Mi-ja and her father had also owned a radio. She said it was a box with voices coming out of it, made in Japan. I couldn’t imagine that either. And it confused me to think that the cloven-footed ones could have so many marvelous creations.
She talked about her father’s car—car!—and how he drove all over the island on roads that the Japanese had built, when all I had ever seen were pony-pulled carts and the occasional truck that came to our village to pick up haenyeo for leaving-home water-work in other countries. “Father managed road construction crews for the Japanese,” Mi-ja explained. “With his help, they connected the four parts of the island for the first time!”
All I knew was Hado.
“My father was well respected,” she told me. “He loved me. He took care of me. He bought me toys and pretty clothes.”
“And he fed you.” I egged her on, because I loved to hear about all the dishes she’d eaten that I’d never tasted—buckwheat noodles with pheasant or spiced and grilled horsemeat from the mid-mountain area. To a little girl who had only tasted pig meat and sea creatures, it all sounded preposterous but delicious. And then there was sugar . . .
“Imagine eating something that makes you smile so hard your face aches. That’s what it’s like to eat candy, ice cream, and pastries, or wagashi and anmitsu.”
But when would I ever have a Western or Japanese dessert? Never.
In Jeju City, Mi-ja had “playmates,” which were another thing I could not comprehend, not even when she described tag and hide and go seek. Who had interest in games that weren’t teaching you something practical like how to dive for top shell or gather seaweed? It was hard to imagine, as well, living in a house with its own attached garden with fruit trees and a pond in which the servants raised fish for the household, making it an impossibility that Mi-ja could ever go hungry.
Mi-ja was aware of all she’d lost, so while talking about her past was fun for me, sometimes it made her feel low. That’s when I would suggest she bring out her father’s book. We’d sit side by side, turning the pages. It was a manual that her father had used in his travels around the island. In the beginning, Mi-ja could still remember the meaning of a character here and there—oil, east, road, mountain, bridge—but as the months passed, with no one to remind her, her ability to read waned. Still, there was something mysterious, magical even, about the characters on the page, and she liked to run a finger down a vertical line and “read” to me stories of goddesses and mothers that she made up.
The saying You aren’t aware your clothes are getting wet in the rain suggests a gradual change and can be interpreted in two ways, one positive, the other negative. A positive story might involve friendship, which grows over time. First you are acquaintances, then friends, then a closer relationship develops, until you realize that you love each other. A darker example might be about a criminal. A person steals a small thing, then a larger thing, until finally he’s become a thief. The point is, you’re not aware just how wet you’re getting when the drizzle starts. Unlike most people, though, Mi-ja and I had physical proof that we were growing closer, because, as she had said on that first day, we were capturing moments with our rubbings. As precious as her father’s book was to her, she was never shy about ripping out one of the pages so we could make a rubbing together. One of us would hold the piece of paper and the other would rub the lump of coal over it so we could capture the ridged outline of a shell won in a swimming contest, the pattern of the wooden door to my house the first time she was allowed to spend the night, the surface of her first tewak, which Mother made for her, as though she were an actual daughter.
* * *
When we turned nine, the haenyeo of Hado helped plan an island-wide anti-Japanese demonstration. Mother had started attending the Hado Night School. As far as I could tell, she didn’t acquire much in the way of reading or writing, but she and her friends learned how to weigh their catches so they wouldn’t be cheated. She also learned about her rights. Inspired by a young male teacher—an intellectual and a leftist, Mother called him—a group of five haenyeo banded together to fight against rules that were being forced upon women divers by the Japanese. My mother wasn’t part of that core group, but she repeated what she’d picked up from them.
“The Japanese don’t pay us a fair price. They take too high a percentage for themselves. Forty percent! How are we supposed to live with that? And some of their officials—collaborators—sneak our harvest of agar-agar through Jeju City’s port for their own gain.”
Collaborators. Mi-ja shrunk into herself, pulling her shoulders up around her ears. Mother put a hand on the nape of Mi-ja’s neck to reassure her.
“Resist,” she went on. “We have to resist.”
News passed from one woman’s mouth to another woman’s ear, from one collective to the next, all around the island. Hearing so many complaints, the Japanese said they would make changes.
“Except they lied to us!” Mother spat out. “Months have gone by—”
Grandmother, who hated the Japanese more than anyone I knew, warned, “You must be careful.”
But it was too late for that, because a plan had already been set. On a morning when the village of Sehwa held its five-day market, the haenyeo from Hado would march to the market, where they would gather even more haenyeo. From there, they would continue on to the district office in Pyeongdae to present their demands. Everyone was excited but nervous too, because no one could guess how the Japanese would respond.
The night before the march, Mi-ja stayed at our house. It was early January and too cold to be outside gazing at stars, but Father had taken Third Brother out to see if he could walk him to sleep. Mother asked us to join her and Grandmother in the main room.
“Do you want to come tomorrow?” Mother asked me.
“Yes! Please!” I was thrilled to be asked.
Mi-ja kept her eyes cast down. Mother liked Mi-ja and had done many things for her, but maybe an invitation to an anti-Japanese rally was too much to expect.
“I spoke to your aunt,” Mother informed Mi-ja. “What a disagreeable woman.”
Mi-ja looked up, pathetically hopeful.
“I told her that if you accompany us it might do much to bleach the stain you carry of your father’s past actions,” Mother went on.
“Ieeee,” Mi-ja squealed with joy.
“Then all is settled. Now listen to Grandmother.”
Mi-ja nestled next to me. Grandmother often told us stories she’d heard from her grandmother, who’d heard from her grandmother, and so on. It was through her that we learned about the past but also about what was happening in the world around us. Mother must have wanted to remind us of some of these things before the march.
“In the long-ago days,” Grandmother began, “three brothers—Ko, Bu, and Yang—bubbled out of the earth to become the founders of Jeju. They worked hard, but they were lonely. One day, three sisters—all princesses—arrived in a boat heavy with horses, cattle, and the five seed grains, which had been given to them by Halmang Jacheongbi, the goddess of love. Together, these three couples created the Kingdom of Tamna, which lasted one thousand years.”
“Tamna means ‘Island Country,’?” Mi-ja recited, showing how much she’d absorbed from past tellings.
“Our Tamna ancestors were seafarers,” Grandmother continued. “They traded with other countries. By always looking outward, they taught us to be independent. They gave us our language—”