Jia: A Novel of North Korea

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Almost ten years ago, during a summer spent traveling through England, I met a paunchy middle-aged man on a double-decker bus. When he caught sight of me, bent over from the weight of my backpack, he smiled and asked, “Where are you from?”

“Korea,” I replied, clutching the pole next to the door. The next stop was nine.

“Which Korea?”

I frowned; I didn’t understand what he meant.

“South Korea or North Korea?”

I was completely thrown. I watched his face for another moment. South or North? I wondered.

Showing my bewilderment, I answered, “South” and got off the bus. I stood there for a while, looking back at the bus.

To me, there was just one Korea. My upbringing was strictly anti-North Korea, and discussion of North Korea was shunned. I had never thought of North Korea as a real country and North Koreans as real human beings. In comics and cartoons, North Koreans had red faces or bony features and their leaders were all monsters. Every year, on the anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, I had to hand in an essay and a painting reviling North Korea. That was the only time I could use my favorite color—red—as much as I wanted.

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