Jia

On arrival at Kowŏn Station early the next morning, I saw many kinds of people, and more kkotjebi than you’d find in the Pyongyang station and street market. They wandered around, begging for food from the crowds of people waiting for the train. Cigarette smoke and offensive smells greeted me everywhere. People with large bags grouped together—it made it easier to keep an eye on their belongings.

The railroad police patrolled the station wearing dark-green uniforms and expressionless faces, picking through people’s bags with their fingers or with their thick, shiny truncheons. They looked about my age or a little older. Shifty-eyed men hung about like smoke in the air, stealing glances at people’s bags. Young girls with worn-out clothes but thick makeup were everywhere, shouting, “Flower! Buy a flower!” But none held flowers. They only approached well-dressed, young and middle-aged men. Everything was unfamiliar, and everyone looked suspicious to me.

I wandered through the station but couldn’t find a place to sit down. I suddenly felt someone was watching me carefully, following my movements, and I turned my head to find a small boy, dressed in tatters. Like other kkotjebi, his face was covered with dust. Under his hat, his eyes were twinkling, and as soon as they met mine, he walked directly to me, with a slight limp. That was my first encounter with Sangwon.

I looked down at him skeptically, and he didn’t take his eyes off me. Of course, I didn’t have food to share. Everyone knew no one had food to share; the only way hungry people could survive was to steal, so this boy was either really bold or not so smart.

Setting out on my journey, I had made a firm resolution that I wouldn’t share food; my own survival came first. I had just one loaf of bread and an ear of corn, and I needed to save what little money I had left. But Sangwon’s blunt eyes, so steady on mine, made me hesitate. Or perhaps it was his limping leg that changed my mind.

I would have felt better if he had pretended to cry or grab my leg, but he just pouted with his lower lip, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Okay. If you think that isn’t enough for two people, that’s fine. Have a good trip.”

Like a gentleman escorting me, Sangwon gestured in the direction we should walk, strutting triumphantly, as though he had won something. His wiry body moved nimbly through the crowd.

He took me outside the station to an out-of-the-way corner that was chilly but still the perfect place for two people to sit side by side. Not too stinky either. He took his jacket off and shook it briefly. Laying it on the ground, he grinned, motioning for me to sit down. I felt the ground would be cleaner than his jacket, but I didn’t rebuff the offer. Sangwon sat down next to me on the bare ground.

I had heard of the 927. The government tried to move beggars and people unable to make a living on their own to a specific place in each province, forcing them into abandoned buildings, usually former hotels. Because this system was instituted on September 27, 1997, it was called the 927. Supposedly it kept people from dying of hunger.

Sangwon’s eyes bugged. “Are you kidding? Have you ever slept sitting up for several nights? That place doesn’t protect people, it creates more problems. People die in there from diseases and hunger—we don’t need that kind of protection.” He ripped a piece of hard bread off with his teeth and ate it; he reminded me of a lion gnawing the meat off a bone.

When he spoke, he had to look up at me, and because his big hat covered his eyes, he took it off. His head was clean except for several scabs forming over his sores. He had no eyebrows or eyelashes; there was not one strand of hair on his face. He looked as if he had escaped from a Buddhist temple, not the 927.

“Who knows? I gave up counting after seventeen days. Sitting in a corner, counting the days, made me more desperate. Anyway, I need to leave here as soon as possible. I don’t want to end up back there.”

This time, he didn’t raise his head to speak. “Through the window. I was stuck on the sixth floor. Some of the kids made a rope with our clothes and we ran away together. When the girl right after me was climbing down, the rope snapped. She fell and was dead on the spot. It could have been me.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going to eat my fill. I don’t want to make my stomach expand.” He patted his gut and smiled. “This guy is so sneaky. I give him enough food, but he always wants more. He’s never completely satisfied, so I have to control him, or he’ll control me. That’s your share. I really appreciate what you gave me, but that’s enough for today.” He looked at me candidly, his eyes twinkling. Who could resist this face?

He had tried to steal some food from a market stall while the owner wasn’t paying attention, but just as Sangwon’s hand approached the food, the owner caught sight of him and grabbed his knife. He just wanted to scare him, but Sangwon’s two fingers were lopped off in an instant. The owner was as surprised as Sangwon, and they wept loudly together. Sangwon got the food from the owner, but his fingers were lost.

Sangwon told this as if it was someone else’s story. He must have been used to it—he spoke so well. He looked about six or seven years old, but I guessed he was 11 or 12.

