KOREAN LITERATURE CORNER - JAN. 2025
Korean Refugees crossing a frozen river in 1950
Crossing the 38th Parrallel in 1948
By Joshua Kim
What is so special about the Korean American diaspora… How we are where we are is a wondrous, frightening, awe-inspiring thing. My grandfather escaped North Korea in 1948, sneaking across the 38th parallel to the South. He arrived in Seattle, WA in 1964 with $100 in his pocket. He met my grandmother a year later in St Louis, MO. They had my father in 1969 in Bryan, TX. So much could have happened across that time. Any small change and I don’t exist. When we Korean-Americans look back on our families’ histories, we all have these stories. Stories of turmoil and travel and triumph. A theme of perseverance exists amongst the Korean people and the peninsula. Korea is an old country which has gone through near constant change and been smacked with unbelievable horrors, yet still it perseveres with its people all seeking to build better futures and continue on.
My grandfather’s story is just one of countless incredible tales of the diaspora. I’m finishing the second draft of a play inspired by it and I’d like to share a monologue. In it, the character HL reflects on his life with God in front of heaven’s gates.
“August 31, 1948. Date clearer now than my birthday. Warm, shining sun. Seems stories like this tend to happen in the dark and rain and muck but not this one.
I was fifteen, same age as kids when they had the big community concert. I remember that one because my son was so good that a neighbor asked him for the autograph at the end. My son did not know what to do, heuheu, he dropped the marker the first time he was shaking from nerves. My daughter was good too. Maybe I should have told her. But I like that memory. I like they were playing music then.
I was fifteen and alone and walking the shore of the Yellow Sea. In Haeju, my cousin hired a guide to get me across the 38th to safety. To make sure guide did his job, cousin broke this spoon in two. He gave me one half and the guide the other. I scratched it right here. Once guide showed me the way, I would give him my half and the guide would take the full spoon to cousin for pay. Gamsahamnida sachon hyeong.
Big hole here: maybe guide kills me at the beach and takes my half and brings it to cousin and still gets pay. But I did not have a choice. Now or never. We had to trust. I went with him, carrying fishing poles and baskets, undercover as fishermen finding the best fishing spot. We walk the beach. I am amazed we never see a guard that day. Was that your doing? Then we stop and guide points the path to the South. I give him my spoon half. He thanks me and goes north. I go south and cross a stream near the shore.
Fifteen, warm air, shining sun, no one else. I walk across the 38th like you walk from one side of the cornfield to the other - just if the field had mines and death for miles. I made it across border and snuck on a train to Seoul. A few months later my father escaped from the same route and found me. My mother and sisters though met up with us easy. They just walked down the road. Communists not stop women traveling to the South. Guess they did not think the women were worth keeping.”
