Selecting Students for Study Abroad (1957)
March 31, 1957.
Gijo selected the last of the students bound for Harvard. This time, besides Professor Kim Moon-hwan, Lee Man-ik, president of Cheongsan Construction, and Jeong In-cheol, president of Cheongsan Radio Communications, took part as well. Between them the company presidents chose one student from each of three fields—materials engineering, civil engineering, and radio engineering. Gijo himself picked a young man who wanted to develop military radar.
When he did, Kim Moon-hwan, Lee Man-ik, and Jeong In-cheol privately had their doubts.
"Representative Lee, a military radar is the sum of every advanced technology there is. Are you sure about this? Even if we managed to build one, I doubt our own armed forces would give it a second glance. They already use American equipment..."
Professor Kim Moon-hwan had stepped forward to ask, and Gijo agreed with him.
"You're right, Professor. But won't the day come when we, too, use a radar of our own making?"
Gijo was looking a long way down the road, toward the future of Korea's defense industry. Developing a domestic radar was one thing; tying it into every sort of weapon would be a long, grinding labor. Still, the possibility was there. The 1950s, in any case, were a time when everything began from the smallest of chances. It wasn't artillery shells or missiles the young man wanted. What pleased Gijo was a youth bold enough to say he meant to build a radar.
To dream of a defense industry in the fifties might look like pure fantasy, but it was an industry that would succeed in the end. Gijo, who had lived all the way to 2019, was certain Korea could become a great producer of military arms. Even if you built only for the home market, a weapon that worked in Korea would work anywhere in the world; and once the Korean military fielded it in quantity, the cost of making it would fall, and so would the cost of keeping it running.
Even on a short horizon, the odds were good enough. In seven years the Vietnam War would begin in earnest. If, within those seven years, they could turn out military supplies and pass the certification of the U.S. Department of Defense, Korean goods would hold a tremendous edge. They could deliver faster than shipping matériel all the way from America, and more cheaply than anything made in Japan. Whatever it was, if they could make something the U.S. military would actually use, an enormous market would open before them—the five hundred thousand American troops who would be stationed in Vietnam.
Gijo was not, for the moment, dreaming anything so grand as a radar. He already had several other plans: supplies that Korea in the 1960s could truly manufacture, and that would be used up in Vietnam.
When he finished sorting the files of the chosen students with a pleased look on his face, the company presidents grew curious.
"Representative Lee, has something good happened? Is it the Claymore plant?"
The Ministry of National Defense's official name for the thing was fragmentation mine, but the people at Cheongsan had grown used to Gijo's word. For reasons of his own he called the fragmentation mine a Claymore, and so everyone else called it a Claymore too. The word sat more neatly on the tongue.
"Yes. The Claymore plant is going up quickly as well. We held a hiring round for Cheongsan Defense Industries yesterday, and a good many of the students who applied for the study-abroad selection came by."
"That stands to reason. The ones who sent us applications back then would be about to graduate, or graduated already. Time certainly flies."
"The Ministry of National Defense has promised that anyone who joins Cheongsan Defense Industries and works there for ten years will be recognized as having completed military service."
"Is that true? Then even more talent will come knocking!"
Professor Kim Moon-hwan, who had watched plenty of students agonize over conscription, was delighted.
Lee Man-ik added a word.
"Professor, even setting that aside, the number of university graduates applying to Cheongsan has risen sharply. Word seems to have spread through the campuses that the working conditions and the compensation are favorable."
"Of course. The moment they graduate, those students will be desperate for a job. Four years of tuition doesn't come cheap, does it? Overseas they call a university an ivory tower, but here we call it an ox-bone tower, don't we? I've lived inside the university long enough to know. Korean universities—the private ones above all—are full of problems..."
Professor Kim Moon-hwan unburdened himself about the state of the private universities. An ox-bone tower: that was the bitter local answer to the ivory tower, so named because a family sold its ox, often its only wealth, to pay for a child's schooling. In principle a private university's foundation was supposed to cover half the cost of running the school. Reality was otherwise. The schools depended almost entirely on the tuition students paid. Worse, the foundations took that tuition and poured it into other businesses they owned, or lent it out at usurious rates and played at moneylending.
"Twice a year the students come hauling in great stacks of cash, and the foundations lose their heads over it. What kind of educational institution is that? They're shopkeepers. Bah..."
