beat when my old man tumbled on
this Hawaii issue. Quick as a flash, she was shoving him
along.
“The Berlin Wall fell, and now the Soviet Union doesn’t
exist. Why on TV the other day they were saying that it collapsed
because of the cold. The cold freezes people’s minds, you
know, and it even freezes ideology.” She sounded so pathetic
that I thought she was gonna start singing the Russian blues.
My old man listened to her words with his head down, and when he
raised his head to look at the television again, there were those
three sexy actresses, now all of a sudden in bathing suits, calling
to him in their sultry voices: “Aloha!”
“Aloha,” he answered.
It was a death moan. He gave a long, deep sigh—and
fell.
After falling, and getting up again, he acted quickly and decisively. As soon as the New Year’s holidays were over, he initiated procedures to change his nationality from North Korea to South Korea, just so that he’d be able to go to Hawaii.
I guess I need to explain. Why did my old man, who was born in Cheju, have North Korean citizenship? And why did he have to change his citizenship to South Korea in order to go to Hawaii? It’s a tedious story, so I’ll try to keep it short. I’ll try to mix in some humor, but don’t count on it.
When my old man was a child—during World War II—he was “Japanese.” The reason for this was simple: long ago, Korea was a Japanese colony. Forced to take a Japanese name, to become a Japanese citizen, and to speak the Japanese language, he was also destined to fight as a soldier on behalf of the Emperor of Japan. When he was a child, his parents were commandeered to work at a munitions factory in Japan, so he came to Japan with them. When the war ended, and Japan was defeated, he stopped being “Japanese” and as an extra bonus, the Japanese government told him that “now that we’re done with you, get the hell out of the country.” He frantically worried about what to do, but before he knew it, the Korean peninsula had been divided into North and South over the conflicting aspirations of the United States and the Soviet Union. He was allowed to stay in Japan but was compelled to choose one nationality. He opted for North Korea because it professed to be Marxist, which supposedly meant it would be kind to the poor, and also because it showed more concern for Koreans living in Japan. So that’s how my old man became a North Korean resident of Japan.
He had acquired that second nationality at a young age, and now that he was older, he was trying to get a third nationality so that he could go to Hawaii. The necessity of this was obvious: since North Korea didn’t have diplomatic relations with the United States, it would be impossible to get a visa. North Korean residents of Japan, by the way, are extremely limited in where they can travel because of North Korea’s lack of diplomatic relations with other countries. It has recently become possible—if you have a lot of time—to get a visa from some countries, but it’s impossible to predict how long it will drag on, and the red tape is a headache.
The first thing my old man did to get his new citizenship was appeal to a Mindan leader. I need to make another tedious explanation, and I doubt I’ll be able to make this sound interesting either.
In Japan, there are in effect two Korean-affiliated support groups, Chongryun and Mindan, and as a general rule, those with North Korean citizenship congregate to Chongryun, and those with South Korean citizenship, to Mindan. The two groups unavoidably reflect the relationship between the North and South, so they’re like the houses of Montagues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet, sometimes having little run-ins, but generally keeping their distance in their mutual animosity. You remember how Romeo and Juliet ended, don’t you?
Long ago, my old man really busted his butt working for Chongryun. He spent all his free time fighting for the rights of his comrades, other North Korean residents of Japan, and he contributed huge sums of money, which he was told was for the sound management of the organization. And yet, he didn’t get a thing for his time and money. I won’t go into the details, but after a long association with the organization, he realized that Chongryun was mostly concerned with North Korea and wasn’t really interested in the affairs of Koreans in Japan. And just when he was feeling disappointed in North Korea and Chongryun, the gravitational pull of Hawaii sucked him in.
So anyway, the first thing he did to get South Korean citizenship was consult with an acquaintance who was a leader in Mindan. This leader was the same guy who had come to my old man when he was still intensely involved in Chongryun activities and offered him the rather exciting prospect of becoming their spy. Of course, my old man refused—supposedly.
