The Underground Village Read online

  praise for the underground village

  ‘The Underground Village: Short Stories by Kang Kyeong-ae anthologizes the major short fictions by Kang Kyeong-ae, one of the most innovative writers of colonial Korea, rendering them into natural and graceful English. Kang’s stories of poverty and hardship, often featuring female protagonists and set in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, cross multiple borders, those of race, gender, geography, culture, ideologies, and literary schools, thus forcing us to reconsider our notions of feminism, Marxism, modernism, socialist realism, and “Korea”.’

  —jin-kyung lee

  Associate Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature,

  University of California San Diego

  ‘Kang is an important representative of Korean women during the Japanese colonial era; a rare reflection of lower-class women’s voices. Moreover, Kang brilliantly captured the zeitgeist as a writer who witnessed participants in armed struggles against the Japanese, testifying to their suffering and validity, and she was able to convey all of this to colonial Korea directly under Japanese rule.’

  —sang-kyung lee

  Co-editor of Rat Fire: Korean Stories from the Japanese Empire

  THE UNDERGROUND VILLAGE

  short stories by kang kyeong-ae

  Translated by anton hur

  Introduced by sang-kyung lee

  This translation first published by Honford Star 2018

  honfordstar.com

  Translation copyright © Anton Hur 2018

  Introduction copyright © Sang-kyung Lee 2018

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the translator and editors has been asserted.

  ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9997912-6-1

  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-9997912-7-8

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Cover illustration by Dal Sang

  Book cover and interior design by Jon Gomez

  Printed and bound by TJ International

  This book is published with the support of the

  Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea).

  This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s “PEN Translates” programme, supported by Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly co-operation of writers and the free exchange of ideas. www.englishpen.org

  Table of Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  Manuscript Money

  Salt

  Peasants

  The Authoress

  Darkness

  The Man on the Mountain

  Anguish

  Opium

  Sympathy

  Father and Son

  Mother and Son

  Tuition

  Real and Unreal

  Blackie

  Break the Strings

  The Firing

  Vegetable Patch

  The Tournament

  The Underground Village

  TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

  INTRODUCTION

  One of the things which makes Kang Kyeong-ae (1906-1944) unique among Korean women writers of the era, most of whom lived in the cultural hub of Seoul, is that all her prose fiction was written in Jiandao in Manchuria, China. Although it was on the periphery of Korean literature, Jiandao was at the time the centre of an armed struggle to overthrow the Japanese colonial rule of Korea (1910-1945). This meant that while most other authors in Seoul also worked as reporters for magazines or newspapers and were central members of literary circles, Kang had vastly different preoccupations. Living in Manchuria and devoting herself to literary creation imbued Kang with an artistic and political tension which enabled her to make a greater artistic achievement than any of her contemporaries.

  *

  Kang Kyeong-ae was born to impoverished peasants on 20 April 1906 in Songhwa County, Hwanghae Province, in what is now North Korea. However, following her father’s death and her mother’s remarriage, Kang grew up in Jangyeon County, also in Hwanghae Province. Although her stepfather had money, he was an elderly, disabled man, and Kang’s mother is said to have been a veritable servant to him. At around the age of seven, Kang taught herself to read hangul, the Korean alphabet, from a copy of the classic Korean novel Tale of Chunhyang (Chunhyangjeon) that happened to be in the house. She went on to read other traditional prose fiction in hangul, and elderly neighbours vied with each other to take her home to have her read similar works out loud, buying her sweets as recompense. The girl was thus given the epithet ‘Acorn Storyteller’ in her neighbourhood.

  As a result of her mother’s pleas to her husband, Kang was able to enter primary school in 1915, already past the age of ten. The family was unable to pay expenses such as tuition fees and money for stationery, and Kang had to study while feeling ill at ease, even fantasizing about stealing her classmates’ money and possessions. In 1921, with help from her brother-in-law, Kang entered Soongeui Girls’ School (present-day Soongeui Girls’ Middle and High Schools) in Pyongyang. A Christian institution, this school was dubbed ‘Pyongyang Prison No. 2’ due to its strict dormitory regulations. In October 1923, during Kang’s third year, the students staged a class boycott in protest against both the strict dormitory life and the American principal who had banned ‘superstitious’ visits to ancestral graves during Chuseok, the mid-autumn full moon festival. Kang was expelled due to this incident, and she reportedly went to Seoul where she studied for one year at Dongduk Girls’ School (present-day Dongduk Girls’ Middle and High Schools).

  While a student in Seoul in May 1924, Kang published a poem titled ‘Autumn’ (‘Ga-eul’) under the pen name of ‘Kang Gama’ in the literary magazine Venus (Geumseong). However, Kang soon withdrew from Dongduk Girls’ School and returned to her hometown of Jangyeon in September 1924. Back home, Kang found her mother impoverished and was tormented by the silent criticism that an intelligent student had come back without any accomplishments. As a result, Kang went to China and worked as a teacher for two years in Hailin, northern Manchuria.

