I continued on, staggering like a drunk. It was raining again. It rained the day I was sent to prison and the day I got released. It also rained the day I crossed the Tumen River. I rained whenever I went through something difficult or sad. What had I done to God? With every step I took, raindrops on the young leaves fell to the ground. It was starting to get dark, and my body was shaking from the cold. Even my underwear was completely drenched. Where could I possibly lay on this mountain? I finally found a rock with some leaves on it, and some space for me to lay down and rest. I took off my clothes including my underwear, squeezed the water out of them and lay down. I had decided to put aside all my regrets now that I was in China. I tried to sleep, but as time passed by my whole body grew sore. My shoulders and arms were shaking so badly that I couldn’t. I gathered some leaves and rested my head on a piece of rock. I couldn’t help but feel sad. My very first day in China was like that.
The sound of rain woke me up. It was dawn. I was shivering like a leaf. Only when I did some push-ups until I got out of my breath did my body start to feel fine. That rock had been the best possible home to me just a day before. However when morning came, it couldn’t look any more dismal.
I quickly moved on and found a little path. I went along that path and found a proper road. It seemed that many people used that road. I couldn’t decide whether I should go down or up.
I decided to go up. It was a road people used, so I assumed that there was going to be some kind of a house if I went up. If there was a house, I could dry my clothes there and get something to eat too. If I went down, however, there could be a whole town and lots of roads. A town filled with people wouldn’t be any good to me now, I thought. With hope, I began to ascend, but all I found were woods.
‘If I knew it was going to be this way, I would’ve went down……’
But I couldn’t just go down either when I’d come that far. I decided to go up just a little bit more and pressed on. Suddenly there came a huge snake in front of me. It was a blue snake with red eyes. It was quite big. I hit the snake’s head with a stone and moved on. But then I lost my energy because of the snake, and my legs didn’t even feel like mine.
I forced myself to go on, until finally I found a house. I was so happy that I almost screamed, but unfortunately it turned out to be an empty house. No one lived there. The door and the windows were fixed with nails. In the front yard were dead leaves as if no one had taken care of the house for the last few years. I forced open the door, expecting that there would be something. The only edible thing was half a bottle of sesame oil. I was so starved that I thought drinking oil would help. I sampled that half a bottle of oil but spat it out immediately. My stomach was empty, so the oil made me feel nauseous instead. There was all the necessary kitchenware in the kitchen; a knife, a cutting board, a metal pot, rice bowls, spoons and seasoning containers, but no food to speak of.
I gave up on eating, and set about making a fire in the fireplace. The lighter in my pocket was drenched, so it was a long time before I could get it started, but once there was a fire, the whole kitchen filled with heat. I took off my clothes and dried them in the fire. My body felt weary and sleepy. I was feeling even more starved. I unfolded a sheet of plastic in the kitchen and lay down. After I lay down, I suddenly remembered the snake I had killed with a stone. I wore my half-dry clothes and went out of the house. I had to go down for quite a long time before I found that snake. I took a rotten branch and picked up the snake with it. While going back to the house, I found another snake. I took another branch and killed it. In just a few seconds, I had two snakes in my hands. I felt like my burden was disappearing.
I grilled the snakes on the fire and ate them, filling my empty stomach. I couldn’t feel any more tired, so I lay down, and when I opened my eyes it was already morning. I stretched a little bit, and felt so dizzy. There was a path uphill from the house I was in, so I thought that there was going to be another house. Sure enough, I walked about a kilometer and found a house whose chimney was puffing some smoke. I felt so happy that I walked at a run. A man coming out of the house saw me and asked me a question in Chinese.
“Shei ya? (Who are you?)”
I didn’t know any Chinese, so I just answered in Korean.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, who are you?”
He was a Chinese-Korean. It made me so happy, seeing him understand me and respond.
“Oh, are you a Chinese-Korean?”
“Yes.”
“I got lost on the mountain. Do you have anything to eat?”
“Sure, come on in. You look exhausted!”
I felt so thankful to him that I almost cried. There was a woman and two other men in the house. All of them were Chinese-Korean. The woman gave me some rice, and I devoured it. When I had finished eating, the man who had taken me in talked to me. His name was Lee Yong Ho.
“You are from North Korea, right?”
I let out a big sigh and nodded. I told him about how I had come to China. He got interested in my situation.
“So, where are you heading to? Do you have any place to stay?”
“I don’t have any destinations. I don’t have any relative here either.”
He suggested that I stay with them and help them with work. I immediately accepted his offer.
Half a day passed by quickly, as the conversation between he and I was endless. When it was time to eat lunch, the woman cooked us ‘roasted mu er.’ It contained some kind of mushroom and was so delicious. Pork and mushrooms were roasted together. The mushrooms were almost elastic, as if they were tickling my throat. I ate three or four with one spoon or rice.
They were growing mushrooms on the mountain. I saw a number of 2m-long oak trees covering quite a large area of land. On each oak tree there were black mushrooms growing. I took only the mushrooms as big as my palm and dried them. There were five places to dry the mushrooms. There were nets on each drier, on which we put all the black mushrooms. There was a waterproof covering on the roof of the drier so that the mushrooms didn’t get wet when it rained.
I stayed with them for about 80 days. Problems regarding food and a place to stay had been solved, but I was worried about how I was going to live in the future. Those 80 days felt like a year to me.
