Seollal Morning, 1957
January 31, 1957. The last day of January on the solar calendar was also the first morning of the lunar year—Seollal.
Gijo's household and Ma-ryang's kept no ancestral rites of their own, so the two families set out for Mapo while the morning was still young. At the in-laws' house in Yeomni-dong they joined the memorial service, offered their New Year's bows, and sat down together over bowls of tteokguk, the rice-cake soup that marked the turning of the year. The old couple knew Ma-ryang had left a father, a wife, and children behind in the North, and they looked after him all the more carefully for it. Mr. Yun, the father-in-law, treated him with particular tenderness.
Mr. Yun was a man who had already lived through a grief that tore the heart in two. Before he met Sunrye's mother, he had lost all four sons born of his first wife. Early in the war, when American bombers carpeted Seoul, his eldest son's entire household was wiped out. The other three were dragged off into the People's Volunteer Army when the city was retaken, and no word ever came of whether they lived or died. On a New Year's morning those sons, cut down in the bloom of life, might well have risen before him, yet he let none of it show. He was a large-hearted man, and he gathered his wife's children by her former marriage, and his sons-in-law with them, into a steady warmth.
"I like watching my second son-in-law eat. If it isn't enough, have some more."
"Aye. I'll take just one more bowl."
Mr. Yun watched Ma-ryang eat with quiet satisfaction.
All through the soup, Sunrye's half-sister Haemi kept her eyes on Gijo. When their gazes met, she spoke up.
"Brother-in-law, the station isn't closed today, is it?"
"Of course not. They're in the thick of getting the broadcast ready."
"Can I go see it? I looked at the schedule—Nam In-su and Geum Sa-hyang are supposed to be on..."
Haemi was still in her teens, and the popular singers of the day had all her attention.
"Shall we finish eating and go have a look?"
"Yes! Brother-in-law!"
The whole table brightened at once.
"Brother-in-law, are Eighth Army show singers really going to be there too?"
Cheolho, still in high school, could hardly sit still.
"They are. The real Western Jubilee troupe."
"Brother-in-law! I want to hear country music!"
Cheolho was lit up.
Gijo had gone to no small trouble to bring Eighth Army singers onto the Seollal special. In those days the entertainers of the Eighth Army shows were the finest in the Republic of Korea, signed to big agencies the way later generations would belong to SM, YG, JYP, or HYBE—houses such as Hwayang, Universal, Samjin, and Gongyeong. The agencies picked their talent, drilled them without mercy, and sent them before specialists come from America. An Eighth Army stage was a stage you could not walk until an American judge passed you. Singers, dancers, and players were graded Double A or Single A, and established names failed those auditions in droves. How famous you were in Korea counted for nothing. It was a stage where even a young unknown could be chosen if the skill was there, as it had been for the guitarist Shin Joong-hyun. The agencies and their acts carried themselves accordingly. A television-station president was beneath their notice.
And no wonder. The money was enormous. The year before, Gijo had cleared a million dollars in tungsten forwarding; the companies working the Eighth Army shows had taken in 1.2 million. Pay inside the agencies was staggering too—an average monthly wage ten or twenty times what an ordinary person earned. Performers like that had no reason to glance at a television station that could barely offer a fee. There were 264 U.S. military clubs across the country. Playing even one a day would take a year, and men and women that busy making money would be doing something close to charity if they gave HLKZ-TV their Seollal.
What saved the booking, after Gijo had already failed at it, was the United States Information Service. John Curtis, the USIS broadcast officer, had been dropping by the station; he heard the trouble from Hwang Tae-young, the technical president, and put in a call to one of the agencies. Several famous troupes were working the circuit then—the Benny Show, the A-One Show, the Spring Variety Show, the Tommy Ario Show, and Western Jubilee—and Western Jubilee was the one that came through. Curtis could arrange an appearance that easily because the USIS itself ran the auditions. No one but Gijo knew any of that tangled business. The family was simply glad they were going to see the stars.
After breakfast they headed for Jongno. The station was already packed with popular singers and Eighth Army acts. Young Haemi and Cheolho went wide-eyed, and Gijo pressed a notebook and a pen into their hands. While his teenage sister-in-law and brother-in-law tore around collecting autographs, he escorted his father-in-law and mother-in-law into the studio.
Rehearsal was underway. Nam In-su was singing Farewell at Busan Station. When he stepped down, Geum Sa-hyang came out with The Hong Kong Girl. Park Jae-hong, a regular on HLKZ-TV, launched into Crossing Bakdal Pass in Tears, and Gijo, true fan that he was, hummed along under his breath. Then the fourth singer, Lee Hye-yeon, took her place, and to the band's accompaniment she began The Heart-Rending Hill of Miari.
