The Life of a Slave in Australia (1)
"Alright! Hello, everyone. I'm a staff member from the Cheongdo City Hall. We'll now begin resident registration, so please follow my instructions!"
The couple had arrived in Cheongdo, but they couldn't understand a single word of what was being said to them.
Still, after waiting a little while, they caught a phrase they recognized.
"Okay! If you've come from Poland, please come this way!"
"Honey! Over there!"
"Right! Let's hurry."
The couple hurried over and stood in front of the desk.
"Hello. I see you've come from Poland?"
"Yes!"
"Are you husband and wife, by any chance? Or brother and sister?"
"We're married."
They looked nothing alike — honestly, the clerk's eye for detail left much to be desired.
"Oh! Wonderful. Welcome."
"Thank you."
"I see you don't have any children. But you're both young, so if you could have plenty, we'd be very grateful. There are lots of benefits as your family grows."
"Yes…."
The person before them talked and talked, chattering endlessly. She even brought up matters of intimacy without a flicker of embarrassment, to the point that the couple was the one blushing instead.
"Right, then. Your names, please."
"Philip."
"Monica."
With that, the clerk began writing down their personal details and where they had come from on the form.
At the end, she wrote their names and a physical description on a piece of paper no bigger than her palm, handed it over, and told them to keep it safe as their identification. And with that, they were done.
"Welcome, and if possible, attend the Daehan Language Academy morning and evening to study speaking and writing."
"Do we have to?"
The couple, who had lived their whole lives without so much as glancing at a book, found the prospect of learning something rather frightening.
"It's not mandatory, but if you want to obtain things you need or learn any skills, you'll need Daehan Language."
"Ah…."
The people who would teach them farming and bring them supplies here were Daehan people.
And since settlers had gathered from so many different countries, if everyone spoke their own tongue, conversation with the residents itself became impossible.
One way or another, using Daehan Language was simply the most sensible option.
"Will it be difficult?"
"Oh! Don't worry at all — it's really easy. About a week? Give it a week, and you'll manage to read and write, more or less."
"I'm sorry — what?"
The couple was floored by the clerk's offhand explanation. In a week, they'd be able to read and write — even roughly?
They had never once heard of such a thing existing in the world.
"Perhaps… will we be able to read books, too?"
"Yes. There's a library at City Hall, so come by and have a look later. It's all Daehan Language books, so it'd be best to come after you've learned the script."
"Goodness…."
Monica had yearned to study from the time she was very small. But she was a farmer's daughter, and for a woman to read books had been utterly unthinkable.
She hadn't even been taught her letters.
"Sob…."
"Monica…."
She had found one more reason to be grateful for this place.
"Now then, do either of you have any special skills?"
They were screening for blacksmiths, scholars, and the like, since such people had separate work waiting for them.
"No, we've only ever farmed."
"Then for now, work at the farm and see whether there's anything else you can do."
"The farm?"
Daehan's settlement in Australia operated vast stretches of farmland.
Dividing the land among individuals and telling them to farm it would only end in disaster — the habits of a lifetime in Europe ran too deep — so they had gone straight to corporate-scale agriculture instead.
"First, come to City Hall early tomorrow morning for work assignments. You see that tall building far off in the distance? That's City Hall."
"What!?"
Philip turned to look and gasped. A building greater than any lord's castle stood towering before his eyes.
"I see…."
"And follow the street signs to find your address. It'll be written as a number in front of your house."
"Yes…."
And so, quick as a flash, they were handed a slip of paper bearing the numbers of their home address.
Of course, since the couple didn't know their numbers, this came only after a crash course in the digits from zero to nine.
"Honey. Let's go see it, at least."
"Whew…."
Admiring the neat, tidy houses lining the street, the couple walked along, following the ever-growing numbers.
32-13
Blink. Blink.
"What is this? Monica? Those numbers — they're the same as this, aren't they?"
"They look that way to my eyes too, Philip."
"Goodness…."
"Ah…."
The couple sank down onto the roadside. With no children yet, they had been told the address was for a modest-sized home — nothing grand, just enough for the two of them to live comfortably in.
And yet the house before their eyes looked better than the manor of the landlord they had farmed for back home.
"Well… let's go in, anyway."
"Yes!"
Philip was slightly daunted, but at the sight of such a fine house, life bloomed across Monica's face.
When they opened the door and stepped inside, they found a spacious living room (by the couple's standards), three bedrooms, and beyond that, a big storeroom.
"Wow! This is our house!"
"Uh… I can hardly believe it."
It was all so strange that they went back outside to check the address over and over, but it was unmistakably theirs.
"They said that if we have more children, they'll give us a house even bigger than this one, didn't they?"
"Yes! Wow! How big could it be?"
And they began wandering through the house, inspecting this and that.
"Oh! The dishes are so shiny and pretty!"
Monica's eyes were sparkling over the basic tableware set in the cupboard.
Had the nobility of Europe seen these things — items not unlike their own teacups being handed out to commoners — they would have raged at the outrage of it.
"What's this?"
Squeak. Shhhh—
"Oh! It's water!"
Philip had noticed something like a spout in the kitchen and fiddled with it this way and that, and when water came gushing out, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Ah! Water comes out of the walls of the house itself?"
Monica felt as if she might faint. Wasn't this the sort of house that belonged only in the fairy tales her grandmother had told her as a child?
"Could it be…?"
"What is it?"
"Was it truly the devil who brought us here?"
"Ha! Philip, get ahold of yourself! What devil would live in a place like this? If anything, this must be the work of angels!"