I put a piece of bread in my mouth and chewed for a while. Could I trust this boy? Could I tell him I was running away? “I’m trying to get out of here,” I said, almost to myself.

Sangwon lifted one foot and removed his sock. All the toes were black from frostbite. He picked up a stone from the street, and before I could stop him, pounded the top of his foot with it. When I took the stone away from him, he smiled and said, “It’s okay. I don’t feel anything. They’re completely dead. They aren’t part of my body anymore.” He put his sock back on.

Sangwon had guessed my plan. Most people came here hoping to cross the border; their large bags gave them away. Wandering around with a small backpack certainly made me look like a novice.

“I ran into pickpockets in a street market,” I explained. “I didn’t expect it. An old woman let me know my backpack was torn; I even didn’t realize I had been robbed.”

“Don’t trust anybody here—even old women or soldiers. Oh, soldiers are the worst! They can do whatever they want. Don’t even think about sitting next to them. Actually, you shouldn’t have trusted me either.”

“This time of year is okay. In winter, it’s easy to cross over because the river is frozen, but border control is much stricter. Summer is tougher—the water isn’t as cold as in winter, but the river is high and the current is really fast, so border control isn’t as strict. Young guys try in the summer. Spring is the best time, because the water is low and not too cold. Now is still a little bit early. The ice must have melted, but the water will still be chilly. You should be prepared.”

Sangwon put his hat back on. The hat was big and was peppered with cigarette burn-holes, but it looked really warm. I helped him find the front of the hat, and he pressed it down hard and said, “If you’ll trust me one more time, we can go together.”

I showed my money to Sangwon, my comrade. He counted it and said, “It looks okay, if the station didn’t raise the fares.” He stared pointedly at the badge on my chest. “But there is one way to make money.” He handed my money back to me and asked, “Do you have a travel permit?”

We rose and walked behind the station. I saw a line of eight or nine people sitting down with their backs against the wall. Some leaned their heads on the person next to them, their eyes closed tight, while others gazed blankly in front of them, never blinking. Their skin was black, but it was different from the foreigners with black skin I’d seen at the hotel. Black spots covered their faces.

Inside the station, Sangwon elbowed his way through the crowd and pulled me along. We came to a man wearing a neat blue coat, standing with a small bag at his feet. The man lit a cigarette.

Sangwon glanced at me quickly and whispered, “You won’t need that over there.” Then he grinned and replied, “She will, for a hundred and fifty won. It’s a nice one, with two leaders’ faces on one badge. You can sell it at a good price to foreign travelers if they know it’s really from North Korea.”

The badge showed the faces of both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Working at the hotel, I had had to wear it at all times. I couldn’t believe I was selling it now. My chest without the badge—I hadn’t even considered that possible.

“He can sell it to foreign travelers in China as a souvenir. It’s one of the most popular items there, actually. In China, you’ll see Chinese selling North Korean items to foreign travelers everywhere. Here the badge is sacred, but there it’s like a toy.”

As though reading my mind, Sangwon said, “It’s not as important as our lives. It’s just a souvenir now—what we need is money and food. You would have to throw it away as soon as you crossed the border, anyway. Keeping it would be dangerous.” He pressed the money into my hand.

“Wait here for a moment,” Sangwon said. “I’ll buy a ticket, just give me the money.” I looked at him for a second. He was just a kkotjebi, looking for food and stealing from others, but for some reason, I was sure he would come back.

He took my money and was sucked into the crowd. A few minutes passed. Did I even give him my travel permit? I checked my pocket, growing anxious. I stood on tiptoe and scanned the crowd—it was impossible to see him.

“Sometimes a kid has an advantage,” he said, handing me the ticket and the rest of the money. “I even gave them less than the fare. They didn’t notice—they’re just trying to get rid of as many people as possible.”

While we walked to the platform, Sangwon warned me, “Even though you have a ticket, some crazy people will try to take your seat, so never leave it. Go to the restroom before getting on the train.”

The train didn’t come for four days, and in all that time we never left the platform. People complained that the trains never ran on schedule; the railway employees said fuel had run out. No one knew when the train might arrive. “Pretty soon,” the train employees said, but they didn’t know. Some people left to sleep in nearby inns. Women, young and old, walked around shouting, “Clean, warm house while you wait.” I wouldn’t go; I was afraid of missing the train. I bought food with the rest of my money, and we tried to eat as little as possible. Sangwon had a fever from the infection in his feet and was limping harder.

