In 1945, I was eight years old. I was old enough to understand that the occupation of Korea by Japan was wrong, but I was not old enough to know how to make things better. Japan had annexed Korea in 1910, long before I was even born. What that meant practically was that even though I was born into a Korean family in Korea, I was not allowed to be Korean. Being so young, I was ignorant of so many issues, but there was one thing I knew for certain; we had lost our country, our language, and our soul. 

Our belongings and sense of dignity were always under assault. Every morning, I walked to school in the same tattered clothes and shoes. We always started our day by bowing to their god, the emperor of Japan. At school, my name was not  _ _ _ but instead was Haruko Dakaiku. I was only allowed to study for half the day. The rest of my day was dedicated to working in the labor fields. As a child, my job was to pick baskets of castor seeds, a tedious and labor-intensive job that left my hands calloused and cut from the sharp spines of the seed. Although so young, my skin was like old leather and grew darker each day with the sun. It was like the stained wood chest in my living room which had inlaid abalone shell. They were almost black but not quite. I had the back similar to the elderly ahjuhshe who hobbled in town selling his wares after all of his family died; my back constantly ached from bending down, crouching low day after day.

The school classroom was sometimes worse than the fields. One day in elementary school, my best friend and I whispered to each other in Korean. Our Japanese teacher took notice, hit us both with the rod, and deducted points from our grades. I cried hard that night at home, rocking myself back and forth. I clutched my arms around my body holding as if holding on for dear life. Maybe I was holding on to what little hope I could muster. I didn’t care about the grade, but it made me feel hopeless.

During the occupation. life was in chaos and full of danger and uncertainty. One day without warning, Japanese officials and policemen came around our village to search for fugitives or men working underground.  They broke into our house and ravaged everything. They stole anything of value, especially anything made of steel or copper.  This was not the first time. We were prepared. Many, like my mother, had dug and hidden our dearest treasures deep in our yard.

As well, like so many Koreans of that era, my family were farmers. 80% of our field crops -rice, barley, and corn - had to be given to the Japanese. We gave away over 500 rice bags every year. My family had over 100 acres of land and mountains. Yet, I would think to myself in the quiet of the night as I lay down, that we were a family of over 100 bones.  I could lie down at night and if Americans count sheep, my version was counting the 100 ribs jutting out from our thin, gangly, sunbaked bodies. We were walking and talking skeletons. My stomach had a constant gnawing and rumble like a buzzing fly. We were always short of rice for our 15 family members. We had 8 members in our immediate family, but this number of 15 included all the relatives, even very distant, that had no home or food. Every day, after school and my chores were done, I would sneak up to the mountain- a long and arduous trek- with my older sister to peel pine tree skins. We would race home joyfully like these were golden coveted treasures. My mother would boil them with a handful of rice in the big black kettle nestled in the heart of our house. The boiled pine tree skins and rice would provide all the sustenance our whole family had for the day. To us, back then, boiled pine tree skins were considered a delicious feast. But, in truth through the lens of clarity old age gives, it was thin, flavorless, watery gruel. Yet, somehow, it was enough.

One day, when it was almost my 9th birthday, as I was cheerfully walking home from school, without warning, Japanese county officials dropped by my house. They had heard my dogs barking. I was just about to enter our courtyard when I saw the official spike my favorite dog in her stomach with a long black iron hook. A piercing cry shot through the air like a dagger from my dog as she was then dragged to their cart. From the day I was born, I ran everywhere with my little shadow- my beloved pet dog. To this day, at 85, I still can see with clarity my beloved dog with tears in her eyes looking at me as she was thrown into the cart.  Blood pouring out of her side and running along the ground where we had just played that morning before school as we always did. My knees buckled, and I broke down sobbing uncontrollably. I learned later, dogs were slaughtered and rationed for Japanese soldier’s food.