Next door, Yeon Hee’s entire family starved to death
Their names buried in the rice bin.
Scared they would go hungry again, having starved to death
here
They were buried in the rice bin.
This passage from poet Lee Ga Yeon’s “Ssal [raw
rice] Bin,” appears in the collection of poems “The Evening, Longing for
Bap [cooked rice],” recently published by Maeul.
Bap [cooked rice] or ssal [raw rice] may not seem to the
most typical themes to use in poetry, but it reflects the author’s strong desire
to simply enjoy a bowl of rice.
Lee Ga Yeon is defector from North Korea. She was born in
Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, and escaped North Korea in 2011 and settled in
the South. Lee began her literary career in December 2012 through a Korean
literary competition, and went on to
receive the Unification Minister’s Prize for Poetry the following year.
At times, although she was confronted with feelings of
depression and resentment as she settled down in the South, Lee was able to
write one poem after another, conjuring up the desperation of wanting to eat a
simple bowl of rice back in North Korea.
During her childhood, Lee dreamed of living in an apartment
with a terrace, where she would eat meals to her content and grow plants. After
realizing this dream would never become reality in the North, she left home
alone at 28 and walked until the soles of her shoes were tattered, to
eventually cross the Tumen River, which acts as the China-North Korea border.
Lee says she struggles with the heart wrenching memory of
her mother and siblings longing for a bowl of rice to eat in evenings. She did
not manage to say goodbye to them before she left. Her poems reveal the
solitude she feels. Ironically, the happiness in the South brings back more
memories of those hunger-stricken evenings in the North.
Lee’s dream is a to be a “rice poet.” She wants to write
about rice until there are no more people in this world who go hungry.
In a sit-down with Daily NK recently, Lee said she wants to
“reach out to the public on the difficult topic of unification using poems
about rice,” adding she wants to ask people “not to read ‘The Evening, Longing
for Bap’ and try to dissect and analyze the poems, but [rather to] read them
with their hearts.”
Daily NK [DNK]: Why did you title the book “The Evening,
Longing for Bap?”
Lee Ga Yeon [LEE]: My dream when I was a child was to eat a
bowl of rice. It’s a rule of nature. When the evening settles in it means today
is transitioning into tomorrow, but I hated that so much. The fact there is a
tomorrow means the fear of not having enough rice continues. The evenings
helped me mature a lot earlier as a child.
That’s why, when the day comes to an end, it reminds me more
of home. I tried to convey that sense of longing for home, where I so
desperately wanted a bowl of rice, through an evening longing for rice. An
evening, longing for my hometown.
DNK: What does bap mean to you in the North and the South?
LEE: In North Korea, bap doesn’t mean rice. It means tears.
To get through each and every day, we had to peel bark of trees, dig up grass,
and sell it all in order to buy the rice we could eat. We knew if we ate what
we had, we would have to worry again tomorrow, so we sometimes deliberately
kept some porridge without eating it. Bap was always something we longed for
but that we feared as well.
But in the South, bap is gratitude. It’s something I can eat
to my content, and it’s a form of life that I can offer as a gesture of love to
someone else. Also, in the South, it’s a never-ending cycle of love that keeps
on filling you up, so it’s a source of encouragement and power. Even now, when
I sit in front of a bowl of piping hot rice, I think of the people back in the
North.
We had no spoons at home.
I set out to buy a father by cutting off my long hair.
It was expensive.
I have never seen one, nor written of one.
My family, we boil water to fill our stomachs.
It melts our cold hearts.
We fill up empty sacks with our fingers.
If we become better-off, the first thing I want is a father.
DNK: The above poem is titled “The Best Gift in the World”
and is very touching for that reason. What inspired you to write this?
LEE: My family was poor. When I was five, my father passed
away, and I remember the container of spoons he left behind. There were some
spoons in it, but we never ate rice with it. I always thought to myself that if
we had a father, things would not have been so bad.
As I got older, I realized my real poverty came from the
sadness of not having a real father. There was no real father who was looking
after the country. The figure, who was worshipped as the nation’s father, was
someone who could not even help fill my small stomach.
That’s where I got my ambition from. For my country, I
wanted to buy a “real father,” who knows the struggles and pains of his people.
I thought if I could do everything in my power and bring a good father to the
North that would be the best gift in the world for people there.
DNK: What kind of poems do you want to write in the future?
LEE: A lot of people approach the issue of unification from
a political, economic, cultural, and social perspective, but I want to keep
things simple. Bap is our staple food. I think if I use bap as an approach,
everyone in the South and North will easily understand. Just like when you eat
cold leftover rice alone it’s sad, but it’s delicious when you eat it with
others, I want to create simple concepts that can help people accept
unification and write about those things. In order to reach out to defectors in
South Korea and people in the North, I want to talk about unification through
the story of bap.
DNK: Finally, do you have anything you would like to share
with other defectors in the South?
I hope everyone can be thankful for each and every day in
their own role and capacities. I’m grateful that I can eat rice, and I’m
grateful that I’m alive. I’d like to share my poem “Beginning” with them.
If you know what gratitude is, you’re a successful person.
If you keep that appreciation with you, you’re also a
successful person.
Gratitude is a beautiful beginning for you and I.
Do not try to plant gratitude in others.
Also, do not try to plant appreciation in others.
