Baby Boom
Nineteen fifty-eight was the first year in the history of the Republic of Korea in which more than a million babies were born.
Those children would grow up to become the driving force behind the Korean economy. Born into a destitute age when there was scarcely enough to eat, they would file into school and study in airless classrooms of ninety pupils to a class, and by the time they turned twenty-one they would live through a political convulsion in which the president was suddenly shot dead. In those same years the economy would climb from a per capita national income of eighty dollars to somewhere near a thousand. They were a generation raised while population and prosperity alike swelled without restraint.
They grew up learning the slogan Smash the Communists, and yet they became the generation that longed to wear its hair long and to put on miniskirts as it pleased. Their elders scolded them for having no sense, never having known a war. But when those same children reached forty, at the end of 1997, they met head-on the greatest national ordeal since the Korean War—the IMF crisis—and overcame it. Some were sacrificed to it. Most remained on the economic front lines and became the very people who pulled the country through. As the backbone of the Korean economy, they simply refused to give up.
Kijo held a deep affection for that generation. They had been faithful to the spirit of the age, If we set our minds to it, we can do it, and they were nearly the last generation to believe, without wavering, that a man must feed his family and care for his own parents. They kept the old values, and yet they were a self-sacrificing generation that refused to lay the same burden upon their children.
He trusted them.
Turning that thought over as he enjoyed a stolen hour of ease on a Sunday, Kijo watched the spring rain falling in the yard. Sunrye came and sat down beside him on the wooden porch.
“What were you thinking about?”
He laid his hand over the back of hers.
“Our third.”
“And what about our third?”
“Well… I’ve always gotten along with people born in the Year of the Dog. My brother-in-law is one. So is Elder Brother Seogwang, and Elder Brother Yang-soo. President Park Hee-jun, who joined hands with me in the tungsten trade. President Kim Jong-hee of Korea Explosives. Every one of them, a Dog.”
“Oh, my. Truly?”
Sunrye was mildly astonished.
“Of course. So I’ll get along with you and our third as well. This year is a musul year—the Year of the Yellow Dog.”
“Ha ha. Yes. I hope I get along with all million of the children born this year.”
The knowledge of the future had slipped out of him before he knew it.
“A million babies, this year?”
“That’s what people were saying… There was a piece about it in the paper…”
He fumbled the words.
“Then we’re in for trouble…”
Sunrye’s brow creased faintly.
“Why?”
“If there are that many people, there won’t be enough rice to go around… and finding work will be that much harder, won’t it…”
It was a mother’s worry.
“They say everyone is born with the fortune to eat his own share. Not only our third—every child born this year will have that. As for rice, we can always grow more of it.”
Kijo smiled.
The two of them were sitting hand in hand on the porch, listening to the rain, when the gate of the house next door sounded. There was no wall between the yards, and Kijo and Sunrye watched Han-su and Hyeon-gyeong come in together.
“Hello, Mr. President! Ma’am!”
Hyeon-gyeong’s greeting was bright. Han-su bobbed his own bow, and the two of them crossed over to Kijo’s house beneath a shared umbrella, each carrying a bag from the Hwashin Department Store, as if they had just come from shopping.
“Were you at the department store?”
Sunrye asked.
“Yes, ma’am. We went to buy you a gift.”
“A gift for me?”
Sunrye was startled.
“Why a gift for me…”
“We heard they had American maternity clothes, so we bought some. It’s a dress. People say it’s comfortable to wear.”
Hyeon-gyeong left the umbrella with Han-su, stepped in under the eaves, and drew out what she had bought: a summer dress cut with a generous amount of room.
“Oh, my! Two of them…”
Sunrye was astonished all over again.
“One of them is mine, ma’am.”
In that instant Sunrye’s mouth fell open. Kijo’s eyes met Han-su’s. Once he understood, he gave a small nod, and Han-su flushed and ducked his head.
Kijo turned to Sunrye.
“Go on inside and try it on. We ought to make sure the clothes Hyeon-gyeong bought actually fit.”
“Ah—yes… Come to the room with me, Hyeon-gyeong.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hyeon-gyeong smiled and went with her into the inner room.
When the two expectant mothers had gone in, Kijo asked quietly, “Have you set a date?”
“Not yet. I think we’ll have to hurry. Before her belly shows any more…”
All Kijo could do was laugh. Han-su had always been such a meek cat—too meek—that he had wondered when the creature would ever climb the kitchen hearth. Now the man had finally gotten himself into trouble and was looking for a hearth to climb.
“Do you want a traditional wedding, or a modern ceremony?”
