Yi Ok Seon Halmoni

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
Though all of us halmonis have been comfort women, our histories are not the same. We all went separately, that's why our histories are not the same. If we're all former comfort women halmoni, why are our stories so different? People might find this suspicious. But the stories are not the same. They're different.

But since I've come here [to Sharing House], there are a lot of Japanese visitors and students, but we can't communicate. Even with translation, they only translate half of what is being said. Though our staff is sitting right here, when I listen, certain things are completely skipped over, saying "that's enough that's enough." That's why I thought to myself, "this won't do." I have to learn Japanese so I can explain all the words in my heart to people, so when Japanese students came and asked me ‘what do you want to do?’ I said I would like to study until I die.

I wasn't able to go to school. I cried for 15 years because of that. Since I wasn't able to go to school, I made a resolution to learn and started learning, but as I grow old, my mind is aging too, so as much as I try now -- right now I study every day -- even though I study my hardest, it just doesn't stick in my brain. So since I wasn't able to learn, today you must do a good job of translating. (laughs)

Translator
I will.

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
I was born in Busan. I was born in Busan and couldn’t go anywhere else, and from when I was 7 years old until I was 15 years old, I cried because I wanted to go to school. But I couldn't go to school, and our family has such a hard time and was so poor that I went to work as a maid.

I was tricked into going. How I ended up going was since I wasn't able to go to school, and cried so much every year, and starting from when I was 9 years old, I cooked the meals. I carried my younger siblings on my back, did the housework. My mom and dad had to go out and work and earn money.

There was a family in Busanjin that said that they would take me in as a foster daughter and send me to school, so I went to that house.

Because that family promised to send me to school, I was jumping up and down in joy and said I wanted to go with them.

Please sit on either side of me. Today is my happiest day.

Translator
Am I the main character today? (laughs)

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
So when I got to that place, it turned out to be a little restaurant that sold u-dong noodles. But it was the sort of place that sold liquor along with the noodles. So I worked as a maid there –I drew water from the well with bucket and cooked rice- what did I know, I was only 15 years old. I don't think there are any students who are 15 years old here today. 

But all I did there was work, and they weren't sending me to school, so when I asked them why they weren't sending me to school, they told me that it wasn't time yet so they couldn't send me. That's what they said. Several months later, when they still hadn't sent me to school, I asked them again why they weren't sending me to school? Well, you need to work diligently here, and make lots of money, and then we can send you to school, and that's how they tricked me. They brought me as a foster daughter, told me that they would send me to school, that's how they lied to me.

So because that family made my life so miserable, I ended up running away. I ran away twice, but each time they found me and made me go back. So I couldn't even run away, and because I caused them so much trouble they sold me without my knowledge to a tavern in Ulsan. They sold me off to a tavern in Ulsan.

I was so disobedient at that house, that, look at this. Scars from an awl. They stabbed/poked me with an awl and did this, and then sold me off to that place in Ulsan. After getting there, I found out that it was a tavern, and I was a maid there too. I was making rice, so I went to the pantry to get some rice and it was this full of eggs. Can you imagine how much I wanted to eat an egg? Because I wanted to eat one so badly, I put it in the rice bowl and steamed it inside the rice. I should eat that one but I couldn't. The owner discovered it when ladling out the rice, and I was beaten... There I protested against the owner’s bad treatment.

So one day I was sent out on an errand at around five in the afternoon and ran into ruffians on the road. I ran into a Japanese person and a Korean person who grabbed me and took me away.  I didn't know where I was going and they just pulled me along for a while until they loaded me onto a truck. After getting put on the truck, I discovered that including me, there were six girls on the truck. We had no idea where we were going but ended up at a train station. After getting to the train station, we got on a train at night.  We got on the train at night, but we had no idea if we were going to China, or if we were going to Japan, or to America, we didn't know where our destination was. It was a dark night, we were going to China, but it was dark and also we didn’t know the road.  We got on the train at night, I don't know if we were on the train for several days, or for one day, or two days.

Since we were all just going on errands from our house, we didn't have any clothes or anything else with us. Just as we were. You know how cold China is? So we arrived in China, at a place called Tumen, but we still didn't know that we were in China, or in Tumen. So we arrived at this place Tumen, and they made us sleep one night in a prison. We didn't know then what a prison looked like or concentration camp. But there were six of us, remember? They put five in one room together, and put me in a separate room by myself.

So we spent one night there. That floor was concrete, it was so cold there that I came down with a leg problem that has caused me so much suffering. On the second day they told us to come outside and divided the six of us. Four went someplace else, and the two of us were told to get on a train again. That was a Japanese person. Since they told us to get on, we boarded the train and went to Yeongil(延吉)-- We arrived and went to a airfield.  As the Japanese invaded China they needed to expand the airfields because they were too narrow. We went there to pull out the weeds from the field. We were working there but we didn't even get to eat. They didn't give us rice, but just gave us exactly this much (holds out hands) flour to each of us, they gave us that but didn't even give us any water and then told us to work, so we rebelled. How can we work when we are this hungry, we need to be full in order to work. We can't do this, send us home, we told them. Our protesting with the officials brought only beatings. This is the story about them beating us.