In order to get South Korean citizenship, you can just go to the South Korean embassy, fill out all the proper documents, and then wait for the results of your application, but the time it takes varies considerably from person to person. In the case of someone who had “traitorous tendencies,” such as being heavily involved in Chongryun activities, and who was a Marxist to boot, there was no telling how long the application might take, or even whether it would be processed at all. No doubt, my old man was nervous about those possibilities.
By maneuvering with the Mindan leader, he managed to get his application taken care of without any hitches, in a mere two months. That must be the all-time record for a Chongryun activist and Marxist. So what did he have to do? Simple. He bribed the guy with a huge—and I mean really huge—amount of money.
And so, with superb execution, he acquired his third nationality. The fact didn’t seem to faze him at all, though, and he sometimes joked to me, “You can buy a nationality, you know. So what country do you wanna buy?”
At this point, he should’ve been able to fly off to his Hawaiian dreamland, but he still had one more thing to do first: send a truck to his brother, who lived in North Korea. Which brings me to my last tedious explanation. And there’s no way in hell I’m gonna be able to make this one interesting.
My old man had a younger brother who had come to Japan with the family when he was a boy. This brother—in other words, my uncle—returned to North Korea from Japan during the “repatriation campaign” that had begun in the late 1950’s. Koreans in Japan were told that North Korea was a wonderful place, a “paradise on earth,” and that they should throw off their chains, go back to North Korea, and help in the struggle to rebuild the country. Most Koreans had a vague suspicion that like most “campaigns,” this was rather bogus, but thinking it might be better than Japan, where they faced discrimination and poverty, many went anyway. My uncle was among them.
I still remember the first letter we received from him long ago. In beautifullywritten Japanese characters, he wrote: “Send as much penicillin and as many Casio digital clocks as possible. I desperately need your help.”
Having suddenly changed his nationality to South Korea, and thereby betraying Chongryun, my old man couldn’t help but worry about my uncle, who was in North Korea. My old man had never once been to North Korea, and now that he had changed his nationality, there was little chance that he ever would. This meant that he’d never be able to see my uncle again. And they were both getting old.
He got together a huge—and I mean really huge—amount of money, bought a three-ton truck, and sent it off to North Korea. My uncle had written in one of his letters that if he had truck, he’d be able to become the head of the local neighborhood association or something. Along with the truck, my old man sent a letter, explaining that he had changed his nationality. We never heard from my uncle again.
Just after I entered my final year of junior high school, my old man flew off to Hawaii with my now South Korean mother. So now in the entranceway of our house, we’re stuck with this huge photo of a beautiful young Hawaiian woman in a straw skirt draping a hibiscus lei over my old man’s head. As she kisses him on the cheek, he’s grinning from ear to ear and waving—with both hands. What a jerk!
What about me? Yes, I can finally tell you about me. This isn’t after all my parent’s story—it’s mine.
I didn’t go to Hawaii.
Why?
Well, since both of my parents are Korean, I automatically became a zainichi chousenjin with North Korean citizenship, and as long as I can remember, I was taught that Hawaii was the “symbol of corrupt capitalism.” I was surrounded with books by or about Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Che Guevara, and the like, and before I knew it, I was attending a Chongryun-run Korean school, where I was taught that America was an outandout enemy.
Which is not to say that I was under the influence of communist ideas. I could give a shit about North Korea, Marx, Chongryun, Korean schools, or America. I just dealt with my surroundings—over which I had no choice—as best I could. But since those surroundings made no sense at all, it was only natural that I became a screwed up punk. It would’ve been a surprise if I didn’t, don’t you think?
That’s why I rebelled against my old man when he decided to get South Korean citizenship. It wasn’t that I had any hang-ups about changing my citizenship. It was that I had no intention of tumbling over such a silly thing.
