. a ri ve r of h e a rt fl ows w it h t ea rs .
telephone pole on my cart and it turned over in the middle of an intersection. Everyone around ran for their lives. Because of these kinds of experiences I still know the geography of Tokyo like the back of my hand. I was a laborer among laborers and a friend to laborers. Just like the laborers who smelled of sweat, I would go to the work sites and work until the sweat was pouring down my body. They were my brothers, and I didn’t mind the terrible smells. I shared sleeping quilts with them that were so filthy that black lice crawled across them in a line formation. I didn’t hesitate to grasp hands that were caked with dirt. Their sweat mixed with grime was filled with an irresistible warmth of heart. It was their warm hearts that I found so attractive. Primarily I worked as a laborer at the Kawasaki steel mill and shipyard. In the shipyard there were barges used to haul coal. We would form teams of three laborers each and work until one o’clock in the morning to fill a barge with 120 tons of coal. We Koreans could do in one night what it took the Japanese three days to accomplish. There were people at some work sites who extorted the blood and sweat of the laborers. Often these were the foremen who directly managed the laborers. They would take 30 percent of the money earned by the laborers they managed and keep it for themselves. The laborers were powerless to do anything about this. The foremen would exploit the weak but curry favor with those who were strong. I became so angry with one foreman that I finally went to him with two friends and demanded that he pay the workers their full wages. “If you make someone work, then pay him exactly what he is owed,” I told him. He still refused, so we went to him a second day and even a third day. We were determined to keep up the pressure until he relented. Finally I
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