2
Father was Chinese on his mother's side and he would often speak of the miraculous accomplishments of the great Chinese people. He said, more than once, that they were among the most blessed and privileged of nations. Sometimes he would go on and on for what seemed like hours about it, too.
I used to get uncomfortable and wished he would lower his voice. Our walls were thin in Wonsan and school taught us that this kind of talk was treason, even from your parents. Especially from your parents. Every screen was two-way and you never knew if someone was watching.
China was technically our friend, it was true, but Teacher said the Dear Leader would know if you didn't pay proper respect to the glories of the Homeland, and he could get very cross with you if he found out.
Father scoffed when I told him. He said being polite to your neighbor didn't make us any less a great people, and that made sense to me, but I was just a child.
It was true that the world looked up to China back then. For one thing, China was a leader in the space sciences, which so interested Father. Even our little Korea had plans to put people in space, but China already had dozens of astronauts — yuhangyuans — in orbit and on the Moon. There was a small base on Mars, too, being built by robots, and bigger stations, the ring cities, were planned.
The West had seemed to lose interest. Once, in a long speech they screened for us in school, our Dear Leader carefully explained how the spoiled Americans and the snobby Europeans and even the cursed Japanese had long since run out of money and popular will to keep up the pretense of space exploration. Then he grew loud and angry.
"One lost space station, a few dead astronauts and their entire space industry collapsed! What did they know about sacrifice in the name of the People?" He nearly shouted it.
He knew his people would endure any sacrifice asked of them. We had no choice.
"Instead," he continued, "they settle for a few aging telescopes and the occasional robot launched to some moon in a distant part of the Solar System, while the great and glorious Korean People are destined to conquer the very planets themselves!"
So said our Dear Leader.
The video ended with a rising cheer in the background, recorded from some long-forgotten celebration, no doubt. The great Patriotic Song, Aegukka, played by an unseen orchestra, soared as the screen blended into red, blue and white bars. The red star in a white circle floated above, then blended into, the rippling colors. I was always moved by the sight of that flag, and I remember feeling a chill of pride.
As far as I knew, we never actually launched any people into space. Father would have told me. He told me everything. He worked for the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea Space Agency and helped design and test our defensive missile system. He oversaw the launch of many kinds of military rockets and worked closely with Chinese engineers, who came to offer guidance.
All for peace and progress, of course.
Once, when he was in a particularly generous mood, Father confided in me. I think he may have been drinking. Was it on the New Year? I can't remember. He said his real love was artificial intelligence. I had no idea what that was, then, but I knew it must have been important because Father liked to dream big.
Looking back, we led a relatively luxurious life. For Koreans.
I attended the Kim Jong Un Revolutionary School and learned the songs and poems of our Dear Leader, and was taught to translate them into other languages so that people around the world would learn of his glory.
Well, at least they tried to teach me. Language class was so boring.
Not many children were even allowed to go to school, let alone be chosen to study at our Dear Leader's Revolutionary School, and I was often reminded of my good fortune by my teachers.
I loved math and science, but usually only boys from approved families were allowed to attend those classes. Still, I was awed by the vastness and mystery of space, and cowed by the baffling concept of infinite time. I credit Father for that. He inspired me to think deeply about these things. And I must have placed well on the exams, too. For that, I credit Mother. She made sure I applied myself and not just to my studies, but to every facet of life.
So astronomy and physics became my state-sanctioned religions, and I found I had to prove myself in a class full of boys. I worked very hard.
Despite my poor performance in the required language classes, my teachers never became harsh. They must have seen something in me. I was often taken aside for special tests, and was given extra work to take home, most of which was complicated math I couldn't understand.
I was happy at my school, I think, but it was such a very long time ago and I was so very young.
Father traveled a great deal for work and sometimes we were allowed to go with him. Most people never went anywhere in Korea, back then. Once, we went all the way to Pyongyang for the Dear Leader's birthday celebration. At some point along the two-day trip, I got carsick and everyone had to wait until I was cleaned up and the car aired out. For many years, the smell inside cars turned my stomach. But that was the first road trip I can remember, and visiting the capital was very exciting. I had no idea there were that many people in all of Korea, let alone one city.
Government officials often came to visit Father and Mother in our flat, so our family was allowed extra work points. Mother would have first choice at special markets that nobody knew about, and she was a very successful negotiator. She never hesitated to berate a salesman in an effort to improve the deal.
"Madam, you are killing me," I remember one shopkeeper complaining, when Mother insisted on a price a few chon less.
"So?" she replied, coldly. "What is one more dead shopkeeper to me?"
The shop owner laughed a nervous little laugh but, as always, Mother got her way. She was a great beauty from a respected family and everywhere we went, people were in awe of her. I was in awe too.
She seemed to know everyone and everything, but sometimes pretended not to. I didn't understand back then that it's sometimes better to be underestimated. It gives you an advantage over others who think very highly of their own opinions. I tried to ask her about it once, but she would simply ignore questions she didn't want to answer. So I learned not to ask in the first place, and the frame of our relationship was set for life.
Sometimes beautiful cut-glass bottles of exotic liquors with Western labels would appear, delivered in brown paper boxes by special courier. That usually meant there would soon be a gathering of military leaders which could last well into the night and keep me and Joo Chen awake. But I didn't mind. Father and Mother were so happy afterwards, sometimes for days, that it made me happy too.
I guess it did seem like special privilege to some, but the adults around us were usually too polite — or too afraid — to say anything. Other children in the neighborhood were jealous, as it turned out, but I didn't understand. This was simply my life and I had no reason to be ashamed. In hindsight, perhaps I appeared a little too proud, and for that I am deeply ashamed. But I was just a child, after all.
Then one day, everything changed.
The daughter of a policeman got mad at me in school. I don't remember why. What could it have been? We were only, what, eight years-old? I can't even remember her name. But I remember that day. Clearly.
Father was very cross with me when he heard. I'd never seen him so angry before. I tried to explain that I didn't do anything wrong, but he wouldn't listen. He pounded his fist so hard, he almost broke Mother's vase, the one she arranged every day with fresh wildflowers or sprigs of wild mint or whatever else she could find.
The girl had called me and my family foreign spies, loudly and in the presence of my teachers, who stood by silently, occupying themselves with non-existent tasks and pretending not to hear.
"Everyone knows it!" She was spitting the words, now. The droplets of her spittle sprinkled my nose. "I'll tell my daddy to arrest you all."
And although neither I nor, I suspect, she, really knew what that meant, it sent a chill up my back.
It still does to this day, remembering it.
I do not miss any of them.