Fascinating...

2
Toung Doung in Manchu, 1930s"The good Nipponese," was a mantra Dano's parents used to recite. "They were nice to you," Dano's mother used to say. "You were very weak then and the village doctor at a small town of Nagasaki Prefecture always treated you nice and well," she used to recollect. "The Japanese people were gentle, kind and generous," Dano's father-in-law once told Dano in his early thirties.

The words of affinity toward the people across the East Sea, which Dano had heard from his mother as a child, were ringing in his ears. It just happened that the dormant noises came to and were married to the images, that is, converted into the mobile and living human figures. Two dissimilar things were adjoining. It was just like the ancient chords were superimposed on the Japanese tourists. So transcendental. So mystic.

The major topic of her oft-repeated recitation was "the good Japanese physician." Dano had been sick and injured so often. He had been taken ill every other month and tripped and fallen so often that his mother had had to take him to the doctor time and again and at wrong time.

"Ohira san (Mr. Ohira) had not blurted out a complaint," she reminisced. Not even once. He had been always at smiles, warm and nice. He had wanted to know what was wrong with "Masao san." Masao had been Dano's Japanese-type name as a child.

"If a big house is set on fire," Luo Guanzhong says in The Romance of Three Kingdoms "sparrows will leave from the nests of the eaves." It just happens that when a big mountain collapses beasts are bound to be dispersed. Once the nation ruins the people are scattered like anything.

Although the Chosun Kingdom (1392~1909) had succumbed to the Imperial Japan, lost its national sovereignty, gotten annexed to the mighty archipelago, and plunged into the sorrowful state of a colony, Dano's father Toung Doung Wang had had no time to have the luxury of national mourning.

He bolted one night from a rustic tenant house, took a train to Seoul, and then an overnight train to Shinuiju. He had not been entirely lonely because he had had a four-times-removed remote cousin to keep his company. Away from home, Toung Doung drifted, hitting every valley of the wild Manchu (Manchuria) and knocking on literally every residential door.

Hunger had been their eternal companion. Their stomachs had almost always been empty, which had made them realize the presence of their real company. They had sought jobs, any jobs, however menial they might have been, to sedate the stomachs in acute craving pain. Rejection was in store. Although they had been rebuffed in front of any residential entrance, they had not gritted their teeth. They had tried to take all the snubs in their stride.

Youth might have exerted its force on them. The rustic pair hadn't had a hard time adjusting to the harsh element of the north eastern Manchu climate and rough-hewn shelter. Survival had been a foremost matter of importance. So any cheap labor would do if it had provided a bowl of rice for them.

The life mode of theirs had been the camaraderie of apportionment. They had had "to break a bean and divide it evenly between them." They had shared everything: crude meals, ill-starched odor-soaked denim quilts, and the derision with which they had been branded stateless waifs.

Homesickness had crept into bone-deep, soaked to their blood and running in their vein. Nearly everything they had encountered along the route of the foot traffic had been incarnations of the homebound yearning. Toung Doung and Toung Mahng had thrown a nostalgic glance at monthly full moon seen through the glass window of a foreign shelter on lonely nights as if it had been their mothers' face.

They had had a hard time of it, putting their noses, and feet, to the ground. Toung Doung had been a young man of stout build, which had been suitable for a big haul. He had been actually pulling and pushing the cart, loading and unloading the cargo. Lugging the cartload along in the street of 1930's Mudanjang, Henlongjang.

There had to be some wherewithal of any variety. Since attempts had failed to stash away what little money they had earned at some unfamiliar places, they had reached the decision that their earnings, however small in amount, be left with the proprietor of their lodging house, who, impressed by the diligence and integrity of the two young men from Chosun of the unfortunate kingdom, had agreed to take custody of it.

They had written to their parents often at whichever time the exchanges of greetings had been grandiose. It's because, like a locomotive train, a major transportation machine of that time, tidings personal and social had been slow. Extremely slow. Letters had been coming and going at a snail's pace, and telegraphs had been too expensive for common use.

The words contained in the correspondence had been "long-winded", sent especially from Toung Doung to his parents. The epistolary verbiage had been a common practice at that time. Time was fast flowing like water and the earth was revolving around the sun. He wondered, for waking hours or on sleeping beds, whether or not the esteemed bodies of his parents were well cared for.




3
A Fascinating Union in Manchu
Young folks should have an opportunity for amorous alliances. They had been famished for companionship with the counter sex. And it seemed there to have come a chance for romance for Toung Doung at least. That is, the landlord had had a daughter named Huang Mai in her blooming 20. She was pretty, smart and kind. Among all things, she was in her prime.

