SEVERANCE 37°57´ 21˝ N 126°40´ 36˝ E
Katherine Yungmee Kim
I Amugodoupsoyo means there’s nothing left—nothing there, nothing to see. It’s the kind of phrase you say when you open your palms to emptiness, perhaps with a shrug. I’ve run all out of something. Or This place has been deserted. It was the phrase my uncle used to describe the land in Yeoncheon. Don’t go there, they concurred. Gogi gajima. It wasn’t because of the North Koreans or the missiles or the mines. I was told that the houses were thatch-roofed and the roads would be flooded beyond traversable areas, but mostly that the journey would be arduous. It was changma, monsoon season, and a bad one at that. “There’s a bridge,” my mother’s cousin Kitae explained. “I don’t know if the bridge is still there, but if it is, you go over it and head towards a grove of trees.”
I Amugodoupsoyo means there’s nothing left—nothing there, nothing to see. It’s the kind of phrase you say when you open your palms to emptiness, perhaps with a shrug. I’ve run all out of something. Or This place has been deserted. It was the phrase my uncle used to describe the land in Yeoncheon. Don’t go there, they concurred. Gogi gajima. It wasn’t because of the North Koreans or the missiles or the mines. I was told that the houses were thatch-roofed and the roads would be flooded beyond traversable areas, but mostly that the journey would be arduous. It was changma, monsoon season, and a bad one at that. “There’s a bridge,” my mother’s cousin Kitae explained. “I don’t know if the bridge is still there, but if it is, you go over it and head towards a grove of trees.”
II I first met my maternal grandmother when I was four. (She and me, we bookend this photo.) I have no memory of the encounter, just this faded Polaroid of my two families merged in a Kimpo Airport hallway. We were roughly assembled. Later, I knew there to be conflict between the two families, centering on my father’s family’s disdain for my mother’s less-to-do lineage. Judging from their parapet of wealth. The Sohns recoiled, and for reasons I’ll never understand, my mother dutifully seceded. Most of the people in this photo are now dead. Nobody knows for certain—I’ve asked repeatedly for confirmation—but it is presumed that a stranger took this photo.
II I first met my maternal grandmother when I was four. (She and me, we bookend this photo.) I have no memory of the encounter, just this faded Polaroid of my two families merged in a Kimpo Airport hallway. We were roughly assembled. Later, I knew there to be conflict between the two families, centering on my father’s family’s disdain for my mother’s less-to-do lineage. Judging from their parapet of wealth. The Sohns recoiled, and for reasons I’ll never understand, my mother dutifully seceded. Most of the people in this photo are now dead. Nobody knows for certain—I’ve asked repeatedly for confirmation—but it is presumed that a stranger took this photo.
III It was a mirage, this land, of a long-lost orchard. My mother spun tales about her childhood. Summer peach juice, dribbled. A riverbank gallivanting. A vague funeral of her grandfather, memoried. She watched, hiding behind a rice paper screen, and licked her finger to bore a hole for watching. I know this room, she said. Let’s take a look. The body wrapped in hemp, supine and stiffened. These are the preparations. Let’s take a look, she said again and the boy said, nonono, but then, let me look. And he look.
III It was a mirage, this land, of a long-lost orchard. My mother spun tales about her childhood. Summer peach juice, dribbled. A riverbank gallivanting. A vague funeral of her grandfather, memoried. She watched, hiding behind a rice paper screen, and licked her finger to bore a hole for watching. I know this room, she said. Let’s take a look. The body wrapped in hemp, supine and stiffened. These are the preparations. Let’s take a look, she said again and the boy said, nonono, but then, let me look. And he look.
IV Homing in, trying to find the land. Was it by the river? Yes, I seem
Verdant satellite treetops and the wide muddy river, murky with sediment and
to recall. It was by where the tributary turns, where the water flow
depth, swathing its own particular cut. I see tracts of land, farm plots, and harvest
meanders, sinuous and shaped like a snake, like a hairpin, like the
lines. Dirt paths the color of dun. The forest is green, the canopy darker still.
letter U. There the roads segment, hollowed lines like bracchia. The towns dot, with their short vowel marks; mountains stand large, while faded counties recede‌ The name of the village was etched on a plaque. The plaque was placed vertically on the pontoon of the bridge. They told me the water would be so high I couldn’t cross. They told me that the land would be impossible to find. I said, Mother, please. You know well that everywhere can be found.
The sifting silt, rifts severing from edge to edge, west to east. Across all those towns, I think. Splitting all those places with their provenances and their titles, places that have names, that were long named and placed, settled. (Sometimes I think of this stagnation, of this nation halted and split. Where we must hover bated, and then stagger within the void.)
