Ordinary Days Restored
What Ki-jo wanted was the Hyundai Automobile Works. More precisely, he wanted its maintenance crews.
The mark of an engineer from the Hyundai works was that he had handled nearly every kind of vehicle, from passenger cars to trucks. Men like that were not easy to find on the open market.
"The Hyundai Automobile Works isn't operating now, is it?"
He did not need Chung In-yung's answer. He already knew it all.
Chung Ju-yung, then running a rice shop called the Gyeongil store, had opened an auto repair garage by the name of Ado Service in Ahyeon-dong, Mapo-gu, in March of 1940. Business was thriving when, near the end of the Second World War, the Enterprise Consolidation Decree came down and the company was taken from him. After liberation he founded the Hyundai Automobile Works in 1946. A subcontract with a U.S. Army ordnance depot set the new firm briskly on its feet, but once it was folded into Hyundai Construction the work petered out. Hyundai Motor would not appear again until 1967, when Chung Ju-yung's younger brother, Jung Se-young, established the company and signed a technical alliance with Ford. At present the workshop grounds had been sold to raise money for the Goryeong Bridge, and the place was, for all practical purposes, shut.
"Ah. Well... we sold the site, you see, and so..."
Ki-jo nodded.
"And the technicians who worked there? What became of them?"
"They're effectively dismissed. We can't pay their wages..."
Color rose in Chung In-yung's face.
"Send those technicians to our company, and I'll raise your share to seven-to-three."
In-yung understood at once what he was being offered.
"You're thinking of running an automobile works yourself? Or is it a subcontract with the 7th Division's ordnance depot?"
"An ordnance subcontract was possible under the military government. It would be difficult now. The company has trucks, but not enough men to maintain them."
"Very well. If we can find our people new work, that's good for us too."
Ki-jo and In-yung closed the bargain. The split would be seven to three. They pledged to form Hyundai–Cheongsan consortiums on future projects as well, and Cheongsan would take in the workforce of the Hyundai Automobile Works. In-yung was glad of the additional funds he could now secure for the Goryeong Bridge; Ki-jo was glad of the men, and the contract, he had locked in for the years ahead.
In-yung did not linger. He moved at once, determined to win Chung Ju-yung's approval before Ki-jo could change his mind. After he had gone, Ma-ryang spoke up.
"Brother, ain't you being too generous with that lot? Three parts in ten of the profit, just for the loan of a name... that's a bit rich."
"It's all right. If anything, we're the ones coming out ahead."
Ki-jo smiled. Ma-ryang could not see why it should be so, but if Ki-jo said it was, then it was.
The next day the people of Eundae-ri rode home to the village in U.S. Army trucks.
Ki-jo went first to the Cheongsan factory and looked over the kilns and the construction materials.
"Maybe because the Americans were watching the place, nothing's been stolen. The facilities aren't damaged either."
Professor Kim Moon-hwan said it after making a full circuit of the grounds.
"That's a relief, Professor. Can we start the work again tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow? Nonsense. We start today. This very day."
Hearing the professor brim with zeal, Ki-jo turned to Ma-ryang.
"Among the plant hands—anyone saying they mean to quit?"
"Not a one, Brother."
No one had slipped away. The displaced had eyes of their own. Looking at the scale of the factory and its equipment, they believed this was a workplace with a future in it. The women of Pyongan Province, who had helped build the Supung Dam, were especially quick to see what the plant was worth. Not one of those Pyongan women had left. It was true that in the 1950s there were almost no jobs of this kind for women, but the women who had worked on the Supung Dam seemed to trust Professor Kim, who was raising the brickworks to a stricter standard than even the Japanese technicians had demanded.
Quietly, the professor was popular with the women workers. A man who gave himself to nothing but the work must have looked fine to them; they honored him with all the respect due an elder brother or a father.
In an age like this, that was the kind of man people liked...
Relieved that the Cheongsan factory had come through whole, Ki-jo returned to Eundae-ri. The moment he arrived he called the villagers together and told them the farming plan ahead.
"We're going to turn the Eundae-ri plain into rice paddies. The U.S. Army has agreed to give us pumps and bulldozers."
"Hooray!"
The villagers cheered and broke into applause as one.
Looking at those bright faces, Ki-jo felt the work had been worth doing. These were people who had endured the bitter years of Japanese rule and come through the Korean War besides. Their time to be repaid, he believed, had come at last.
He turned his thoughts to what lay ahead of them. He had promised the whole of the first harvest to the tenant farmers, so this year's income would be the highest they would see. For several years after that the price of rice would stay strong, and they would make real money. If the people of Eundae-ri did not waste what they earned, a considerable capital would take shape...
Better still if I told them where that money ought to go...
They had only ever farmed. With cash in hand they would try to buy land around Yeoncheon, and Ki-jo meant to talk them out of it, firmly. Investment in agriculture was not sound if one looked far enough ahead. From the late 1950s farming would start down a long decline, and Korea would grow from light industry into heavy and chemical industry until it became an industrial nation.
Telling them to buy stocks was still much too soon. Through the 1960s the Korean stock market might as well be called a swindle; only in the 1970s, once heavy and chemical industry took off, would real companies begin to appear on the exchange, one and then another.
Even so, for farmers, land remained the best investment of all. Once a farmer bought land he did not sell it. He only wanted to leave it to his children. Where land was concerned, they were investors of the very longest term.
Ki-jo meant to have the people of Eundae-ri buy land near Seoul. Step outside the Four Great Gates now and the city was nothing but paddies and dry fields. Even Gangnam, still part of Gyeonggi Province, was dismissed as wretched ground that went under whenever the rains came. If he bought that land himself, the villagers were likely to follow. He was certain he held at least that much of their trust.