So in there, what kind of place it was, they had put up a fence made out of electrified barbed wire to keep us from running away. And then they electrified that fence. Once they ran electricity through it, we couldn't run away. If we tried to run away and get through that fence, we'd get stuck there and die. So that's why they electrified it. Inside that, that's the kind of place we had to work.

So since we made such a fuss there. Army barracks are big, right? Brick building. So they put us in one of those buildings. Since there was a lot of women. They put us in that building, with three in one room or four, or sometimes two, and then the Japanese people could keep an eye on us like that.

Translator
Halmoni, so in addition to the other person who went to Yeongil (city of Yanji) with you, there were other people there?

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
There were other people there too.

Translator
Then, were there only women there?

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
There were also Korean men who had been forced into labor.

Translator
And women as well?

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
Yes, there were also women.

Since they made things so miserable, we kept on protesting and fought with them. We would pound on the building like this and demanded to be sent home. But those people would only hit us. Since we refused to work and kept on protesting. Then we decided to run away. But where would we run away to? There's no way to get out. So in the morning, at dawn, we quietly came out. We came out to run away and then saw the dead dog on electrified barbed wire fence. We'd look at that and get too scared to leave and then go back into the building.

Translator
Even simple explanations end up taking a lot of time.

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
So since we couldn't run away, we just protested and fought, and then one day soldiers came and told us to go somewhere with them, so we followed them. We didn't even know where we were going. They told us that they would send us home, so we were so happy to follow them, but where they took us was a place called West Market. West Market in Yeongil(city of Yanji). There was a comfort station next to there, so they dragged us to that comfort station.

So when we went to the comfort station, we didn't have anything to wear. We just went as we were. Since we were supposed to serve the soldiers, all of us girls had to be clean, but just imagine how dirty we were, we had come straight from working in the fields. So the keeper looked at us and gave us each one set of clothes. They gave it to us, but it was really coarse fabric like a gunnysack, haori, in Japanese, they call it kimono, kimono. They gave us one of those and bought us a pair of geta made out of wood. Then they gave us tabi (socks), with divided toes.  And then ran up a debt for all of these things.  So we went into debt. They didn't buy these things for us for free there. That's why.
So since they made us take all that stuff, that debt grew like an enormous mountain for us. So we were supposed to take a lot of customers, but we said we couldn't. We were just 14, 15 years old, what did we know? So at the comfort station, weekdays like this were ok, not too many soldiers would come. But Sundays or the weekends were holidays for all the soldiers. So a lot of soldiers would come. When a lot came, the soldiers would stand in a line in front of the door. The soldiers.

So the officials would tell us to take a lot of soldiers, but if we didn't do so because we didn't want to, they would beat us again. We would just be covered in blood again. What does a 142 year old know about reality?, there was a 14 year old who hadn't even reached puberty. They cut , stabbed her with a sword and killed her. You can tell from this sort of violence how many evil things those Japanese people did.

Translator
That fourteen year old... that child... died?

Yi Ok-Seon Halmoni
That fourteen year old... that child. She hadn't reached puberty.

Slashed with a sword.

And we didn’t have even a single cent for receiving the soldiers there. There, they just gave us a slip of paper this big. There wasn't any money. So they would want one girl to take 30-40 soldiers in a day, but that was impossible. And we weren't even eating well. There wasn't anything to eat either. What sort of food did they give us? From when I became a comfort woman, until Liberation three years later, during those three years I didn't get to eat white rice even once. Then what did they give us. Sorghum or hulled millet. You know sorghum and millet, right? That's what they made, and as for side dishes, we couldn't even dream of meat. These weeds, there are some over there, if we go outside. Pick some weeds like that from the field, boil them, without even any seasoning, and then put soybean paste and mix it up, and give this much millet (hand motion) and then this much of the greens boiled earlier. Eating that how could we serve the soldiers everyday?

So we had to take Japanese soldiers during the specified time. (?) But those soldiers wouldn't listen to us girls. So worried that we would get diseases, and then soldiers would get diseases too, the army would always always examine us once every week. At the hospital. If there was even the slightest mark found in the examination, they would give us shots called 606, and make a person, see I have a mark right here, there was a scar. Look at this. After that, the officials would tell us to take soldiers again. If the hospital knew, they would never let us serve the soldiers. But the Japanese officials didn't think the same way as the hospital.