IV Homing in, trying to find the land. Was it by the river? Yes, I seem
Verdant satellite treetops and the wide muddy river, murky with sediment and
to recall. It was by where the tributary turns, where the water flow
depth, swathing its own particular cut. I see tracts of land, farm plots, and harvest
meanders, sinuous and shaped like a snake, like a hairpin, like the
lines. Dirt paths the color of dun. The forest is green, the canopy darker still.
letter U. There the roads segment, hollowed lines like bracchia. The towns dot, with their short vowel marks; mountains stand large, while faded counties recede‌ The name of the village was etched on a plaque. The plaque was placed vertically on the pontoon of the bridge. They told me the water would be so high I couldn’t cross. They told me that the land would be impossible to find. I said, Mother, please. You know well that everywhere can be found.
The sifting silt, rifts severing from edge to edge, west to east. Across all those towns, I think. Splitting all those places with their provenances and their titles, places that have names, that were long named and placed, settled. (Sometimes I think of this stagnation, of this nation halted and split. Where we must hover bated, and then stagger within the void.)
VII Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945; Nagasaki on August 9. On August 10, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, thus the start of the Soviet-Japanese War. That evening, U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes, a former Supreme Court Justice, requested the construction of a plan by the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee for a joint Soviet-American occupation of Korea. Late that evening, poring over a 1942 National Geographic map, two young State Department employees arbitrarily made a decision that would determine the future of Korea. During a meeting on August 14, 1945, Colonel Charles Bonesteel and I retired to an adjacent room late at night and studied intently a map of the Korean peninsula. Working in haste and under great pressure, we had a formidable task: to pick a zone for the American occupation‌. Using a National Geographic map, we looked just north of Seoul for a convenient dividing line but could not find a natural geographic line. We saw instead the 38th parallel and decided to recommend that‌ [The State and War Departments] accepted it without too much haggling, and surprisingly, so did the Soviets.
VII Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945; Nagasaki on August 9. On August 10, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, thus the start of the Soviet-Japanese War. That evening, U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes, a former Supreme Court Justice, requested the construction of a plan by the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee for a joint Soviet-American occupation of Korea. Late that evening, poring over a 1942 National Geographic map, two young State Department employees arbitrarily made a decision that would determine the future of Korea. During a meeting on August 14, 1945, Colonel Charles Bonesteel and I retired to an adjacent room late at night and studied intently a map of the Korean peninsula. Working in haste and under great pressure, we had a formidable task: to pick a zone for the American occupation‌. Using a National Geographic map, we looked just north of Seoul for a convenient dividing line but could not find a natural geographic line. We saw instead the 38th parallel and decided to recommend that‌ [The State and War Departments] accepted it without too much haggling, and surprisingly, so did the Soviets.
IX Tulle puff and an open mouth, she is her thrilled eyes. Count the fingers as they stretch into a heroic wave. Feel the fishtails in her innards. She is teetering on her way down, spaceship spinning, and the gentle sway lullabies her vertigo away. But wait. Nothing moves in this photograph. The wind fails to blow. There is no scream heard. The pores of the rough paper betray her fair complexion, and cheap colors dye her natural contrasts all awry. She fell to the earth today. Hundreds of her scattered in the southerly winds and some stuck to roofs and some cushioned in backyards. Many soles stepped on her face. A sour man took a lighter to the corner and watched the flame change hues as it licked up and retreated into ash. Amusement Park Opens in DPRK! She was shot with a fast shutter by a man who was focusing below. He developed the film and clothespinned her dry and handed her to the printer who multiplied her. Over and over and over and over. Factory girls in black-stained cotton gloves stacked and cut her, twelve to a sheet, thousands in total. All elastic-banded in Room #40, Leaflet Manufacturing, and hand walked to the Balloon Propaganda Company, Division of the Enemy Force Breakup Operation Department. Down the hall from those who controlled the loudspeakers. Across the way from the billboard operation. She was tied to the bottom of a balloon, like the basket under a hot air, and she was cast away, with well wishes on an appropriately breezy day.