The older Huang had kept an eye on his guests, and in the process he had taken a liking for the two young boarders from a neighborly colony of the Imperial Japan. He had come to favor Toung Doung. Having been informed of his confidence and pressed by the landlord to get his position known, Toung Doung had balked. Although away from home for more than two years, Toung Doung had wanted to keep his fidelity because he had been bound by matrimonial ties and enamored of his wife at home.

Although Huang Suan had been very disappointed, he had not insisted. The younger Huang, bewildered by her father's frustration, had set her hearts on Toung Mahng instead, a more fuzzy and warmer type of person.

Her reason had restrained her but her desire, another turf of her realm, had gotten the better of it. Her legs had almost always carried herself unawares to a deep mountain trail not taken up to that time, where she had had a secret rendezvous with Toung Mahng.

It's like the two young folks had been attracted to each other. So much so that as soon as they had a heart-to-heart talk with each other, Huang Mai had gotten very much attached to Toung Mahng. On a late autumnal day they got to the place their legs had carried them.

Before they knew, they had been in each other's arms. They had gotten entangled in the confines of nondescript bushes just like the gnarled and entangled chilggi, Aristolochia manshuriensis. It eventually happened that Toung Mahng had cracked open the mysterious crevice of Huang Mai. The sky above the hill had consecrated their consummation with showers of its warm autumnal sun rays.

There had been a momentary pause after an initial union. A short while later there ensued a recurrent surge of the urge to crave to fascinate. Toung and Huang were reunited with more strength. Spontaneous cries of duet orgasm had erupted, drifting on the wings of the autumnal breeze.

Stillness like death had taken the place of the upsurge. A euphoric fatigue had overwhelmed them, with the breeze only tickling their naked bodies. They had lain there motionless for a while. Huang Mai (Huang had been her family name), turning around to Toung Mahng Wang (Wang had been his family name in this case) from his left side and covering their bodies with their clothes, had whispered to him, saying, "You won't leave me, will you, Mr. Wang?"

Toung Mahng, holding her hand with a good grip, had given her a steady stare. Then he had held up his index finger and written something briskly on her abdomen. She had wiggled her upper body a bit with a stare of titillating interest, giggling with a tickle. "What did you write?" she had wanted to know. Huang shim, or steady mind, he had solemnly pronounced.

Although his country had been raped of her sovereignty by the brutal country of Japan, he would keep his mind integral. He did not think the promise, even though it had been made during a passion job, would not last. Even though the moon changed its colors his mind would not change. He would love her for ever.

The older Huang had taken notice. Suspicions had been raised. Severe reproaches had been given. The initial denials and undertones had been offered; Facts had been confirmed and witnesses had been provided; The inescapable admission of transgressions had been made at last.

The disclosure had gotten Huang Suan speechless for a long while, his arms shaking and his eyes blood-shot, with his wife giving accusatory stares to the culprits. Disappointed by the improper behavior of his daughter and angered by the indiscretion done on his daughter by the lodger, the senior Huang had had to shout to the two lowered heads, saying "get out." He needed time to collect thoughts.

Mr. Huang had sat motionless, coughing a few awkward coughs and earth-sinking sighs. Comforting words from his wife had passed his ears. Time heals. At dusk he had had to muster courage, calling a family rally, the unwelcome one included.

He deplored the fact that "the distance had been violated." His motto for life was : "Keep the distance at any price." So much so that he believes that distance should be kept between people: Between parents and their offspring, the sovereign and his subjects, men and women, and between husband and wife. Toung Mahng Wang and Huang Mai should have kept it. He had not dared to say that there should have been distance between the girl of the Middle Kingdom and the young man of a small ruined country.

Explanations had been given by Toung Mahng, with enthusiastic vindication extended by Toung Doung for the sake of his cousin. Avowals of fidelity had been offered from Toung Mahng himself. The suggestion of pardons and tolerance on the grounds of inevitability had been made by Mrs. Huang. In time the landlord had seemed to relent.

Huang Suan had put forth three separate periods of one month: the one period of disciplinary sanctions on his daughter, the other period of mature consideration for the patriarch himself, and the third period for the assurance of the suitor's willingness to marry. Huang Suan's suggestion was that any party who would dissent on the union would hold the right to repeal the compact.

Hardly had a scant three weeks passed when the proprietor had announced all the periods putting to a stop. The chief of the house had declared the business off, starting from the 18th of October in lunar calendar. Red light lamps had been removed over the entrance of a small inn house of Mudanjang. Close relatives had been invited. A pig had been slaughtered. Mantou, dumplings of mashed pork, and other local dishes had been prepared. There had been an extended feast of three consecutive days.
(to be continued)