Japanese colonial period, liberation, and until the 21st century… Capturing the ‘vivid lives of workers’

Booker Prize finalist Hwang Seok-young, ‘Three Generations of Railwaymen’

A conversation with an old man I met during my visit to North Korea in 1989
Published as an inspired ‘story of three generations’ as a novel
Shaping the dreams and tears of modern and contemporary workers
Jury: “Narrative of a century of Korean history”

“Where is your hometown?” After saying hello to the female general manager of the Pyongyang Department Store, I exchanged greetings with the assistant manager in charge of guiding the department store. She said the assistant manager looked older and spoke old-fashioned Seoul dialect and accent. Novelist Hwang Seok-young, who visited a department store under the guidance of North Korean authorities, asked her assistant manager.

“It’s Seoul.” The old man, the assistant manager, answered. It was as expected. “Where in Seoul?” he asked again. “This is Yeongdeungpo.” Yeongdeungpo was where his family settled after leaving Pyongyang in 1947, and where he himself spent most of his childhood until high school. He walked around the department store with the old man that day, and rather than looking at the products on display, he mainly talked about old Yeongdeungpo.

A few days later, Hwang Seok-young was able to meet an old man from the same neighborhood again at the Daedong Riverside fish market at the Daedong Riverside fish market and listen to him and his family talk over soju. His father attended the Yeongdeungpo Railroad Workshop. He entered the railroad school, became an engineer, and traveled across Manchuria. After liberation, he was active in the National Council of Korean Trade Unions (Jeonpyeong), but defected to North Korea under pressure from the U.S. military government. When the war broke out, he completed a short-term accelerated course. The son who became an engineer and went to the Nakdong River front to transport military supplies but did not return… .

In 1989, novelist Hwang Seok-young, who visited North Korea, thought that the story of three generations of old man’s railroad workers was an interesting and meaningful narrative and vowed to write a novel someday. However, he only made up his mind to write it, then gave up and kept putting it off until later. About thirty years passed like that.

A few years ago, he decided that he would write the story of three generations of railroad workers and that he would not go home unless he wrote it, so he left home with two trunks. After researching and preparing materials for a year and continuing to write for another year, he was able to publish the full-length novel ‘Three Generations of Railroad Workers’ (Changbi) in 2020, when the pandemic (global pandemic of infectious diseases) was in full swing. The work was recently shortlisted for the International Category of the Booker Prize, a British literary award. The Booker Prize jury described the work as “an epic story that weaves together a century of Korean history,” and “it vividly depicts the lives of ordinary workers, starting from the Japanese colonial period, through liberation, and into the 21st century.”

The novel begins with a scene where Lee Jin-oh, the fourth-generation descendant of Lee Baek-man, who is protesting on top of a 45-meter-high power plant chimney, attempts to defecate in a bamboo bowl. While highlighting the absurdity of reality by continuing the high-altitude sit-in, Jin-oh’s perspective is reflected on the lives of three generations of railroad workers and their families, including his great-grandfather Lee Baek-man, grandfather Lee Il-cheol, and father Lee Ji-san, by writing people’s names on plastic bottles and having conversations. Therefore, the present and the past intersect and move forward.

Lee Baek-man, a brilliant great-grandfather from Ganghwa Island, worked at various jobs starting from the age of thirteen as an assistant worker at Yoshida Rice Mill before becoming an employee of the Railway Bureau and settling down at the Yeongdeungpo Workshop. Baek Man, who is fascinated by trains, names his two sons Hansoe (Ilcheol) and Dusoe (Icheol). Il-cheol goes through a training center for railroad workers, becomes an engineer, and travels across the continent on an express train to Manchuria. However, his younger brother, Lee-cheol, works at a railroad workshop, gets involved in a strike, gets fired, and devotes himself to the labor movement.

However, Lee Cheol, who was arrested, died in prison from the aftereffects of torture, and after liberation, Il Cheol participated in war activities and defected to North Korea when he was pressured by the US military government. Jisan, who defected to North Korea with his father, became a railroad engineer when the Korean War broke out and was deployed to the Nakdong River front. He was wounded and captured, but was released and returned to his home in Yeongdeungpo.

In particular, Lee Jae-yu, a legendary labor activist during the Japanese colonial period, appears through Lee Cheol as a medium to show those who fought against the double wall of imperialism and capitalism, while Lee Baek-man’s wife Juan-daek and younger sister Mak-eum, Il-cheol’s wife Shin Geum-i and Lee Cheol’s wife Han Yeo-ok are shown. As the female narrative continues, it goes far beyond realism. In particular, Juan-daek, who saved people and objects with superhuman strength and wisdom in the flooded Yeongdeungpo area, Mak-eum, who boasts a brilliant eloquence, and Shin Geum-i, who has magical powers and foresight that can see spirits, show new possibilities for folktale realism.