So we were supposed to use prophylactics there, but they would say let's not use the prophylactic. What I'm talking about, Japanese people will know. They called it shaku, and it was a rubber sack, and though the regular soldiers sometimes followed directions, the generals wouldn't always listen to us. Then if they wouldn't listen to us, we would say we didn't want to do it, wouldn't do it, and we would argue with them, and if we weren't giving in, then next would be a beating. Hit us with their fists until we were bleeding and a mess. Still we would refuse them. If we didn't obey them, then what did they do? Pull me up. Like this. They would stand you up and then slash you with a sword. Stand you up like this and then slice you all the way here. And even if the sword didn't cut us very deeply, can you imagine how scared we were! So they would slice us like that, and then standing like that covered in blood, we wouldn't refuse. We couldn't resist. When this happened, they would call the official and complain where they got such a girl and demand a different girl, and that same violence again. So that sort of thing.

I didn't mean to talk about this, but what do you think happened after those Japanese people took us there. Even though they cut us with swords, we still wouldn't obey, and by now we had cried so much, our tears had dried up. Still, we wouldn't listen to them/obey them, but all I got back was beatings. And curses. So I wanted to die, because we suffered so much, so I considered killing myself. But when I thought about killing myself, I didn't have any money. Where was I going to buy poison, I couldn't go out and buy poison. If I tried to hang myself, the trees were right outside the doors, so that wasn't possible. If I wanted to run away, I couldn't run away either. It was this sort of life.
You talk too much, you should take a lot of soldiers, pay back the money you owe, save up money to pay off your debts and go home. If you don't, how do you think you'll pay back your debt and go home? They said this sort of nonsense. I couldn't take it anymore, I couldn't survive there for much longer, and if I couldn't go back home anyway, I thought I might as well die there. But to this point I still had no idea that I was in China. So I thought I would end up dying there, but then there was a Sunday when so many soldiers were coming that they opened up the main gate. I took that opportunity to sneak out. I ran away. But even though I slipped out I didn't get far. I didn't know where to go/the roads. Since it's China, I didn't know where I should go, and though I did manage to leave, I hadn't gone very far before they caught me. In those days they (Japanese) arrested and then interrogated revolutionaries. (comment: Chinese or Koreans who were systematically resisting Japanese occupation of China and Korea were sometimes called revolutionaries) That's what happened. I got beaten so badly that time that to this day I can't hear very well. Because of how much I was beaten then. I practically died and then came back to life. I couldn't run away, just got outside the gates, when they dragged me back.

That’s right, that's what those Japanese people say now. That we old women went voluntarily to the comfort stations to earn money. They say we went to earn money? We brought back nothing but diseases. In fact, when I came here, my leg was dragging like this. I couldn't walk properly. Suffered for decades, and because I couldn't come here from there, I couldn't find my parents or my siblings, no matter how much I wanted to. My parents didn't even know that I had gone to Japan or China after living in Ulsan, my family didn't even know what country I was in. Since we were separated like that, of course we had no idea. That's why my family registered me as dead. I had been dragged to China at the age of 15 and suffered there for 58 years. I couldn't find my siblings. After 58 years I came back to Korea.

So after coming back, because I had so many siblings to begin with, two of my younger sisters and two of my my two younger brothers and one younger sister were still alive. My mother, father, both had passed away. After being separated at 15 years old, I didn't get to see my mother or father even once, and when I returned, they had all passed away, even my older brother. ..when I got here, my family had already reported my death. So after coming here, I had an extremely difficult time straightening out my citizenship.? How could a dead person come back to life? Though I was trying to fix it legally, that's what the law said. That a dead person couldn't come back to life. It took over one year to regain my citizenship.

I came here June 1, 2000, that's when I arrived. That's why I can't speak Korean well. 58 years in China, that's a long time. I came back having forgotten so much. If I want to talk about my past hardships, it will be endless. In the end, all I brought back from China were diseases. I look like a normal person because I'm wearing this blouse, but my whole body has been operated on, even my eyes. They cut me open to do surgeries. That's why my body is finally a bit healthier. Since coming here, I've gotten all my ailments fixed. If I think about this, even if I think about killing all Japanese people. my anger doesn't subside. But you students here today aren't bad, of course. Those people who practically killed us, who dragged us off, those people are dead. But it's because those people did such things back then, that even after liberation, you students don't know much about these things, because you don't know much about this history, I'm so thankful that you come here to see us, come here to ask us about this history.

Even if I show you my scars, you can't see my other scars, but I'm really not lying about my legs. I had surgeries on both my legs. I can't show you my other scars, but I can roll this up and show you. Even though it's like this, I can travel to the U.S. even. It doesn't hurt. It's really great. So though I suffered during my 58 years in China, since coming to the House of Sharing I have a happy life. Because of this.

Also, along the Chinese border with Burma, about 30 comfort women, in skirts, all in a group, girls in skirts, were massacred. Our comfort women. Think about it. Died of starvation, died from being beaten, died from diseases, these nameless people are the daughters of Korea. We don't know how many were dragged to China and died. So many died without even leaving behind their names. If you think about these things, your heart aches, bitterly, when will we be able to finally release this bitterness? Let's stop here. If I keep on talking, even if we go all day, it never ends. Let's keep it simple like this.