"Age of Reason" (철드는 시절) is a short story by Ri Gyŏng Ae that appeared in Adong Munhak (date unknown) and was recently posted on the North Korean website uriminzokkiri.
This coming-of-age story is told from the perspective of a rambunctious nine-year-old boy, Chŏl Song, who longs to "grow up" and be respected as "a hero." The young narrator rumbles through several humorous Dennis-the-Menace-style episodes before finally reaching the moral of the story.
The Story
One snowy winter day, Chŏl Song sneaks out of the schoolhouse with his buddies Hyŏn Sŏng and Pyŏng Hun to play in the snow. In short order they stack three enormous snowballs to build a snowman.
“Well, what sort of snowman should he be? Father Harvest? An Ottogi doll?”
I slap my knee. “I know! Let’s make an American jackal soldier (승냥이 미군놈), then we can smash him to smithereens!”
“What a great idea. Chŏl-song, you’ve got a mind like a ball bearing!”
Portly Pyŏng Hun waddled off home to retrieve a pot and a radish. While he was gone we sculpted the body. The result looked a bit more like a bear than a jackal, but it suited our purposes. We turned Pyŏng Hun's pot upside-down for a helmet, and the radish made for a perfect jutting hawk nose. We got excited just thinking how we would smash him down.
After preparing a good-sized arsenal of snowballs, we opened fire. After several fusillades, the snow soldier collapsed magnificently. We then “shot” at it with sticks. My buddies cheered and I felt my heart swell, just as if I’d become a real hero of the People's Army.
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| A North Korean girl shoveling snow. Src: Daily Mail |
The boys meet up back at Chŏl-song's house, where they discuss her comment. It seems all of them have been hearing this "grow up" phrase a lot lately, whenever they get into some mischief.
“Well, growing up means getting bigger, right?” said Hyŏn Sŏng. “So all we need to do is hurry up and grow some.”
“That’s right. You guys need to grow fatter, like me, and taller too.” Pyŏng Hun shook his fat belly proudly and extended his fist above his head to illustrate.
“And our voices need to get lower,” Hyŏn Sŏng added, dropping his normally piping voice an octave. We all tried to talk low like adults, but no matter how hard we tried the result sounded weak and raspy.
“It’s no use. To get a deep voice, you have to grow one of those ping-pong ball things in your throat first.” Hyŏn Sŏng pointed to his throat. “Like our dads have. That’s where the deep grown-up voice comes from.”
How mysterious the grown-up world seemed.
“That’s not all!” Pyŏng Hun rubbed his chin. “We have to grow beards!”
We laughed out loud. “Imagine Pyŏng Hun with a big beard like a billy goat!”
“Well, we’ll just shave like our dads do. Do you have any ideas of your own, Chŏl Song, or are you just going to pick on us?”
Chŏl Song gets the bright idea to pull some of his dad's business clothes out of the closet and try them on. He struggles into the snow-white shirt, wraps the tie clumsily around his neck, shrugs on the heavy jacket bedecked with medals, and digs his father's spectacles out of his desk. Finally he hangs his father's physicians' medal around his neck. The boys are mightily impressed with the result, and a scuffle ensues as they all want to try the clothes on.
Il Shim walks in to find them rolling on the floor fighting over the clothes. Again, she tells them to "grow up." They patiently explain to her that they were trying to do just that.
She chuckled. “I see. So you decided to grow up in a hurry. And then what?”
“We’ll be heroes, of course,” I said.
“Heroes?”
“Yeah. I’m going to be a doctor like my dad, and Pyŏng Hun’s going to be a farm hero like his grandfather.”
Nuna [big sister] started putting the clothes back on the hanger. “That’s a fine dream. But do you think you can become a hero just by imitating adults? … Do you know the trees in your schoolyard were planted by our hometown hero Hyŏng Nam? The hero Hyang Rim, whose name is known all over our country, was your age [when she died], and the hero Cho Hyŏk Chŏl was just two years older than you [two children who perished trying to save portraits of the leaders]. Nobody would ever call them immature.”
We thought about that. “Nuna, are you grown up?”
“Me?” She gazed off hazily toward the window for a moment, then shook her head slowly. “No, I’ve still got a long way to go.”
The next day, Il Shim comes across the boys joyfully sledding down a roadway, where they've poured well water from the hilltop to make an icy track."Chŏl Song," she says, "Won't our moms and dads have to travel this road for the spring planting? When you ice it over like that, how will the tractors and carts get up it?" Chastised, the boys help her haul sacks of gravel to pour down the hill. Passersby, including their parents, are pleasantly astonished to see the normally rowdy boys doing something to help the community. They exclaim over how “kids grow up so fast these days,” and the boys swell with pride.
Grabbing Il Shim’s hand, Ch’ŏl Song thanks her for “helping us to grow up,” and asks her how she came up with the idea to clear the road each day. She explains:
“My father was in charge of maintaining this stretch of road. One spring day two years ago, he left for an assignment far away. Since then I’ve been keeping the road smooth, clearing rocks and ruts, waiting for him to return.Chŏl Song reflects on their foolish attempts to mimick grown-ups, dropping their voices and pretending to shave. He says to his friends, “Hyŏn Sŏng, Pyŏng Hun, I’ve figured it out. To truly be grown-up is to want only to bring happiness to the Fatherly Leader.” [아버지원수님께 기쁨을 드릴 때 사람들은 철이 든다]. The children all hold hands and vow to work together to bring the Leader happiness.
“One sleety winter day, I stared out the window and just couldn’t bring myself to move. How could I have known that I would regret that decision for the rest of my life? For that very morning, our Great Leader, our General traveled along that very dangerous road on his way to a guidance visit.
“That day I beat my chest and swore an oath, that I would grow up fast and do everything I could to ensure the General’s happiness.”