Professor Kim Moon-hwan lamented, and a bitter taste settled in the mouths of all four men in the room. But was that the only thing wrong with the Republic of Korea in the 1950s? This was a country where you had only to turn your head for trouble to come bursting out on every side.
"I'll go and file the documents first. Thank you all for your work."
Gijo rose first, and the company presidents stood in turn.
A little after he had left the interview room, Professor Kim Moon-hwan cried out.
"Ah! Now I see why Representative Lee was grinning ear to ear!"
"What is it, Professor?"
Lee Man-ik and Jeong In-cheol were curious.
"His eldest starts elementary school tomorrow. A man's child going off to school—how could he not be glad? Ha ha ha."
April 1. Morning.
Yeongsu, now a pupil of Class 2, first grade, at Gyodong Elementary School, turned to look behind him. His whole family was watching.
His mother, a younger child in her arms, pointed him out and seemed to be telling the little one something; his aunt waved. Meeting the eyes of his grandmother and grandfather, Yeongsu lifted a small hand in answer.
Where did Dad go?
Glancing about, he found his father behind the teacher at the very front, a camera in his hands, and broke into a bright smile.
Gijo caught the gap-toothed grin on film at once and smiled wide himself. Even as he smiled, something clenched in his chest, and tears gathered faintly in both eyes.
In his previous life he had been too busy earning a living to attend his son's entrance ceremony, or his graduation. The first time he went was when Yeongsu finished high school, and that was the first time he laid eyes on the man his boy had become. He had been proud of a son graduating, and sorry—sorry that he had never properly looked after him while he was growing up. There had been no camera then, either. The only photograph was a black-and-white print he had paid a photographer at the ceremony to take, Yeongsu standing between him and Sunrye. Later, after his wife and his son were gone, he had clutched that picture and wept, and wept again.
Perhaps that was why. He threw himself fervently into photographing Yeongsu.
He was in the middle of it when the teacher's voice reached him.
"Father, please step out now."
Gijo took his eye from the camera, ready to apologize for disrupting the ceremony. Then he realized the words had not been meant for him. They were for Seogwang, who had waded in among the children of Class 3, the class next to Yeongsu's.
"What do you think you're doing? Get out here!"
Ma-ryang, who had been photographing Seogwang and Yeongbae, shouted. He had borrowed Sunrye's camera and was taking pictures of Seogwang's family.
"Just one more! Ma-ryang!"
Having hastily called for one more shot, Seogwang bowed again and again to the teacher trying to stop him.
"Teacher, I'll take just one more picture and come right out. I'm sorry."
Click.
Ma-ryang caught him mid-bow and hauled him out of the line of children.
Some of the parents watching pointed in disapproval, but most of them burst out laughing. Gijo, seeing it, couldn't hold his own laughter in. He liked the sight of Seogwang, willing to be shamed if it meant one more picture with his son. Seogwang, he was sure, would never regret it later.
Dragged out of a formation of four hundred new pupils, Seogwang took a solid smack across the back from his wife and was hauled off again.
"I can't show my face in the neighborhood because of you. Honestly..."
"If we don't take a picture with Yeongbae now, when will we? I'm a busy man too!"
The sound of Seogwang and his wife bickering carried over. Once the fuss had settled, the entrance ceremony began.
The national rite commenced, and when the sixth graders sang the national anthem, the first graders looked around in bewilderment. Gijo watched closely to see whether Yeongsu sang it properly. Yeongsu followed all four verses without a miss. At the sight of it, relief and pride came over Gijo together. It was nothing extraordinary, and yet, watching his son keep up with the song, his chest swelled as if the boy had taken first place in the old state examinations.
When Gijo came back toward the family, Sunrye spoke.
"I was on edge the whole time, afraid the teacher would scold you. While you were taking Yeongsu's picture, his homeroom teacher kept glancing back at you."
"Did he? I had no idea."
Gijo looked sheepish, and his mother-in-law took her son-in-law's side.
"Don't you scold him, Sunrye. It was a fine thing to see."
"You've done well, son-in-law. If any of Yeongsu's pictures come out decent, spare us a few."
His father-in-law, Mr. Yun, chimed in as well.
"Yes, Father. I'll have them framed and bring them to you."
At that, Soon-young shot her hand up.