  Hailin in 1927-1928, during Kang’s sojourn, saw the Manchurian Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea (Manju Chongguk Joseon Gongsandang) expand their power after colliding with ethnic Korean nationalists represented by the New People’s Government (Sinminbu), and Kang would have directly witnessed the serious ideological and physical conflicts between the two groups. Life in Manchuria at this time was particularly ruthless due to the secret ‘Mitsuya Agreement’ between Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin and Mitsuya Miyamatsu, the head of the Bureau of Police Affairs in the colonial Government-General of Korea. This agreement promised monetary reward for those reporting ethnic Koreans who possessed weapons or were involved in anti-Japanese activism, and resulted in both Manchurian warlords and Japanese imperialists expelling or arresting ethnic Korean independence activists – nationalists and communists alike. Additionally, under the perception that imperial Japan was invading the area with ethnic Korean peasants as spies, Manchurian warlords persecuted ethnic Koreans, demanding they pay money and become naturalized citizens of China. In such a situation, ethnic Korean nationalists and communists often suspected and even killed each other, and the lives of many ethnic Korean peasants who had settled in the area were destroyed. It is in this context that Kang came to harbour communist sympathies and to maintain the belief that for poor Korean peasants there was no difference between compatriot landlords back in Korea and non-Korean landlords in Manchuria.

  Leaving Hailin in 1928 and returning to her hometo
wn of Jangyeon, Kang played a key role in the establishment of the local branch of the Society of the Friends of the Rose of Sharon (Geun-uhoe) in 1929, and she founded Heongpung Night School, an academy for children from impoverished families where she taught classes on literature and started writing fiction in earnest. This period was also when she met future-husband Jang Ha-il, a graduate of the Suwon College of Agriculture and Forestry who had been appointed to the Jangyeon County Office. Living far away from his wife, whom he had been made to marry at an early age, Jang had come to Jangyeon together with his mother and lived in Kang’s house as a tenant.

  As a writer who was involved indirectly with KAPF (Korea Artista Proleta Federacio; Korean Proletarian Artists Federation), Kang would have been influenced by the ‘December 1928 Resolution’ – the decision adopted by the Communist International on the reorganization of the Communist Party of Korea. This document argued that the party must discard intellectual-centred organization methods, organize labourers and indigent peasants by infiltrating factories and agrarian villages, and isolate ethnic reformists. While many Korean writers criticized these methods and the document, Kang did not and was consistent in her political attitude.

  Therefore, the essays that Kang published after her return to Korea from teaching in Hailin in northern Manchuria and after the ‘December 1928 Resolution’ exhibit a level of awareness completely different from that in the short sketch-like poems that she had published earlier. For example, in October 1929 Kang published a criticism of the popular author Yeom Sang-seop, who was dubbed a ‘centrist’ at the time, and in February 1931 Kang published a rebuttal of Yang Ju-dong, a self-styled ‘syncretist’.

  As the romance between Kang and Jang progressed, the couple invited friends to a simple wedding ceremony before relocating to Longjing in Jiandao around June 1931. In Jiandao, Jang worked as a teacher at Dongxing Middle School (present-day Longjing Senior High School) and Kang started to publish her fiction while taking care of their home. Jang was a good reader, understanding Kang’s literary world, always being the first one to read her works, engaging in discussions, and providing advice. Indeed, he was a devoted husband who did his utmost to treat Kang’s chronic illnesses.

  Jiandao in the early 1930s was a land of war. While the Chinese people engaged in a fierce movement against both feudal landlords and warlords, Japanese imperialists incited the Mukden (or Manchurian) Incident in September 1931 and established the puppet state of Manchukuo in March 1932, before proceeding with mass-scale operations to eradicate ethnic Korean independence fighters. In the process, many people lost their homes, families, and lives. To flee such chaos, Kang left Jiandao and returned to Jangyeon around June 1932, then went back to Jiandao around September 1933. Although she did travel to Seoul and Jangyeon from time to time, from this point she lived in Jiandao, maintaining the household while steadily publishing her fiction.

  In 1939, Kang returned to Jangyeon for the final time because her health had started to worsen in the previous year. In the end, she died on 26 April 1944 due to aggravated illness aged thirty-eight.

  *

  The class consciousness that Kang embraced in Hailin and the atrocities and popular resistance that she witnessed in Jiandao became archetypal experiences for Kang’s literary activity. Though she produced nearly all her writing in Manchuria, she never mentioned the Japanese puppet state’s specious propaganda, for example slogans such as ‘concord among five ethnic groups’ (Han Chinese, Manchurians, Mongols, Koreans, and Japanese) and ‘paradise under royal government’ (rule by the puppet emperor of Manchuria). Kang’s works are instead infused with the desolation in people’s lives caused by the creation of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, the ruthless reality of being ruled by soldiers, and the strenuous efforts required to protect one’s individual and social life against such forces.