Only after he had finished his rounds of the Cheongsan factory and of Eundae-ri did Ki-jo finally go home. He arrived to find Sunrye feeding the cattle their fodder.
The three cows, the village's foremost asset, were treated exactly as people were. They had ridden out to the 7th Division in an Army truck when everyone evacuated, and they had come home with them.
Ki-jo went over to her.
"The cows don't look as if they've suffered much."
At that Sunrye let out a small laugh.
"Maybe it's the corn the Americans gave them. They seem to have put on a little weight."
There had been no fodder, so the GIs brought sacks of corn. Once it was ground, the cows ate well. All three had grown plump. And it was not only the cattle that fattened during those days with the American unit. The people ate Army food until the color came back into their faces and a sheen of oil shone on their skin. They were delighted, saying they had eaten all the meat and sausage they could hold.
Ki-jo spent the time with Sunrye, tending the cows. Meanwhile Yeongsu was alone in the room, studying. He had the English dictionary he had brought back from the base open before him and was copying out words.
Ki-jo stepped inside to see what his son was writing. The word Yeongsu was laboring over was Heritage.
"Yeongsu, do you know what that means?"
"No. But the letters look wonderful, Father."
"Shall I tell you how to say it?"
"Yes."
"Heritage."
"Heritage."
He pronounced it exactly. Ki-jo could only marvel at the boy.
"The word means inheritance. Tradition. Property handed down."
The meaning was still difficult, and Yeongsu worked to take hold of it. When Ki-jo wrote out the characters for inheritance, tradition, and hereditary property and unpacked them one by one, the boy nodded.
"I know what heritage means now, Father!"
Ki-jo looked at him with quiet pleasure.
He really is bright. Maybe, instead of the power to live a life over again, this child was simply born with a good head...
He resolved that he would see Yeongsu live well even without that power.
Evening came, and Ma-ryang got off work at the factory and came home. Ki-jo called Ma-ryang's household over, and they ate supper together. It had been a long time since he had sat at his own table with his people, and the meal tasted of honey. The political storm that had broken over them out of nowhere was finished. Ordinary days had found their way back.
After supper the five of them sat beneath the oil lamp and talked in low, easy voices. Around eight, Ma-ryang and Soon-young went home, and Ki-jo's family made ready for bed. A winter night in the country: no electricity, no television, no radio. By eight the village had gone still as a dead mouse, and there was nothing left to do.
Ki-jo looked at his wife and son, already asleep, and felt a deep contentment. He wanted this ordinary life to hold for a long, long time, and he thought about what tomorrow would ask of him.
Soon now, I ought to start preparing to receive the team from Harvard...
The next day, the moment breakfast was finished, Ki-jo got himself ready and stepped out into the yard.
"Where are you off to?"
Sunrye came hurrying out of the kitchen, where she had been working.
"Into Seoul and back. There's someone I need to see."
She ached for a husband who never took a single day of rest, and she was proud of him all the same. The 1950s were a time when the unemployed overflowed the streets and three meals a day were hard to keep. Plenty of men wanted to work as hard as Ki-jo and could not, for there was no work to be had. Sunrye thought him the finest man alive.
"I'll be back."
He smiled as he said it, and Sunrye threw her arms around him. Startled, Ki-jo first looked to see whether Yeongsu was watching.
"Ha—so sudden..."
"Thank you. Dear."
She spoke with her face buried against his chest.
"I'm grateful to you, too."
He held her close.
He left the house, took the train, and arrived at Seoul Station. The place he sought was Jongno. Walking the street, he looked the shops over one by one, and the store he wanted soon appeared.
"Well, now... so there was a shop like this."
He let the words out in front of a store packed full of phonograph records, then peered through the glass. The shelves were crowded with discs of every kind, from records released under Japanese rule to ones that looked as if they had leaked out of the American bases.
How on earth did they keep all of this—and where?
He could only marvel. Through three years of war, holding on to records that shattered at a touch and burned even more easily would have taken no ordinary effort. And yet this shop was certain to fail. Even right after the war there were people who listened to music on records, but not many. It was remarkable that anyone had thought to open such a store, and just as remarkable that a landlord had leased them a building. Ki-jo knew of a man who would rent out space on Jongno for a record shop even knowing, plain as day, that the trade could not succeed. That was the man he had come to see.
While he was looking at the records from outside, the owner came out.
"Come in and browse. There are rarer discs inside."
He was a pale man in thick glasses.
"No, thank you. I don't even own a phonograph."
"Ah. Then at least step in and listen to a little music before you go."
The kindness made Ki-jo feel rather guilty.
"It's all right. I was only glancing in, on my way somewhere."
"Are you worried you'll have to pay if you listen? I won't take any money. Hear whatever you like, as much as you like, and then be on your way."
"No. I truly have somewhere I must go."
"Heh. I see. This shop won't be with us much longer. If you want to hear music, you'd do well to come soon."
Ki-jo felt a pang, looking at an owner who all but gave off the scent of a music devotee. He seemed a good man, overflowing with passion and love for music, but this was not an age that permitted such things. Whatever could not be put into one's stomach was a luxury.
"I'd like to listen too, if I ever had the room for it. For a while yet, I don't think I will."
"Someday music will come find you on its own feet. When that day comes, you may treasure it and enjoy it."
The man gave him a warm smile. The warmer that nature felt, the heavier Ki-jo's heart became—because he wanted the spot where this man's shop stood.