When the train finally arrived, it was as if war broke out. The distant whistle sounded and people jumped up and grabbed their bags, screaming and shouting; suddenly the whole place was alive with noise. The railroad police made us stand in one line, and a policeman made an announcement about civic morality. People who didn’t follow the rules would be punished severely. Nobody listened.

As the policeman was finishing his announcement, a dozen men rushed the platform and scaled the gate. Hundreds of people pushed madly after them, and the railroad police were overwhelmed. Some thieves made the most of the opportunity, cutting the bottom of one unsuspecting man’s bag with a knife and catching the corn that ran out in their own bag. A flock of kkotjebi rushed to get their share. Finally the man realized what was going on and bawled, “Damn these hoodlums,” kicking the kkotjebi. They didn’t budge until they had collected all the corn.

Railroad inspectors tried to check each passenger’s ticket and travel permit, but it was useless. They beat anyone they found without proper documents, but the crowd pushed past them. They shouted, “You can’t get on the train without a ticket and a card. We’ll inspect you sons of bitches again on the train!”

People dashed for it anyway, some dropping off the train like falling leaves. Those who didn’t have tickets or permits climbed up on the roof. The inspectors didn’t care about them, saying they would all die of cold or electric shock.

Sangwon and I rushed to find a seat. Finding one, he said, “Sit here and don’t move. Put your bag next to you. If people swear at you about having your backpack like that, don’t listen. And don’t be scared. If they scream, you yell at them too. Okay? I’ll be right back.”

I looked at him anxiously, but he winked and said, “Don’t worry about me. I’m a professional. Be careful, some people seize this chance and steal other people’s things. Don’t take your eyes off the bag.”

The train gave several long whistles and the employees shouted, “The train is leaving.” Those stuck on the platform tried to climb in through broken windows. The train started moving, and when I looked through the window, I saw a man running alongside. He threw his bag inside first and put his hand on the windowsill. His face distorted with pain for an instant from the shards of glass in the sill, but he didn’t give up. When half his body was through the window, a railroad policeman outside harshly grabbed him from behind and yanked him down. I stuck my face out of the window to see if he was okay, and he looked at me and shouted, “My bag! My bag! Throw it back to me.”

When I turned to find his bag, it wasn’t his bag anymore. Passengers in the train were fighting over it. A big soldier stood up and pushed away the others. He seized the bag with a threatening look.

Nobody resisted as the soldier took the bag to his seat and opened it. It was filled with bundles of clothes. I saw some tattered gray pants tangled up with yellowish underwear.

The soldier angrily sifted through the bundles. “What are these stinky things?” Then, opening a bundle, he found machine parts. The soldier’s companions grabbed the bag and began rummaging through the clothes. Several more machine parts came out. Then a rice ball, some fried tofu, and bean sprouts—the owner’s lunch.

Finally, a good while after the ticket inspectors had passed by, Sangwon reappeared, and we shared the seat. He fit in the space where my bag was, so I held my bag to my chest.

His hands were black with dust. He crowed, “Those people who work here aren’t thorough enough to search between compartments. They don’t care about kkotjebi anyway—we don’t have anything for them. If we don’t make trouble, they ignore us.”

As we rode, Sangwon spoke about how he had lost his family. It’s a common story in North Korea, and the reasons are always death by starvation or punishment by the government. He was an absolute orphan, but he smiled and said, “It’s better this way; I don’t have any pressure to take care of my family. Many kkotjebi have to beg for food for their parents or grandparents.”

As an only son, Sangwon was adored by his hardworking parents. Both worked in a fertilizer factory in Hŭngnam, north of Kowŏn, and Sangwon remembered the chimneys shooting fat plumes of gray smoke up into the sky. The floods of 1995 and 1996 hit his hometown hard, and the polluted water brought disease and death. All the factories closed, and starving people started pillaging them for machine parts to sell on the black market or in China. Sangwon’s parents were no exception. When they left him at home to travel to the border to sell some parts, their bus tumbled into a bloated waterway and was swallowed up. Sangwon heard the news of their deaths, but their bodies were never found.

Sangwon found himself alone in his house, with no idea what to do. For the first time he could play outside with abandon; nobody controlled him, and he didn’t have to hear his mother’s nagging. It was starvation, however, that came to control him. Soon he stopped going out. A neighbor said the government would take care of him, so he waited for them. When the government finally did pay Sangwon a visit, they said they would take his house, that it belonged to them. The only place he could go was the orphanage or a camp for children in similar situations.

