After reading Chan Jung's debate motion (though he is not saying that torture is needed), I just wanted to share my personal essay which I wrote in creative writing IR with Mr. Moon last year. Even though it is not well-written essay, I hope all of you to get something in this essay.
Snoring
It was a silent night. The street outside the window swallowed and was gobbled into the darkness that a solitary streetlight lightened up and suspended. In the room, thick books slept under the desk light and there was only the sound of handwriting. Putting my head down to the desk and sitting on a chair, I concentrated on a politics book. The final entrance exam for KMLA was right ahead, and I was preparing for the exam and the interview. My father, calmly reading a book in the living room, kept a fallen ginkgo leaf between the leaves of a book, which looked like him: an old picture printed in frosting hair, furrowed forehead, and thick glasses. After spreading the bedding, he fell asleep putting down his book and the burden of the day. Meanwhile, I turned over the page, and his loud snoring reached my ears. The sound of his sawing logs increasingly felled the silence, as he also started to shout.
Snoring had become an ordinary presence in the house. Father snored whenever he slept, and also yelled at someone in his sleep. Though his voice was loud, what he shouted in his sleep sounded like Swahili for my family. At times, everyone woke up due to his ear splitting snoring. We could think there was a robber in the house, maybe a natural disaster, or even a North Korean attack. My mother and sisters always nagged father, who would simply smile shyly and sink his head on his chest. I sometimes joined their nagging party, but not as seriously as they did.
At the night, however, dad’s snoring sounded strangely unpleasant. Whether was it because of the upcoming entrance exam, or unknown reasons, I did not know. Stressed, I suddenly exploded and I flew into a rage. I tried to wake him up and shout at him. As I stalked out of the room, like an angry bear, I could still hear what he shouted. His shrieking yelling pierced my ear and heart. There was time he shouted in intelligible Korean, “Please….. Please stop it. I will do as you told me. I will confess everything as what you tell me,” trembling like an aspen leaf. He seemed about to cry. There was deep anguish and pain in his bellowing which filled the hallway. As we had taken his snoring not so seriously, we also missed on his pain.
In the winter of 1982, when father was lecturing, secret police illegally arrested him. I cannot imagine the feeling of being dragged in front of his students, and under the truculent authority. In the 1980's, South Korea was governed by the military regime of Jeon Du-Hwan who had come to power in the wake of a coup. He proclaimed martial law and suppressed people by military force. It was him who trampled on people’s desire for democracy after the death of the army dictator Park Jung-Hee. Lacking a clear justification for the coup, he alleged the efficiency of dictatorship to protect South Korea from North Korean infiltration. He claimed an authority-core government system is better than ‘split democracy’. Based on this statement, he manipulated a lot of pro-North political cases, or spy cases when there was no clear threat from North Korea. Due to the overwhelming control over the media, nobody could raise questions, or challenge the status quo.
My father was in the case. The beginning of the misfortune was the book of poetry Ill Seoul by a North Korean defecting poet Oh Chang-Hwan. One of the students at Kunsan Je-Il High School borrowed it from Mr. Lee Gwag-Woong, another teacher, and lost it in a bus. Someone found it reported to the police. The Police Department began criminal investigation formally and ended it soon. However, Police for Public Peace (PPP), an umbrella under the military regime, did not let it go. Right at the time when PPP was looking for scapegoats, radar detected four powerless teachers. As a result, PPP arrested – more likely kidnapped and confined – them without giving any reason, and started working on the fiction.
Polices confined teachers in Motel room near the school, and beat their prey mercilessly. Under the unimaginable fear, the only what my father could do was quivering. Without an answer fits in the fiction, my father had to endure harsh tortures. They hanged him by heels and hit him heartlessly. They put his head in the bucket full of water until he was nearly drowned. He also used to be a roast chicken. He was a naked chicken hung on the iron bar and the drips of water were sprinkled on him before the cooking. When the cook turned the electricity on, his legs and arms were shrunk up like a brownish fried chicken on the street. By the cruel cooks, the fiction was written in lightening speed. The Book Circle of the Korean teachers suddenly became an anti-government organization, and was named Five-Pine Society after five pine trees in the school back yard. Whatever they talked became secret plot for the coup and the books they shared became seditious documents. After 40 days of appeasements and threats, polices finally completed their fiction. Only after gaining false confession through torture, those ‘traitors’ were legally but unjustifiably arrested.