  Kang’s early fiction gives insight into the lives of Korean peasants living in Jiandao who had moved to Manchuria because life in their home villages had become unsustainable, and how compatriot landlords back in colonial Korea and non-Korean landlords in Manchuria were equally oppressive. For example, ‘Break the Strings’ (Pa-geum; 1931) recounts how a young ethnic Korean couple tormented by family and romantic problems comes to devote themselves to the armed anti-Japanese struggle in Manchuria, and ‘The Authoress’ (Geu Yeo-ja; 1932) clearly exhibits a class consciousness that transcends nationalism. Thus, the starting point of Kang’s literary career clearly displays a criticism of the Korean bourgeoisie which continues throughout her writing. This is also shown in the character of Sin-cheol in her sole novel The Human Problem (In-gan Munje; 1934. Published in 2009 by Feminist Press as From Wonso Pond); an untrustworthy university student who finally joins the anti-labour camp after wavering between peasants/labourers and landlords/capitalists.

  Kang thus established class problems rather than ethnic problems as the main conflicts in her fiction overall and, based on them, penned many works reflecting proletarian internationalism. In the case of ‘Vegetable Patch’ (Chae-jeon; 1933), all personages are Chinese and class problems among the Chinese are addressed. While ‘Salt’ (So-geum; 1934) and ‘Opium’ (Mayak; 1937) likewise feature Chinese landlords and capitalists, their evil deeds do not take on particularly ethnic characteristics. In other words, these figures oppress Bongyeom’s mother (‘Salt’) and Bodeuk’s mother (‘Opium’) economically and sexually not because they are Chinese but because they are wealthy males. Continuing with the theme of class, Kang published ‘Cape Changsan’ (Changsan-got; 1936), a Japanese-language short story not included in this volume that focused on proletarian internationalism more clearly and specifically than any other proletarian literary work by other KAPF writers. Although internationalism first emerged among KAPF writers around 1927 and was highlighted again before and after 1931, it led to no noticeable achievements. In contrast, ‘Cape Changsan’ is a significant demonstration of Kang’s resolute maintenance of internationalism even in 1936.

  Kang strove to depict the lives of impoverished ethnic Koreans living in Jiandao, the oppressors making such lives unbearable, and the anti-Japanese activists fighting against these forces, so changes in the situation in the area had a strong effect on her writings. Works such as ‘Mother and Son’ (Moja; 1935), ‘Anguish’ (Beonnoe; 1935), and ‘Darkness’ (Eo-dum; 1937) portray the gradual defeat and retreat of ethnic Koreans’ armed anti-Japanese organizations in Jiandao following their fierce resistance in the early 1930s. These stories also display the struggles and undaunted spirit of the families left behind, and the ethnic Korean betrayers who treated them with hostility. At this time, under increasing militarism by the Japanese rulers, writers in colonial Korea swerved from earlier topics of ethnicity and class and began to sensitively portray poverty and emotions in everyday life. Kang’s works, too, reflected such a tendency. Her ‘The Underground Village’ (Jihachon; 1936) depicts extreme states of poverty in exhausting detail, making it impossible for readers to disregard the harsh reality despite a possible desire to do so. In addition, Kang ceaselessly produced writings that focused on and reminded readers of the fates of anti-Japanese independence activists in Jiandao. A representative work in this vein, ‘Darkness’ (1937) presents the younger sister of a young Korean man executed by the Japanese authorities for his involvement in a political incident, about which everyone in colonial Korea maintains silence. In addition to such doses of reality, Kang also published ‘Manuscript Money’ (Won-go-ryo I-baeg-won; 1935), which directs criticism against intellectuals such as herself.

  *

  For a woman to become a writer in the Korean colonial era, she needed the economic means to receive at least a secondary education and a network through which she could publish her writings. In this respect, Kang’s formative background differed from other female authors. An unhappy home environment and extreme poverty gave Kang a different perspective. Male writers with such backgrounds were not hard to find, but in the case of women, opportunitie
s to overcome such poverty and to establish themselves in the literary scene were extremely rare. In impoverished environments, most women were not provided with any education nor could they possess the time to establish their identities and the time and space to produce writing. Consequently, they were unable to leave lasting records. In this respect, Kang is an important representative of Korean women during the Japanese colonial era; a rare reflection of lower-class women’s voices. Moreover, Kang brilliantly captured the zeitgeist as a writer who witnessed participants in armed struggles against the Japanese, testifying to their suffering and validity, and she was able to convey all of this to colonial Korea directly under Japanese rule.

  Sang-kyung Lee

  Professor of Modern Korean Literature

  Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

  THE UNDERGROUND VILLAGE

  Manuscript Money

  My dear little K,

  I received and read your last letter with gladness. I’m happy to learn that you have strengthened somewhat since I last heard from you. What can be worth more than good health?

  Dearest K, you write that with the prospect of graduation, you feel dread rather than joy, hopelessness rather than hope. I understand. With everything that is going on in the country, of course you feel that way. But you must also seek a new awakening amidst the dread and despair. You must discover a new path that burns with joy and hope.

  Dearest K, I feel that I still lack the knowledge to express in simple sentences, as you have asked me to, my philosophy on love and marriage. But I shall write down the whole of what is going on in my life and the whole of what I feel from that life in my rough and unlearned sentences. You’re a wise soul, so please discard what you don’t need and use what you can.