“’Do you think you’re alone up the chimney?’ ‘I’m here with my grandmother like this.’ She led her grandson by his wrist. ‘Look at the stars in the sky over there. Hundreds of millions of people have lived and passed away, but they are watching what you do.’”

Why did maestro Hwang Seok-young need to write ‘Three Generations of Railroad Workers’? What do the lives, deaths, dreams, and tears of workers over 100 years of modern and contemporary Korea look like that he embodied? Where does the author’s journey lead? I met author Hwang not only through a phone call, but also through a press conference commemorating the publication in June 2020 and the Incheon Cultural Foundation book concert in December 2020.

―The paths of the central characters, brothers Il-cheol and Lee-cheol, diverge.

“My older brother, Il-cheol, had a sense of responsibility as the eldest son to take care of the family and was good at studying. Like his older brother, Lee Cheol was not keen on studying, but after coming into contact with socialist ideology and becoming aware of it, he took part in the labor movement. His older brother feels sorry for his younger brother who is going through a difficult path and supports him. “This was a common occurrence in student movements and social movements in the 1970s and 1980s.”

―In particular, Shin Geum-i’s grandmother’s ability to see souls is impressive.

“Shin Geum is the pillar of the Lee family who feeds the family, and plays the role of relaying stories of the past to his grandson Jin-oh. Personally, I think it is a story centered around Shin Geum. Additionally, the person I thought was interesting is Yamashita Choi Dal-young, who started out as a stooge and rose to become a police chief. “He is a villain, but I think he did it very well.”

―The sense of place is also strong, with Yeongdeungpo as the center.

“The city of Yeongdeungpo was originally created because of Incheon. Previously, ships coming from Segok Line or Samnam entered Mapo by crossing the Ganghwa and Han Rivers, but with the colonial modernization, Jemulpo became Incheon, a port was created, and with the creation of the Gyeongin Railway, Yeongdeungpo was formed. I am a child of a modern city. “When I was young, I grew up listening to the sound of a whistle coming from Yeongdeungpo Station or the sound of a locomotive passing by.”

―This work also contrasts with Yeom Sang-seop’s ‘Three Generations’.

“If Yeom Sang-seop’s ‘Three Generations’ is a novel that illuminates modern colonial capitalism that was just beginning to take shape, my ‘Three Generations of Railroad Workers’ focuses on railroad workers and explores colonial capitalism after the March 1st Movement, the Korean War and division, and the neoliberal world system. It depicts workers entangled like a net. If Yeom Sang-seop’s ‘Three Generations’ is the entrance to modern Korean novels, ‘Samdae of the Railroad Man’ can be said to be its exit.”

Hwang Seok-young, who was born in Changchun, Manchuria in 1943 and grew up in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, began his literary career in earnest when he won the Sasanggye New Writer’s Award for his short story ‘Near Ipseok’ in 1962 and was elected to the Chosun Ilbo Spring Literary Contest for his short story ‘Top’ in 1970. Afterwards, ‘Guest’, ‘Road to Sampo’, ‘Han Chronicles’, ‘Shadow of Weapon’, ‘Janggil Mountain’, ‘Old Garden’, ‘Guest’, ‘Simcheong, Lotus Road’, ‘Baridegi’, and ‘At Sunset’ ‘, etc. were announced. Many of his works have been translated and published all over the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, and he has won the Manhae Literary Award, the Dan Jae Award, the Isan Literary Award, the Daesan Literary Award, and the French Emile Guimet Asian Literature Award.

-What are your future plans?

“Considering my current health, I think I can use up to 90. I think that perhaps if I write three more books diligently, I will be able to die while demonstrating the style of a later novel that I have in mind. “I define the name as ‘folktale realism.’”

He settled in Gunsan a few years ago, and only when the sun sets and the moon rises does he sit down at his desk and start writing. From late at night until the wee hours of the morning, he writes and writes. Like a night goblin. When the sun rises tomorrow, he will wake up late and face another busy day. Optimistic that the world will move forward. Little by little, very little by little.

“The grandmother narrowed her wrinkled eyes even further and smiled. She said, ‘Even if it seems like they are losing at the time, the weak will win in the end. It was frustrating because it was so slow.’ And Shingeum added: ‘If you live long enough, you will know. We just don’t show it to each other, but deep down we all know.’”

Senior Reporter Kim Yong-chul [email protected]

[ⓒ 세계일보 & Segye.com, 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]