Seoul Ttoksuni

Friday, September 9, was the day Seoul Ttoksuni went on the air for the first time.

CBS, Korea's first private broadcaster, had taken Ki-jo's proposal for a Miwon drama without a moment's hesitation and slotted it as a special program.

Seven in the evening. Everyone from the five department heads on down had gathered at Ki-jo's house — the whole Cheongsan household. They ate an early supper and settled on the wooden floor to wait for the first broadcast.

The moment Cheongsan's name rang out over the time signal, the household erupted in cheers and applause. Kim Seogwang seized the speaker that had spoken it and went so far as to kiss the thing. Ki-jo laid a finger against his lips — shh — and every eye locked on the speaker set out on the table.

They went silent and swallowed hard. Then a familiar prelude came spilling out — bahm-bahm-pah-bah, bahm-bahm-pah-bah, bahm-bahm-pah-bah, tcha-tcha-ra, tcha-tcha-jan — and Soon-young's eyes went perfectly round.

"Hey! This is 'The Tale of the Turning Waterwheel,' isn't it? This is your big number, Brother-in-law!"

Ki-jo smiled and nodded. For the Seoul Ttoksuni music he had chosen Park Jae-hong's "The Tale of the Turning Waterwheel." The prelude was merry and the words were bright, a match for the drama's sunny air. It was an age with no notion of copyright, when a station that owned a singer's record could play it as it pleased — but Ki-jo had gone to Park Jae-hong, the man he idolized, asked his leave, and made him a gift of a jeep.

As the opening song unfolded he was too happy to hold the laughter in. It faded away, and the fifteen-minute drama began.

The announcement gave way at once to the racket of Seoul Station, staged for the air. It was the opening scene — Ttoksuni, up from the countryside, just arrived in the capital to hire herself out as a maid. Nineteen fifty-five was a year when poverty, and the tide of country people pouring into Seoul, lived close under the skin. Ttoksuni was the character who carried all of that. The first line belonged to the actress who had once asked Ki-jo, at the drama salon, about inns.

"Ask somebody going by where Jongno is. Find Jongno, and Seongbuk-dong's right there."

Already lost in the story, Soon-young was giving Ttoksuni directions. The whole room burst out laughing.

For all fifteen minutes of the drama, no one said another word. On an evening in 1955, with nothing much in the way of amusement, a radio play held every listener fast. Ki-jo set the script he carried in his head against the actors' playing, and relief washed through him. The show was far more entertaining than the page.

The episode ended, and the Cheongsan Seasoning spot came on again.

The actress who played Ttoksuni finished her scene and went straight into selling Miwon. All of it was live. When the spot ended, Ki-jo finally let out the breath he had been holding, and the Cheongsan people applauded.

"Boss! It's a success!"

Kim Seogwang threw his arms around him, beaming. Ki-jo shared the joy around the room and lifted a glass of beer for a toast. The beer haul back in January had sickened him of the stuff; he had meant never to let it touch his lips again, until a sweltering summer in Yeongwol brought him back to it.

"To a smash hit for Seoul Ttoksuni!"

Excited by the feeling that the drama would land, he called the toast — and everyone stared at him blankly.

"What's a smash hit?"

Seogwang blinked at him. Realizing he had let slip a piece of slang from too far up the road, Ki-jo scrambled to cover.

"I've been seeing a lot of the Chungmuro people lately, and that's what they call it when a picture succeeds. A smash hit. It just came out. Ha."

They accepted the excuse, and they shouted it back.

"To a smash hit for Seoul Ttoksuni!"

A modest round of drinks followed. Right there, Ki-jo announced the new charge he had given Shim Hansu and Jin Hyun-kyung.

"Department Head Shim and Miss Hyun-kyung have agreed to look after the actors for the time being. They've been going in to Myeongdong together since a few days ago."

At that, every face said the same thing — good, that the two of them would be working side by side.

"And to manage the actors and the writers, we had no choice but to set up a company. Cheongsan Entertainment. I'm placing Department Head Hyun Tae-sik in charge of it."

A new department head had just been born at Cheongsan. Tae-sik — the former gangster who had kept faith at Seomyeon Rotary — rose at the introduction and bowed.

"I still fall a long way short. But Department Head Shim and Miss Hyun-kyung say they'll help me, and that steadies me. I'll give it everything I have."