The day before he was to depart for the orphanage, Sangwon heard there would be a public execution. A family was accused of eating human flesh. The family had been hungry for a long time, and they decided to sell their house and use the money to buy pork for soup. They went to a butcher’s shop, bought the pork, made the soup, and ate well. Shortly thereafter, the police stormed into their house and arrested the entire family. The butcher had been selling human flesh, and they were all charged with murder, along with the butcher.

Out of curiosity, Sangwon walked to the public execution grounds. He found the street market completely closed. A crowd had gathered around the accused family and the butcher. A judge announced the charges as the crowd stood hushed in anticipation; only the family’s sobbing could be heard. The judge asked the accused whether they acknowledged their crime, and a middle-aged man, who appeared to be the father, said they really didn’t know what they had eaten, and begged for forgiveness. The judge declared they would not be excused for their crime. The youngest in the family, a boy, looked no older than six or seven, but the police said that he was 16—the minimum age to receive the death penalty. No one believed the police, but they dared not argue that he was only a boy. Perhaps they thought it would be better for the family to leave this world together.

Sangwon knew the boy was younger than he was. Their eyes locked for the briefest moment, and he watched as the boy’s eyes filled with fear. Policemen fastened the family members and the butcher to several long stakes and covered their mouths and eyes with towels. The family sobbed and pleaded for mercy. Moments later, the sound of simultaneous gunshots. The sobbing stopped at once.

People turned away and returned quietly to their houses. Some gathered in the street market to sell and buy goods again. Sangwon stood there for a while before heading home and packing his things in haste. He vowed never to feel fear such as he saw in the boy’s eyes.

This was how Sangwon’s journey began. By the time I met him, he had already crossed the border three times and been arrested three times in China. On the first occasion, the Chinese police caught him on the street and handed him over to North Korea. After the North Korean authority interrogated him, they simply warned him not to cross the border again and let him go. The second episode was the same. But, the third time, he ran into the same investigator and was taken to the 927.

Sangwon looked at me and giggled. “You know, when some people are arrested and have to be interrogated, they put their money inside their bodies so it won’t be taken away by the investigators. Women put money wrapped in plastic bags in their…down there,” he said, pointing between his legs. He continued, “Some people eat their bags of money or put it up their butts. If the police suspect them, they force people to eat food that causes diarrhea and then follow them to the restroom. Then the policemen search their shit to see if there is any money or valuables, like gold or silver rings and necklaces.”

Sangwon taught me a song describing the kkotjebi’s life. He said he learned it in the street market and that all the kkotjebi knew it. The lyrics were a dialogue between an old man and a kkotjebi.

Old man: What is your name?
Kkotjebi: My name is jebi (swallow)
O: It sounds pretty
K: But, it is kkot-jebi (flower-swallow: beggar)
O: What do you eat?
K: I eat ori (duck)
O: You must be rich
K: But, I eat guksu-ori (noodle-duck: low quality noodles)
O: Where do you live?
K: I live in sudo (the capital)
O: You live in a nice place
K: But, it is ha-sudo (sewer)

The train was pandemonium—slow and cold pandemonium. An icy wind came through broken windows, and in the dark before dawn, I saw a black lump drop from the sky and past my window.

A middle-aged woman in front of me spoke. “It’s a dead person. Someone must have fallen asleep on top of the train and rolled off, or he died of electric shock up there and others pushed him off.” I was stunned. Sangwon closed his eyes again, indifferent to her explanation. She continued, “That’s not so bad compared to other things that happen on this train. If you see these scenes as often as we have, you won’t care anymore either.”

I fell asleep hugging Sangwon. Sleeping on the train was brutal; the seat was so hard it hurt, and fleas and bedbugs bit me all over. Though vendors sold food at each station, I was afraid I would have to go to the restroom, so I ate only a little. Even the restroom was filled with people, and passengers gave up using the toilet in the restroom, doing their business between compartments instead. Shyness and shame no longer existed. Nobody cared. Nobody blamed others. People joked whenever someone relieved himself, saying, “That looks like it was a great meal!”

The train often stopped due to engine trouble; we were stuck at one station for a day and a half. The ticket inspectors came to check tickets at some stations, and passengers who didn’t have tickets or travel permits sneaked out between the compartments and climbed to the top of the train. When the inspectors got to me, I stroked Sangwon’s hair as he lay on my lap and told them he was my ill cousin and I was taking him to his mother in Hoeryŏng. Sangwon showed his spindly leg to the inspectors. They grimaced and turned their heads, then went on to check other people.

As the days passed, it seemed as if walking would have been faster than taking the train. I thought the journey would never end. Patience was a struggle. But, looking back, the train trip turned out to be the easiest leg of my journey.