"Brother-in-law! Give us some too! Us too!"
Gijo's family stood through the long exhortation of the principal of Gyodong Elementary School without a moment of boredom.
At last the ceremony ended, and Yeongsu followed his teacher into the classroom. Like the other parents, the family went up to the window of the room where their child would study. They wanted to know where Yeongsu would sit, and who would share his desk. He had a seat in the middle, paired with a girl whose hair was in two braids.
Seeing that, Soon-young asked Sunrye,
"Sis, do you know that child? Whose girl is she?"
"Hmm... I think she's Section Chief Kim's daughter. Two houses over from ours."
"The house with the green gate?"
"That's the one."
"Isn't that the house full of daughters? She must have older sisters. I wonder if Yeongsu won't be cowed by his partner."
"No. The girls in that house are gentle. And lower your voice..."
Sunrye worried that Section Chief Kim's family might be somewhere nearby. Section Chief Kim was an official at Seoul City Hall.
Having watched the whole of Yeongsu's entrance ceremony, the family went home. Ma-ryang took his parents-in-law back to Mapo, and Gijo went into the darkroom to develop the film from both cameras.
Under the red safelight, the photograph of his son slowly emerged, and Gijo let out a sigh heavy with old regret.
"Yeongsu. This life, your father has decided he won't make those foolish mistakes..."
He took pains printing Yeongbae's photographs as well. Just as the work was drawing to a close, someone knocked at the darkroom door.
"I'll be right out. All done!"
Gijo finished, opened the door, and found Seogwang standing there.
"Representative, have you finished?"
"Ah, yes. Just now."
"Then we ought to get back to the school. It's about time Yeongbae and Yeongsu get out."
Seogwang tapped his wristwatch.
"Already? Let's go."
Gijo and Seogwang set off at a brisk pace toward Gyodong Elementary School. Seogwang, bad leg and all, was in such a hurry that he walked ahead of Gijo. He had been on his way to fetch Yeongbae, and had waited outside the darkroom so the two of them could go together. Gijo understood then that Seogwang, who thought the world of his son, had been patiently enduring at the door simply to take him along.
"Brother Seogwang."
At the call, Seogwang's feet stopped short. Not since their days in Deokjeong had he heard Gijo call him brother. He turned, and Gijo said, smiling brightly,
"Brother, let's take it slow. Two grown men waiting for their sons outside the school gate doesn't look quite right, does it?"
"Ah, well... I suppose that's true..."
Seogwang found it hard to treat Gijo with the old ease. After three years of looking up to him as village head and as the representative, he had forgotten their ages, and Gijo seemed like his senior.
"Brother, I'm in a good mood today. Have a drink with me at the tavern this evening. And talk as freely as you used to."
"That's... dropping the formal speech is a little..."
"Then just for today. Go back to how it felt when we lived in Deokjeong-ri."
"W-well... shall I...?"
Gijo slung an arm around the abashed man's shoulders.
"Brother, do you know what I used to think, back in Deokjeong-ri, when I looked at Yeongsu?"
"What did you think...?"
"I thought that if I could school him through middle school and make him even a township clerk, that would count as success."
At that Seogwang broke into a chuckle.
"You too? I used to think I'd be satisfied if I could just make Yeongbae a township clerk... Ha ha ha."
Gijo and Seogwang went back to the old days. Both of them carried their sons' schoolbags and set the boys on their shoulders for the walk home. Yeongsu and Yeongbae sat up on their fathers' shoulders and listened to the men talk.
"...Back then you told me, Brother, didn't you? Work the winter at Deokjeong Station, save your money, and you could easily buy ten majigi of paddy—a few good acres..."
"Oh, come on. When did I ever? How's a man supposed to buy ten majigi of paddy hauling freight at Deokjeong Station?"
"No, you did. That's why I started working there. You sweet-talked me into it back then, and now you're going to play innocent?"
"Ah, back then I must have... We were short of hands at the station, so I suppose I sweet-talked some easy-looking mark. The wages were a pittance and the work was killing, so we never had enough men."
"Is that really true?"
"Way it looks to me... Ha ha. Ha ha ha."
Yeongsu and Yeongbae were struck by how happy their fathers seemed. They themselves had just come home trembling before a fearsome teacher, and yet the two men, delighted by something the boys couldn't fathom, were in even higher spirits than their sons.