Miari, hill of tears—the parting ridge my love once crossed.
When powder-smoke sealed my eyes and I wandered, blind,
you, both hands bound tight in barbed wire,
looked back, and looked back again...
The lyric was a lament for the men of Seoul hauled away by the People's Army in the war, and Lee Hye-yeon's pleading voice laid itself over every line. Gijo saw Mr. Yun wipe at the corner of his eye. The memory had come back—three sons taken for the Volunteer Army.
The rehearsal of the top-rank singers was still going when John Curtis stepped into the studio. The Eighth Army singers and their managers, who had been watching from the side, bowed at once and offered both hands for a handshake. Curtis passed them by as if they were a nuisance, caught Gijo in an embrace, and asked with a wide grin.
"Lee, the broadcast coming together all right?"
"Thanks to you."
"How's Western Jubilee? They'll do, won't they?"
"They're excellent."
"Say the word at Chuseok, too. I'll drop them right in."
Managers and performers stared at the two of them, startled. Only then did they understand why their agency president had told them to take the HLKZ-TV show. So that was it—the man who held the show business in his fist was friends with the station owner. As USIS broadcast officer, John Curtis had the power of life and death over the Eighth Army agencies and their acts. One word from him could pull a few performers off the circuit, or sink an agency outright.
One of the managers caught Gijo's eye and dipped his head, suddenly polite. He gathered the talent under his hand.
"Quit loafing in here. Go rehearse."
He hooked a finger into the mouth of a singer who was chewing gum, fished the gum out, and warned him.
"You. No more gum at the station. Keep acting smart and somebody cuts the hand that feeds you..."
The Eighth Army people, so full of themselves a moment before, slipped out of the studio one by one.
Gijo introduced Curtis to the family.
"Curtis, these two are my father-in-law and mother-in-law."
"A pleasure. John Curtis, United States Information Service."
When the introductions were done, Curtis gathered up Gijo's youngest, Yeongeun. She had no fear of strangers and laughed outright in his arms, and Curtis, undone by how dear she was, hardly knew what to do with himself.
"Lee, when your girl smiles at me, I swear the whole world gets brighter."
Gijo translated the American flourish for the family. To them it was simply astonishing that he should be on easy terms with an American official. In the Korea of the 1950s, a Korean keeping company with an American like a friend was a rare sight. Cheolho, especially, looked at his brother-in-law with open admiration.
"Lee, you're a blessed man. I envy you that big family. Hard to live this way in the States these days."
"Korea will come to that, in time."
"Step aside with me a minute? I won't keep you long."
Gijo and John drew a little apart from the others.
"Lee, while we're at it, how about breaking into the Eighth Army shows?"
"Me?"
John burst out laughing at the American-style joke.
"Good grief—not you, Lee. I mean CS Entertainment. The company you own."
CS Entertainment was the name he used for Cheongsan Heung-eop.
"We don't have singers or dancers fit for an Eighth Army stage. The company's built around drama."
"Then round up some hopefuls. Whether they get in is our call."
"Let me think about it, John."
Since the turn of '57, proposals had been pouring in. He had failed to live quietly through '56, and he had wanted a little room to breathe this year. Just then Cheolho, who knew English and had been listening nearby, came over.
"Brother-in-law... did you turn him down?"
"Not exactly. Business isn't something you jump into blind."
When the two of them switched to Korean, John cut in.
"Lee, I think I know what that boy's saying."
He grinned.
"Opportunity seldom knocks twice. That's what he said, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
Cheolho answered with a bright smile, in Gijo's place.
"Lee, way I hear it, the Korean agencies keep their talent on a straight monthly salary."
"That's right."
"If CS Entertainment offered what an American shop would—a minimum guarantee, a running guarantee—wouldn't the talent come to you? The business over here is stacked hard against the performers, isn't it?"
"It won't be as simple as it sounds. Most of those people are—"
"Ah, ah. I get it. Scary mafia types inside the companies, long exclusive contracts tying them down. That what you mean?"
Gijo nodded.
"Then let's show them who's really in charge."
"What do you mean, John?"
"You'll know soon enough."
John winked at Cheolho, who had backed him, and laughed. He clapped Gijo on the shoulder.
"Lee, I'd better run. Enjoy the holiday with your family. And if the Eighth Army crowd gives you any grief, call the USIS!"