IX Tulle puff and an open mouth, she is her thrilled eyes. Count the fingers as they stretch into a heroic wave. Feel the fishtails in her innards. She is teetering on her way down, spaceship spinning, and the gentle sway lullabies her vertigo away. But wait. Nothing moves in this photograph. The wind fails to blow. There is no scream heard. The pores of the rough paper betray her fair complexion, and cheap colors dye her natural contrasts all awry. She fell to the earth today. Hundreds of her scattered in the southerly winds and some stuck to roofs and some cushioned in backyards. Many soles stepped on her face. A sour man took a lighter to the corner and watched the flame change hues as it licked up and retreated into ash. Amusement Park Opens in DPRK! She was shot with a fast shutter by a man who was focusing below. He developed the film and clothespinned her dry and handed her to the printer who multiplied her. Over and over and over and over. Factory girls in black-stained cotton gloves stacked and cut her, twelve to a sheet, thousands in total. All elastic-banded in Room #40, Leaflet Manufacturing, and hand walked to the Balloon Propaganda Company, Division of the Enemy Force Breakup Operation Department. Down the hall from those who controlled the loudspeakers. Across the way from the billboard operation. She was tied to the bottom of a balloon, like the basket under a hot air, and she was cast away, with well wishes on an appropriately breezy day.
X Eundae-ri is Natural Monument No. 412, the only place where the water spider lives, setules sticking to the sides of plants and pebbles. After human battles, nature has healed here and found peace. The red-crowned crane migrates, round-tailed paradise fish and Manchurian trout swim back and forth from north to south and south to north—animals are doing this on their own. I have learned from them the lesson of coexistence on sky, on earth, on water…. Man has failed to take the proper steps to reunify. This place shouldn’t be used as a political device. It was given to us through the war, and we should approach it globally. But every time there is a new government, they come up with some plan for the DMZ area. Lee Myung-Bak came up with tourism; Park Geun Hye wants a peace park. The military puts up Christmas lights every year. I can’t tell you how many—it’s a military secret. But there are towers that are decorated with lights and when they are lit, the North Koreans can see them. This is our way of sending God’s will to North Korea. When I was a reporter in 1991, I was sent to the cover the story of the lights. When I got there, I just stood at the barbed wire. The fact that I couldn’t just cross over hit me so hard, it almost knocked the wind from me. And then I saw a bird—a goose, actually—just fly over the fence and I felt it would be so nice if I could do the same. When South Korea held the 1988 Olympics, the army bases ceased wildlife hunting in the DMZ. So now, the animals are not afraid of the soldiers anymore. In the winter the soldiers feed the animals; in a way, it’s a domestication. As a civilian, the animals are afraid of me—it’s the strangest thing. So now when I go in, I wear a uniform.
X Eundae-ri is Natural Monument No. 412, the only place where the water spider lives, setules sticking to the sides of plants and pebbles. After human battles, nature has healed here and found peace. The red-crowned crane migrates, round-tailed paradise fish and Manchurian trout swim back and forth from north to south and south to north—animals are doing this on their own. I have learned from them the lesson of coexistence on sky, on earth, on water…. Man has failed to take the proper steps to reunify. This place shouldn’t be used as a political device. It was given to us through the war, and we should approach it globally. But every time there is a new government, they come up with some plan for the DMZ area. Lee Myung-Bak came up with tourism; Park Geun Hye wants a peace park. The military puts up Christmas lights every year. I can’t tell you how many—it’s a military secret. But there are towers that are decorated with lights and when they are lit, the North Koreans can see them. This is our way of sending God’s will to North Korea. When I was a reporter in 1991, I was sent to the cover the story of the lights. When I got there, I just stood at the barbed wire. The fact that I couldn’t just cross over hit me so hard, it almost knocked the wind from me. And then I saw a bird—a goose, actually—just fly over the fence and I felt it would be so nice if I could do the same. When South Korea held the 1988 Olympics, the army bases ceased wildlife hunting in the DMZ. So now, the animals are not afraid of the soldiers anymore. In the winter the soldiers feed the animals; in a way, it’s a domestication. As a civilian, the animals are afraid of me—it’s the strangest thing. So now when I go in, I wear a uniform.
XVII Clara studied tourism at a university in Seoul near the amusement park in Chamshil. She’s from the southernmost province in Seoul. “My dream is to be a tour guide abroad,” she tells me, so she’s been doing the DMZ gig for the USO for about a year, a few times a week. She stands at the front of the chartered bus and carries on about the North Korean invasion that started the Korean War. She plays a short video with a lot of flames.
XVII Clara studied tourism at a university in Seoul near the amusement park in Chamshil. She’s from the southernmost province in Seoul. “My dream is to be a tour guide abroad,” she tells me, so she’s been doing the DMZ gig for the USO for about a year, a few times a week. She stands at the front of the chartered bus and carries on about the North Korean invasion that started the Korean War. She plays a short video with a lot of flames.