“I haven’t thought that far.”
Han-su scratched the back of his head.
“Don’t just stand there under the umbrella. Come sit.”
Kijo settled him in the place beside his own. They were the same age, near enough to friends, but the circumstances being what they were, someone had to play the elder, and that someone was him.
“Do both. I’ll look into a place for the modern ceremony.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. But where would we hold a modern wedding…”
“I’ll ask the principal of Gyodong Elementary to lend us the auditorium.”
“At a school?”
Han-su was startled. Kijo, though, knew that well into the 1960s people held their weddings in village halls and school auditoriums.
“Marry at the school, and the principal will officiate as a matter of course. And if word gets out that Director Shim is getting married, won’t a thousand guests turn up?”
“Ah… yes…”
Han-su considered the size of Cheongsan’s workforce and nodded. Nowhere but a school with a broad playground could hold them all.
“Hold the modern ceremony at the elementary school first, then come home and do it once more. Gather all of Cheongsan, old hands and new, and the people of Eundae-ri.”
“Yes, Mr. President. Thank you.”
Kijo had solved the worry in a moment, and Han-su’s face brightened. Kijo felt a pang for him. Han-su was an orphan alone in the world, just as he himself had been, and he could picture the man fretting by himself before the greatest rite of a life, with no elder and no relative to lean on.
“Have you found a house? Where will you live?”
“I think I ought to move out of the place I share with Dae-ik. We’ll set up housekeeping in the room Hyeon-gyeong has been using.”
“Good thinking.”
It pleased him to think of Han-su and Hyeon-gyeong living next door.
“Wait a moment…”
He turned it over. That Hyeon-gyeong had bought two maternity dresses seemed to mean something.
“Hyeon-gyeong has no parents, and neither do you. Someone will have to escort her into the wedding hall…”
He had very nearly reached his conclusion already.
Han-su said, carefully, “Hyeon-gyeong told me she hoped you would do it, Mr. President.”
“Then that settles it. I will.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
Han-su bowed.
“And who will stand as the groom’s parents? I should think Seogwang would do well.”
“Yes. Actually, I was planning to ask Elder Brother Seogwang.”
“Good. That works out.”
“I only hope we aren’t laying an undue burden on you.”
Han-su lowered his head, apologetic. Kijo gave his shoulder a light tap.
“What kind of talk is that, between us? Hearing you’re getting married does me good.”
He laughed outright.
On that rainy Sunday in May, once he had heard Han-su and Hyeon-gyeong’s plans, Kijo set to work at once. Strike while the iron was hot: they fixed the wedding for Sunday, the first of June, and together with the Cheongsan family he launched the campaign to see Han-su married. Word went out to Cheongsan worksites across the country.
Oh Seok-mun and Jeon Hyeon-su in Busan sent word that they would come up to Seoul on Friday, two days before the ceremony. Jang Seokgu, village chief of Eundae-ri in Yeoncheon, and Lee Bongok, plant manager of the Cheongsan Brick factory, said they would come early on the day itself. Nearly a hundred telephone calls arrived from people who, on hearing the news, meant to attend at headquarters.
Han-su was a department head at the main office, but in practice he ranked with the presidents, and so the presidents of subcontractors and affiliated firms called as well, not one of them missing. And then came the night of May 30, the day before the wedding.
At last, what had to come, came.
Through the Jongno alley where Kijo’s house and Hyeon-gyeong’s stood, the shouts of the ham bearers—the men delivering the groom’s traditional wedding chest—rang out.
“Buy the ham! Buy the ham!”
Ko Wang-chul led the way with the chest on his back, and the young department heads in their twenties—Seong Dae-ik, Jeon Hyeon-su, Won Tae-sik, and the rest—bellowed at the top of their lungs.
Kijo heard it from the inner room. He had sat down the Han-su who would be married tomorrow and was drinking with Jang Ma-ryang, Oh Yang-soo, Oh Seok-mun, Kim Hae-soo, and Kim Seogwang.
“Those chest-bearers are raising a terrible racket. You’d best go out and bring your friends in.”
Oh Yang-soo, who hated to trouble the neighbors, said it to Han-su beside him. Han-su rose at once, meaning to get the young department heads—colleagues and friends—inside as quickly as he could. When he had gone, Oh Yang-soo asked again.
“Shouldn’t you go out as well? I don’t think Director Shim can handle them alone. If you step in as president, it’ll be over in a moment, won’t it?”
“The young fellows need a little of the steam taken out of them.”
