end? Why would they bother to study hard, to practice their musical instruments or compete in sports?
North Koreans aren’t informed of their classification, so it wasn’t immediately obvious that there was something wrong with the family, but the children themselves suspected something peculiar about their father. He was an odd, solitary figure who seemed to carry a ponderous burden. He had no known relatives. It was not only that he wouldn’t speak of the past, he hardly spoke at all. He gave monosyllabic answers to questions; he kept his voice to a whisper. Tae-woo looked happiest when he was working with his hands, fixing something around the house, intent on a project that gave him an excuse not to speak.
There was no trace of the bossy little boy who strutted around playing general. His wife, from whom the daughters inherited theirheight and athleticism, did all the talking for him. If the children needed to be disciplined, if there was a complaint to be made to a neighbor, it was his wife who did it. If he had any opinions, he kept them to himself. On the occasions that they could get a newspaper, a luxury in North Korea, he would read in silence by the light of their single lamp with its 40-watt bulb. What he thought of the latest great achievement of Kim Il-sung, as touted in
Rodong Sinmun
, the official Workers’ Party newspaper, or in
Hambuk Daily
, the local paper, he would not say. Had he come to believe in North Korea? Was he convinced?
Mi-ran often found her father’s passivity maddening. Only later did she understand this was a survival mechanism. It was as though he had hammered down his own personality to avoid drawing undue attention to himself. Among the thousands of former South Korean soldiers who tried to assimilate into North Korean society, many slipped up. Mi-ran’s mother later told her that four of her father’s buddies in the mines, fellow South Koreans, had been executed for minor infractions, their bodies dumped in mass graves. Being a member of the hostile class meant you would never get the benefit of the doubt. A sarcastic inflection when referring to Kim Il-sung or a nostalgic remark about South Korea could get you in serious trouble. It was especially taboo to talk about the Korean War and who started it. In the official histories (and there was nothing but official history in North Korea), it was the South Korean Army that invaded, acting on orders from the Americans, not the North Korean Army storming across the 38th parallel. “The U.S. imperialists gave the Syngman Rhee puppet clique an order to unleash a Korean War,” goes the account in
Rodong Sinmun
. Anybody who remembered what really happened on June 25, 1950 (and which Korean could forget?), knew it was wise to keep one’s mouth shut.
As the children approached adolescence, the obstacles presented by their father’s background began to loom larger. By age fifteen mandatory schooling is completed and students begin applying to high schools. Those not admitted are assigned to a work unit, a factory, a coal mine, or the like. But Mi-ran’s siblings were confident they would be among those chosen to further their education. They were smart, good-looking, athletic, well liked by teachers and peers.Had they been less talented, rejection might have gone down more easily.
Her eldest sister, Mi-hee, had a lovely soprano voice. Whether she was belting out one of the syrupy folk songs so beloved by Koreans or a paean to Kim Il-sung, the neighbors would come to listen. She was often asked to perform at public events. Singing is a highly valued talent in North Korea since few people have stereos. Mi-hee was so pretty that an artist came to sketch her portrait. She had every expectation that she would be selected to attend a performing arts high school. She wailed for days when she was rejected. Their mother must have known the reason, but she nevertheless marched to the school to demand an explanation. The headmaster was