He said his goodbyes to the family and left the studio. Gijo was grateful he had come. John had been filling the gap since Frank's sudden departure for America in the middle of January. Whether Frank had asked it of him or not, he had been stopping by the station often.
Gijo let everyone look their fill, then took them to Cheonghae-ru in Myeongdong and treated them to Chinese food. He had never spent Seollal with so many of his own. Frank had been right: a family grown larger was a blessing. Every time he looked around the table, full of their faces, he could not hide how full he felt. In the life before this one, he had spent half his years in a loneliness too deep to name.
A fortnight after Seollal, Won Tae-sik of Cheongsan Heung-eop came to the president's office at the station.
"Come in, Manager Won. What is it?"
Won's face was flushed high.
"Chairman, it's like this. A week ago the Eighth Army sent down an order: tear up the unfair contracts on every act working the shows. They laid it out plain. Refuse, and you don't set foot on an Eighth Army stage."
"And?"
"Hwayang through Gongyeong. Every company wrote new contracts with their people. Now, if both sides agree, a performer can move agencies whenever they want."
"That's good."
"Only then the Eighth Army turned around and slapped an indefinite ban on a handful of perfectly good acts."
"A ban? Why?"
"I don't really know. Talent, popularity, the lot of them. Even the business can't make sense of it."
"Well, now..."
Gijo had an inkling, but he could not bring himself to say it.
"They're lined up outside right now. The ones who got banned."
"Lined up?"
"Yes. Want me to have them step in?"
"Bring them in."
At Gijo's word, Won Tae-sik called the suspended Eighth Army performers into the office. Gijo took one look at them and started. In came the Kim Sisters, the Kim Boys, Han Myung-sook, Im Hee-sook, Lee Bong-jo, and others with them—singers and players who had already made their mark on the Eighth Army shows. The Kim Sisters startled him most of all. They were Korea's first girl group, the very act that would land in America in 1959 and take the country by storm. Behind them came Yoon Bok-hee, Patty Kim, Lee Geum-hee, and Hyun Mi.
Why are they here? They shouldn't even have debuted yet...
He was dumbfounded. Every face in the room was bleak. He turned to the entertainers who, in the years ahead, would rule Korean show business.
"Let's hear it from you first. What's happened?"
"We don't know, sir. Please get us off the ban. We heard you're close with the USIS..."
Kim Suk-ja, leader of the Kim Sisters, pleaded with him, her face wretched.
Ha... this has John's fingerprints all over it.
Gijo scratched lightly at the back of his head and glanced toward Yoon Bok-hee, Patty Kim, and Lee Geum-hee.
"Please save us too, sir. We never even got to debut, and they cut us loose. The Eighth Army put a cap on how many people a booking agency can keep, and we were the ones pushed out."
He thought he saw how the thing had been arranged. John Curtis had played a cruel hand, herding Eighth Army aces and rising prospects straight into Cheongsan Heung-eop. If Gijo did not take them, they would never stand on an Eighth Army stage again.
"All right. For now, come into Cheongsan Heung-eop. I'll look into it and see that you get back on a stage."
At that, the future stars let out a breath of relief. Tae-sik drew a sheaf of contracts from the bag in his hand. He seemed to have expected Gijo would take them. The performers looked the papers over and startled all over again.
"Sir, you'll pay a base salary, and a fee for every appearance?"
"Yes. That's right."
"And the fee is thirty percent of the appearance money?"
"Yes. You may think the company is taking a great deal, but if we're to support your work—"
"No, sir. It's that you're giving us too much."
Kim Suk-ja said it with a small, bright smile. With nowhere else to go, they signed in a hurry contracts that promised far better treatment than the houses they had left. Gijo signed as well, and when the copies had been exchanged, Hyun Mi spoke.
"Sir, the truth is I'm a sword-dance performer. You've signed me, so there's no taking it back. You have to debut me. No excuses."
"I will. You'll debut."
He answered without hesitation. He meant to tell Tae-sik to drill her hard on Besame Mucho. In the history he remembered, that was the song Hyun Mi had sung when she went on in place of a woman who failed to show, and it had changed her life.
"All right, then. Manager Won, take our people to Cheongnyangni. We owe each of them an apartment."
"Yes, Chairman."
The apartments were nowhere in the contracts, and the performers' mouths fell open.
"Sir, you're really giving us apartments?"
"I am. Use them as a place to live."
"Thank you, sir!"
Tae-sik led the excited company out of the office. In the quiet that followed, Gijo sighed.
Another year, and no peace and quiet in sight...
He had no wish to push the business any further. But work kept clinging to him, the way iron clings to a magnet.