She had blurted it out without thinking, and promptly received a scolding from Monica.
Though, the more he thought about it, the more he felt she was right.
The stinking, filthy, hellish life and cities of Europe — and the clean, heaven-like city and house of Cheongdo here.
There was simply no comparison.
"Oh!"
"What now?"
"What if Europe was the hell all along? And those devils lied to us so we could never reach the angels!"
"Oh, Philip, you clever man!"
And just like that, the couple stumbled upon the truth.
All of this — every bit of it — had been the scheme of Europe's devil-like lords and the Papacy.
"Damn them! We've been deceived all this time! Waaah."
"We have! Sob, sob."
Weeping, the couple threw their rosary beads and their treasured little cross out the door.
Then there was the mysterious sack they discovered in the storeroom.
"What could this powder be?"
"It seems a little different from wheat flour, doesn't it?"
"The dried meat strips I recognize, but hmm…."
"Shall we go ask the neighbors?"
"Oh! Good idea."
And so the couple went from house to house, searching for someone who had been settled a long time.
The problem, of course, was that they couldn't make themselves understood.
Left with no choice, they trudged about with the sack in hand, asking with gestures and pantomime how on earth one was supposed to eat it.
"Haah… this is exhausting…."
"You've worked hard, dear…."
"So have you, Monica."
What they eventually learned was that this was potato flour — the very stuff they had been scarfing down nonstop on the voyage over.
And so, on their very first day in Cheongdo, the couple slurped down potato porridge and gnawed on dried meat once more.
The next day, the couple rose early, boiled up some potato porridge, and hurried off to City Hall.
They were terrified that if they arrived late, they might fail to find work at all.
An enormous crowd had already gathered in front of City Hall that morning.
"Since you've all shown up at this hour, I take it you're newcomers. For now, everyone's first task is study. Please follow me."
The people couldn't understand a word, but when this neatly dressed figure beckoned them along, they trailed after him like ducklings.
And so began their study period.
"Haaaahm…."
"Studying is hard work…."
"My word! I had no idea it could be this easy."
The settlers began their war against drowsiness. Naturally, there were some — Monica among them — who studied with pure delight.
And then came the fateful lunch hour.
"Everyone, we're going to go eat now! All of you, please follow me!"
After a whole morning of study, the people could now pick out words like eat and follow me.
Behold: survival-based language acquisition.
Even those who had dozed through the lesson understood this with uncanny clarity and fell in line at once.
"Alright! Today it's bulgogi and bread! Please line up and receive your portion!"
One by one they took their bowls and formed a line, when suddenly —
"Oh!"
"Wow!"
"Huuaaagh!"
The people ahead of the couple were all crying out in astonishment as they received their food.
"What's going on?"
"I was wondering the same thing."
Curious as they were, the tables where people ate were in the next room over, so they couldn't see, and their curiosity only swelled.
"How much is it?"
"I'm sorry?"
"How much would you like?"
"A lot?"
Splat. Chomp.
The server at the counter scooped an enormous ladleful of something into his bowl, then pressed a piece of bread into his hand.
"Oh…."
"Shall I give you more?"
"Ah… n-no, thank you…."
Certain his stomach would burst if he accepted any more, he quietly picked up his plate and shuffled toward the next room.
His wife followed silently behind him as he walked in a daze.
Clatter.
"…."
"…."
Husband and wife stared at their bowls without a word.
The people seated beside them were all exactly the same — a whole crowd of settlers frozen mid-stare, bowls before them.
Slap.
"Not a dream, then."
Some were even smacking their own cheeks to check whether they were dreaming.
"Honey? What is this?"
"I couldn't say. Wood of some kind, maybe?"
"Some kind of fake meat?"
Staring at the bowl heaped with meat, the couple simply couldn't believe their eyes and wrestled with the possibility that it was something counterfeit.
"Well… let's just try it."
"Yes."
In all their lives, the couple had known meat only as something boiled with bucketfuls of water so the broth could be sipped.
"Right — they said the bulgogi is meant to be wrapped in the bread, didn't they?"
"They did?"
So the two of them tore off a piece of bread, hollowed out the middle, stuffed it full of meat, and put it in their mouths.
"Hmmm."
"Mmm. Mmmph, mmmph."
Clang.
The couple ended up dropping their utensils, tears streaming down their faces.
This taste — tender and sweet and yet savory — was so delicious it made them feel glad to have been born at all. It was the first taste of its kind in their entire lives.
Whether this was really meat or not no longer mattered to them in the slightest. It was simply too delicious.
"Nom nom nom."
"Chomp, chomp, smacking."
Not just the couple — everyone nearby was weeping, too busy devouring their food to exchange a single word.
For most of them, it was the first day in their lives they had eaten more meat than bread.
And there would be plenty more such days to come, wouldn't there?
"Hiccup."
"Urp. Oh my…."
The couple ate in a daze and sat resting for a while.
A burp had slipped out of nowhere, and they were just beginning to feel embarrassed when —
"Honey. Do you remember what we said yesterday?"
"Yes. Those lords were devils, all of them."
"Damn them all…."
"Let's live well from now on. Really well."
The couple's quiet words carried to the settlers resting nearby.
Those who had been mulling it over nodded slowly, one by one, and began hurling their rosary beads and wooden crosses out the door.
"So I wasn't the only one who thought so."
"Were we deceived by devils all this time?"
They had come to believe that they had lived their whole lives wrong — that, deceived by Europe's devils, they had lived and died without ever recognizing the true angels when they came.
From this day forward, they vowed in their hearts to live diligently and happily at last.