He bowed low, and they all applauded. In Busan he had proved he belonged to the Cheongsan family, and the old Busan crew — Ma-ryang, Hansu, and Wang-chul — were especially fond of him.

"Tae-sik! Congratulations!"

Ko Wang-chul was the first to mark the promotion. Sharp as ever, he ran an eye over what was set out on the low table.

"I was wondering how come there's so much American stuff. All of it bought for the actors, wasn't it?"

Laid out to go with the beer were Nabisco biscuits, Spam, and Kentucky sausages blanched in water. He had the right of it. Once the actors and the writers understood that Ki-jo meant to back them without holding anything back, they began asking for every American comfort there was — Lucky Strike and Camel cigarettes, Hershey's and Milky Way chocolate, Lux soap, Colgate toothpaste, Pond's cream. And so Hansu and Hyun-kyung took to haunting the goblin market by Namdaemun, just beside the U.S. Army PX, day after day.

The market sold American goods to Koreans who were not allowed inside the PX, then vanished like a ghost the instant a crackdown squad appeared. It showed itself and it disappeared, and that was why people called it the dokkaebi market — the goblin market.

If Seoul did not have what an actor wanted, Hansu had to take the wheel with Hyun-kyung beside him and drive the jeep all the way to Paju. The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division was garrisoned there, and Paju was the wholesale tap through which American goods reached the capital. Seventy percent of what the division PX sold leaked into the black market, and the Yankee Market in Paju was where it pooled. The price of a luxury in Seoul was, in truth, a price set in Paju.

Ki-jo looked at Hansu, at Hyun-kyung, and at Hyun Tae-sik, now department head of Cheongsan Entertainment, with quiet satisfaction. They were wearing themselves thin on the actors' and writers' luxuries and whims, but the entertainers under Cheongsan Entertainment at least earned their keep. That much he could let pass. And Tae-sik, bred to the gangs, was the right man to protect them. The talent had to travel between the drama salon in Myeongdong and the CBS studio on Jongno 2-ga. He had once belonged to both the Myeongdong gang and the Jongno gang, and he was even on easy terms with Lee Jeong-jae's Dongdaemun gang.

As the drinking hit its stride, Seogwang, carried off by the fun, called for a song.

"Boss, sing that waterwheel song from Ttoksuni. They say it's your big number."

"That's right, Brother-in-law! Give us one."

Soon-young jammed a spoon into a beer bottle and thrust the makeshift microphone into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his hands.

"Oh, come now... you people..."

Shim Hansu and Seong Dae-ik hauled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him up between them, one on each side, and there was no getting out of it. Ki-jo cleared his throat and sang "The Tale of the Turning Waterwheel."

When the first verse ended and he went into the second, the Cheongsan family clapped and sang with him.

Watching them sing along, Ki-jo felt the sting rise behind his eyes. It was the song he used to hum alone, looking out at the sea, back when the work on the docks was at its hardest.

Sunday, September 25. Ki-jo went to the house in Hannam-dong that he had rented out, to meet the new tenant.

Kang Seong-tae, eighth Minister of Commerce and Industry, had stepped down on the twentieth, and Kim Il-hwan had come in as the ninth. For reasons Ki-jo could not fathom, Minister Kang had passed the house on to his successor — as if the place were the official residence attached to the post. There was nothing for it. Landlord or not, he would have to go to Hannam-dong and pay his respects to the man living under his roof.

He pressed the bell. The door opened, and he followed a maid inside. Kim Il-hwan, the new minister, was sitting on the sofa.

"Do come in, President Lee Ki-jo."

Ki-jo bowed and took a seat.

"I'm late in saying so, but congratulations on your appointment as Minister of Commerce and Industry."

He had brought a gift, and he offered it across.

"Oh, there was no need for anything like this... ha."

It was honey from Yeongwol. Ki-jo watched Kim Il-hwan — he liked the man — and once again he ran through the careers of people who lived that high up. Kang Seong-tae, just gone, had come out of the colonial Government-General. He would pass from this ministry to the chair of the Korea International Trade Association, and of Korea International Steel besides. Kim Il-hwan, coming after him, was a Manchurian Military Academy man. He would do his turn here and go on to be Minister of Home Affairs, then Minister of Transportation. He was someone who could reach into every business Ki-jo touched. For the whole of the Syngman Rhee years, this was the man who ought to have the Hannam-dong house.