One day, towards the end of spring break of my second year of junior high school, my old man dragged me into the car. I asked him where we were going, but he wouldn’t tell me. He just sat at the wheel in silence and drove in the direction of Kanagawa. I thought he was gonna kill me. He was a former lightweight boxer and even had an official ranking. He’s the type of guy that talks with his fist. Since I was a punk who’d been hauled in by the police a few times, he had already beaten me half to death several times. I was still plotting how I could jump out of the car and make my escape when we arrived at our destination: Shonan Beach.
“Come with me,” he said, after pulling over to the side of the road. He started walking towards the ocean. For a split second, I pictured him holding my head under the water as I struggled not to drown, but looking at him from behind, I didn’t get the feeling that he wanted to kill me. I figured that for the time being I’d go and see what this was all about.
Not paying any attention to me, he strode to the beach and plopped himself down where he could look at the ocean. I sat down next to him, being careful to keep out of his reach. Of course, I sat to his right. Yeh, you guessed it: he’s a southpaw.
He sat in silence and gazed vaguely at the ocean as the sun set on this early spring day. I was checking out a teenage girl who was taking her golden retriever for a walk. She was pretty cute, and when our eyes met, she gave me a little smile. I was just about to flash her a little smile in return when I sensed a murderous rage to my left. I cursed myself for my carelessness. Before I knew it, his hand was flying towards me, and just when I was thinking I was dead, he gave my head a little shove.
“You’re supposed to be looking at the ocean.”
I had narrowly escaped with my life, so I figured I’d do what he wanted and turned my gaze to the sea. After a few minutes passed, he mumbled to himself, “Yeh, I should’ve chosen a better spot.” Then he turned and stared at me. I was terrified. He looked incredibly serious, and the two-inchlong scar at the corner of his eye from his boxing days had turned red. I gave him a little smile, hoping to loosen things up, and he said in a very distinct voice, “The world’s a big place. From here on out, you’re on your own.”
That was it. After he said his peace, he got right up and walked back to the car.
I didn’t think he was corny. I was a screwed up punk, but I was also a romantic. Hearing about the world being a “big place” really got me worked up.
I sat there on the beach for a while and continued looking at the ocean. The sea was so spacious, wide, and vast. The sun sinks down, the moon comes fast. Raise high the sails and raise the mast. I yearn to go so far at last.
And with that children’s song ringing in my ears, I fell. It wasn’t just that I was taken in by his corny little performance. There was another reason: I had grown up in a closed environment over which I had no say, and for the first time in my life, I had a choice. North Korea? Or South Korea? It wasn’t much of one, but I had the right to choose. For the first time in my life, I had been treated as a human being.
I agreed to changing my nationality to South Korea, but I refused to go to Hawaii, and I asked my old man if I could use the travel money for something else.
“What are you gonna use it for?” he asked.
I gave him a straight answer.
“I’m gonna try to get into a Japanese high school.”
Most students that start at the Korean schools move up as if on a conveyor belt to a Korean high school and a Korean college.
“What’s the story, all of a sudden?”
All of a sudden I had changed from being a North Korean to being a South Korean, but I hadn’t changed at all. Nothing changed, and I was bored. But I realized that I now had innumerable choices in front of me.
I gave him a straight answer again.
“The world’s a big place, and I wanna see it.”
He gave an odd smile, like he was both happy and annoyed, and said, “Suit yourself.”
And that’s how I had stopped being a North Korean resident of Japan, escaped from the cramped circle of Korean schooling, and dove into the “big world.” It was a truly harsh choice that I had made.
The rock star Bruce Springsteen was raised in a poor, working-class family, and in “Born in the USA,” he sings:
Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U. S. A.
I was born in the U. S. A.
I was born in the U. S. A.
Bruce Springsteen must’ve been through a lot. I was raised in a rather wealthy family, but I can very much relate to how he feels. I’d sing the song like this:
Born down in a rich man's land
Did some bad things and got kicked by my old man
Spent most of my life living without much fear
But I blink and I end up like a dog that's beat
Born in Japan
I was born in Japan
I was born in Japan
That’s right. I was born in Japan.
GO!
Chapter 5
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