Kijo smiled and went on drinking with the senior men. He had only been asked to hand Hyeon-gyeong over to Han-su at the ceremony, and yet he felt, strangely, as unsettled as if he had become her father. The eve of the wedding made it worse.
“Buy the ham! The ham, I say!”
The shout shook the alley again. The more Kijo, in the role of the bride’s father, refused to stir, the harder they seemed to howl. Sunrye and Hyeon-gyeong, who had been tending the drinking table, fidgeted, ashamed to be disturbing the neighborhood.
“What should we do? Shall we scrape together a little money for the bearers’ stepping fee?”
President Kim Hae-soo asked the senior men. If the ham bearers were to advance all the way to Kijo’s house, cash had to be laid on the ground like a cart-fare with every single step they took. Otherwise they would shout in the alley all night and torment the neighbors.
“It’s all right. Wait a little longer.”
Kijo also told Hyeon-gyeong and Sunrye not to set a drinking table out for the bearers. A table in the street, he thought, would only make them rowdier and drag the business out.
“Why won’t this house buy the ham? Aren’t you going to give us your daughter?”
Ko Wang-chul’s voice carried in. He seemed to be trying to provoke Kijo, who only let out a short laugh. As the young department heads kept up the ruckus outside, Kim Seogwang bristled.
“These punks need to know when enough’s enough. The neighborhood won’t get a wink of sleep. I’ll go out there and just—”
Kim Seogwang, who served as neighborhood chief, made to rise, and Kijo stopped him.
“Leave them a little longer. People will understand. Some of them will be watching it for the show.”
“Ah, yes, you’re right. Now that I think of it, I’m supposed to be Han-su’s father. I can’t very well do that. Ha ha.”
Kim Seogwang scratched his head.
A little drunk, Kijo spoke as if possessed by the spirit of Hyeon-gyeong’s father.
“If our Hyeon-gyeong hadn’t stepped forward, do you think that fellow Han-su would ever have gotten married? It’s thanks to her taking the lead that old bachelor Han-su is marrying at all.”
He praised her the way a father boasts of his daughter. When he judged that the bearers, after a good ten minutes of shouting, must have lost some of their strength, he tapped Ma-ryang on the back.
“You settle it.”
“Aye. I’ll see to it.”
Ma-ryang, who had been drinking in silence, brushed off his knees and stood. Oh Yang-soo’s face brightened—the look of a man who sees the final solution take the field.
“Ma-ryang. Go easy. The groom’s in there with them.”
Seogwang put in a word. Since Ma-ryang meant to handle it, the cautious Oh Seok-mun seemed worried enough to rise and follow.
“Director Jang, I’ll go with you.”
At that Ma-ryang grinned.
“I’ll be back before the rice liquor cools. Stay where you are.”
Kijo called after his back as he left the room.
“Don’t make me wait too long, brother-in-law.”
At those words, Ma-ryang’s back swelled. A moment later the gate flew wide, and a protesting voice came from the alley.
“Ah! Why! Why is Director Jang coming out of there!”
It was Wang-chul.
“This is cheating! Go back inside!”
Dae-ik’s wail followed.
“You lot coming in quiet? Or do you want to see something ugly?”
Ma-ryang’s final warning.
“Wait! Ah, wait a minute! Aaagh! Aaaa—my back!!!”
Wang-chul howled.
A moment later Ma-ryang carried him in alive and set him down with a thud on the veranda before the inner room. Still bearing the chest on his back, Wang-chul sat there in a daze.
“You worked hard hauling that chest. Come in and take a drink.”
“Yes…”
Wang-chul set the chest down, pulled off his shoes, and came into the room. Right behind him the three young department heads crept in, sheepish, with Han-su comforting them. Kijo poured a cup for each of the bearers, their show now over.
“You’ll all be marrying before long. No good tormenting Han-su just because he’s going first. Life has a way of returning to you exactly what you’ve done.”
Even as he scolded the young department heads, he could not hold back a laugh. When every cup was full, he said, “Any department head who isn’t married yet will find a match within three months and report to me. Fail to find a partner in three months, and I will fire you. Without fail.”
“What?”
Dae-ik, Tae-sik, and Hyeon-su were startled. Wang-chul quietly counted on his fingers, then looked stricken. To him, Kijo said, “Wang-chul, I’ll make you a special exception and give you three years. You can manage that, can’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. President! I can!”
At Wang-chul’s answer, Seogwang said, “I don’t think Wang-chul even knows who he’s supposed to bring home.”
Everyone laughed.
On the eve of his wedding, Han-su looked happy. Kijo did not doubt for a moment that his happiness with Hyeon-gyeong would go on for a long, long time.