Nor did the road end there. After the April 19 uprising he would be locked up, then let out again as a model prisoner, and he would rise to chair the Korea Veterans Association, preside over the International Tourism Corporation, and at last head Korea Electric Power. The graduates of the Manchurian Military Academy were zombies, and no other word would do. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠They survived whichever regime came along and made the circuit of every office that mattered.

Ki-jo was still turning over a career that amounted to nobility in the Republic of Korea when Kim Il-hwan addressed him.

"I was told that President Lee provides a house for the Minister of Commerce and Industry. I wished to meet you."

So that was how the story had been passed along...

Ki-jo gave it up and fixed on whatever was coming.

"I am a military man. Of the economy, I know little."

It was a line he seemed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have heard a great many times. Kim Il-hwan had left the army only this year, a lieutenant general. During the Korean War he had gotten one ton of gold bullion and two and a half tons of silver safely out of the Bank of Korea's underground vault and all the way to Busan, and that success had set him climbing.

"I know little of economics. Even so, I support the policy of Dr. Ahn Dong-hyeok, the sixth minister, and I intend to carry that policy forward."

What Dr. Ahn Dong-hyeok had set down was the 3F policy for commerce and industry.

"I grew curious about what you were doing, and when I looked into it, I found you had taken the energy and fuel side."

"We've only just begun."

"Ha. Well begun is half done. A republic that has come through a war — has not everything in it only just started?"

Ki-jo nodded.

"Samsung wishes to take up fertilizer, and Cheongsan is pouring its strength into energy and fuel, so all that remains is to bring in the funds. Ha ha ha."

Hearing his own name set down beside Samsung's left him with an odd, unsettled feeling. He did not think he was yet anyone to be compared with them. He let it pass as a courtesy from a new minister who had simply come into the use of his house.

"The Daihan Coal Corporation sits under this ministry, but six mines will not suffice. A million tons of coal is not enough. You know that as well as I."

"Yes. I know."

"The ministry will not stand in your way. As a man running private mines, give it your best."

"Thank you, Minister."

Ki-jo heard the new minister out — the encouragement, the well-wishing — and walked out of the house that had once been his own. Coming through the front gate, he felt exactly like a hired hand leaving a yangban lord's mansion after paying his respects. The mood sat sour on him, until the young maid who had come out to shut the gate spoke before she closed it.

"Sir... you are the president of Cheongsan Seasoning, aren't you? I heard what the master and mistress were saying..."

Ki-jo wiped the gloom off his face, turned, and smiled wide.

"Ah. Yes. That's right."

At his answer the girl's face lit up.

"Lately I've been listening to Seoul Ttoksuni, and I like it so much. When Ttoksuni's mother comes on, I think of my own mother back home in the country."

Fourteen, she looked. Ki-jo gazed at the child working in the minister's household, and something in him ached. Curious where a girl that young was put to sleep, he asked.

"In the little room next to the kitchen."

The answer struck him hard. That space had never been meant for a person to live in. It was a narrow storeroom for pots and provisions — bare concrete, no wallpaper at all, a single small window, and nothing else. No heat reached it.

"Aren't you cold? In there?"

"I'm all right, sir."

If she passed a winter in a room with no heat, it would go badly. He would have to call Lee Man-ik and have the place rebuilt so warmth could be run in before the cold arrived.

"I wanted to thank you. Because of your Miwon, I get to enjoy the drama."

His chest gone tight, Ki-jo drew a bill from his wallet and held it out. The girl recoiled, waving her hands.

"No, sir. Please don't. If they catch me with money like that, they'll think I stole it from the master's house..."

He saw his mistake at once. A maid was paid almost nothing. They were, most of them, daughters of poor country houses, sent up to Seoul so there would be one less mouth to feed. They knew they would never be able to save. A maid's hope was only this — to eat and live while she worked under a master's roof, and to marry when she came of age.

Ki-jo took out his notebook.

"Tell me the address where your mother lives. I'll send it there."

"Thank you, sir."

Abashed, overwhelmed that money might actually reach her home, the maid bent from the waist. He wrote down the address as she gave it, and then he made her a promise.

"I'll make Seoul Ttoksuni something worth listening to."

"Thank you, sir. Go safely."

Tears stood in the smiling child's eyes.

Ki-jo left the minister's house and walked the lanes of the fine houses in Hannam-dong, and he made himself a vow.