XVIII It began and ended with a poplar tree. First, bushy and in the way and finally, a sorry stump with two arms in mid-surrender. In its fullness, its leaves and unisexual flowers blocked the view between UNC Check Point #3 and UNC Check Point #4. On a beautiful summer morning in 1976, eight men who patrolled the DMZ hopped into a convoy truck with tree cutting tools. No faster had they surveyed the limbs and which crooks to climb than the Korean People’s Army personnel showed up and lingered near the site. For a while, the Communists were curious, passively watching three Yanks pyramid a man into the crown, when suddenly the KPA security force commander bellowed, “Cease pruning!” Captain Arthur Bonifas of the Joint Security Force refused to heed and clipped on, enraging the North Koreans, who blitzed the men, wielding pick handles, clubs, knives and axes. Hacked and hacked and hacked away. Eventually Bonifas and on-duty JSF Security Officer Lieutenant Mark Barrett were medevaced to the 1-2-1 in a Huey dustoff, but by the time they landed in Seoul, both men had the rattles. Three days later, JSF jeeps convoyed back to the poplar, laden with sandbags to deaden any shoebox mines and loaded with mortars on the ready to blow the camp lest the branch trimming be hindered once again. The poplar was shorn, the vista was cleared and the camp, prior to the incident known as Kitty Hawk, was renamed Bonifas in memory of the soldier who was KIA. When the story was told to the fifth U.S. president to visit the DMZ, he turned to face the cameras from a camouflaged bunker, quipping, “No wonder I think they are evil.”
XVIII It began and ended with a poplar tree. First, bushy and in the way and finally, a sorry stump with two arms in mid-surrender. In its fullness, its leaves and unisexual flowers blocked the view between UNC Check Point #3 and UNC Check Point #4. On a beautiful summer morning in 1976, eight men who patrolled the DMZ hopped into a convoy truck with tree cutting tools. No faster had they surveyed the limbs and which crooks to climb than the Korean People’s Army personnel showed up and lingered near the site. For a while, the Communists were curious, passively watching three Yanks pyramid a man into the crown, when suddenly the KPA security force commander bellowed, “Cease pruning!” Captain Arthur Bonifas of the Joint Security Force refused to heed and clipped on, enraging the North Koreans, who blitzed the men, wielding pick handles, clubs, knives and axes. Hacked and hacked and hacked away. Eventually Bonifas and on-duty JSF Security Officer Lieutenant Mark Barrett were medevaced to the 1-2-1 in a Huey dustoff, but by the time they landed in Seoul, both men had the rattles. Three days later, JSF jeeps convoyed back to the poplar, laden with sandbags to deaden any shoebox mines and loaded with mortars on the ready to blow the camp lest the branch trimming be hindered once again. The poplar was shorn, the vista was cleared and the camp, prior to the incident known as Kitty Hawk, was renamed Bonifas in memory of the soldier who was KIA. When the story was told to the fifth U.S. president to visit the DMZ, he turned to face the cameras from a camouflaged bunker, quipping, “No wonder I think they are evil.”
Image Propaganda
Image Propaganda
XXIII So there I was, finally. I stood there in the hazy heat, watching Whang kick the brush aside with his feet, purposefully. He was waving his hands around the air like a geomancer, and then posturing with his hand on his hip, he looked towards the sky and the expanse, as if positioning himself. Nodding his head, he murmured, “It’s right here.”
XXIII So there I was, finally. I stood there in the hazy heat, watching Whang kick the brush aside with his feet, purposefully. He was waving his hands around the air like a geomancer, and then posturing with his hand on his hip, he looked towards the sky and the expanse, as if positioning himself. Nodding his head, he murmured, “It’s right here.”
XXIV Below, the Imjin River was murkygreen and unremarkable, its concrete banks lined with plainwhite and grey rocks, upon which the water lapped casually. So many tales! Washing laundry in peacetime—wading waist-deep to flee the Communists. Immortality and brokenbroken people. Explosives drift downstream—current swells, water grave, mosquito breeder, battle site, campsite, ice floe piles, folk song refrain—and then the bodies floodfloating from the North. River of the Dead, it is called, our very own Styx. “One on Monday, five on Wednesday, three on Friday.”
XXIV Below, the Imjin River was murkygreen and unremarkable, its concrete banks lined with plainwhite and grey rocks, upon which the water lapped casually. So many tales! Washing laundry in peacetime—wading waist-deep to flee the Communists. Immortality and brokenbroken people. Explosives drift downstream—current swells, water grave, mosquito breeder, battle site, campsite, ice floe piles, folk song refrain—and then the bodies floodfloating from the North. River of the Dead, it is called, our very own Styx. “One on Monday, five on Wednesday, three on Friday.”