South Korea was turned upside down. Teacher rebels were arrested! They had been ordered from Pyeong-Yang to paint our children’s thoughts red! My father and other teachers were immediately fired, and my father was expelled from the association of poets. There were no more friends for him. Everyone hesitated to contact with him. They were afraid of being treated as a companion of a Commie, so nobody helped my father from the trouble. He was left alone. Soon, the first trial was held. Public Prosecutors asserted the guiltiness of defendants, but the confession was the only evidence they suggested. Defenders, in contrast, claimed the confession should not be effective as evidence because the process of arrestment and investigation was injustice. Decision of the court might be a thin ray of sunshine for my father fallen in darkness. However, the reality was relentless. Among nine defendants of this case, six were sentenced for probation and others for imprisonment. Considering the military dictatorship, the decision was truly faithful enough; however, it was unacceptable for defendants because it anyway admitted their guiltiness. They had done nothing, but they were sentenced to be guilty! Anyway, my father was discharged through the decision. He came back to the family.
Prosecutors and defenders both appealed against the decision, but for different reasons – the former complained too weak ruling and the latter too heavy. The second trial was held few months later. Though my family and father expected better decision, the atmosphere was colder. It was due to the tacit suppression by Jeon Du-Hwan. Right after the first decision of the case, he invited major judges to dinner and said, “Rulings of courts are too weak nowadays… even rebels were released….” Though he did not clarify the exact case, it was threatening enough for the judge. There was a rumor that the judge of the first trial will be fired. As everyone worried about, the decision of the court was above the imagination. It was completely opposite to the original one – all nine defendants were sentenced to imprisonment, and ruling of three major defendants was especially heavier. Fortunately, because my father was not on the center of the fiction, he was sentenced to one year imprisonment. However, the decision was still unacceptable for my innocent father. The final court confirmed the second decision. Though he was discharged after a year, the society was another prison for him.
The secret police interfered with my father whenever he tried to get a job. The police threatened the employer by saying “Do not hire the rebel.” There was always police near the house. My family faced serious financial difficulties. Because my parents could not keep their family together anymore, they divorced. My father collected money from working as a private tutor in Seoul, and my mother stayed in her parents’ house with my two sisters. In Gwangju, she worked as a quilt instructor to raise her daughters. However, it was people’s suspicious look which was the hardest to bear for my family. To live as a Commie in South Korean society might be like to live as a witch in Medieval Europe. It is still hard to imagine how severe his pain was. He even had to powerlessly watch his suffering daughters and wife.
Even though my parents later reunited, the pain was not ended yet. About time for my second sister to decide her future career, she hoped to be a lawyer or a public office. She was talented and interested in the humanity field, rather than the scientific field. My father also knew it as well. However, he inevitably persuaded her to study for the natural-science field. It was due to the guilty-by-association system. Because he was a National-Security Law violator at that time, she might not be able to accomplish her own dream. As a result, she gave up her dream and became an Oriental doctor. After the series of agonies he needed to endure, he recently recovered his honor a little. On a retrial which was held in 2008, the court sentenced innocence of all nine defendants. Everyone was moved to tears, and the absence of one passed away defendant added tears. With the tear, it seemed my father also cleaned up all his pains. At the night, my family celebrated the decision with prosperous dinner. He was brightly smiling.
On the dim night when only a cricket chirped, then I could to hear my father’s snoring through my heart. His hidden wound beyond description came closer to me. When I looked at my father, he was in a torture chamber. In his shouting, there were all his bad memory – bucket full of water, iron bar carrying electricity, threats of polices….. As his terrible recollection was reminded in my heart, as I was to confront his everlasting pain, the living room suddenly seemed hazy. My father, sofa, TV, lamp…. Everything was vogue for me. I was blurred with tears. We had to embrace his snoring, but the only thing we did on it was complaining. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and finally were scattered on the floor. I could not keep my shoulder from quivering anymore. Outside the window, the dawn began to whiten the sky full of darkness. A loud sound of his snoring reached to my ears again, and he was still snoring.
Always welcome your comments : )
