Toung Mahng Left Alone

4
Toung Mahng Left Alone, 1940

Any efforts had not been made on both parties to invite Toung Mahng's parents to Manchuria. Barring expenditures, diplomatic and other impediments were in the way. So Toung Mahng had had to relay his situation he was in via his cousin Toung Doung personally to his parents back home. In effect Toung Mahng had taken himself hostage to the Huang Suan family.

Toung Mahng was eventually left alone as Toung Doung had left the Manchurian shelter for good because he had been notified of his father's "bad health." The telegraph hadn't mentioned any specific condition of Toung Doung's father but his gut feeling had told him that his father's life would be at risk.

He had had a hard time waiting for his son. His father had been dead and buried a week ago. His mother wailed at the sight of the returning prodigal son, hitting him on the chest with her frail fists. His wife Boolim Lee was wiping her eyes with apron cloth, in front of the kitchen door.

The aunts and uncles of the clan, many times removed, came to Toung Doung, casting stares of rebuke at him, wondering what had happened to Toung Mahng. Toung Doung was somehow at a loss how to explain about his desertion of his cousin in a faraway land.

Toung Doung had hand delivered his cousin's personal letter to his parent, Uncle Wang backed off a few steps and received the envelope in dread in which Toung Mahng had extended a sincere apology to his neglect of filial piety and sought his parents' pardon for his "truancy." He then had asked his parents to hear details from Toung Doung.

He could not immediately get down to the truth of Toung Mahng's truancy, having sensed that improvisations were of no use, though. Looking around at the worrisome faces of the uncles and aunts of the Wang clan in the small room of a tin-roof house, Toung Doung made it sure again and again that his cousin's welfare was guaranteed there.

Despite Toung Doung's assurance, the uncles and aunts hadn't been convinced. They had wanted to know more about what had caused Toung Mahng's failure to come back home. Not reassured just by Toung Doung's stuttering account that their son and nephew was safe and sound away from home, they got jittery about what had caused him to fail to show up.

A sharp riposte from an aunt had been raised against Toung Doung's oft-repeated bald remark to the effect that Toung Mahng's marriage to the daughter of a Manchurian householder was inescapable. "How?" "To what degree?" she demanded. "To the degree that he has turned his back on his parents?"

Toung Mahng's mother had been silent all along. But his father hadn't. "My son did not desert us parents and did not betray his family clan, either," he had snapped. He had given a hard pull at Toung Doung's arm and given a supportive pat on his back. He declared solemnly "Toung Mahng, my son, took an eating mouth off our house," sarcastically mentioning the famished situation of the family clan at the time.

The spring famine, called the Barley Pass, had been into an ugly phase. The folks of a small hamlet, surrounded by low-lying sun-lit hills at Danuishill, had been occupied peeling the barks of pines, crushing and brewing, mixed with a small amount of wheat flour, to get a lukewarm soup out of it.

Because deprivation had been a major meat of the era, ritual procedures, including funeral, could not be complete. That they had not been able to keep them was more like it. The conventional three-year mourning custom had been passed over.

The household gods, or the dead spirits including the spirit of Toung Doung's dead father, had been starving because the hot rice bowl, offered during the mourning period, could not be placed on the altar. The grieving survivors, who were much too weakened by the lack of nutrition, could only blurt out low sobs, short of wails or cries.

The valley in the early morning, for which Toung Doung was scheduled to pay respects to his father's grave, had been shrouded with fogs. The shallow creek had long been dry. A steep hill leading up to his lonely resting place had been covered with stinging thorny bushes and weeds.

A while later, his guide, two-times-removed cousin, who was four years senior to Toung Doung, stopped walking. There was a grave mound which must have been freshly formed. Earth was new and green grass had been planted on top, just like quilts. No stone table had been erected yet, which is used for donating offerings at times of seasonal rituals. No epitaph, either.

Toung Doung stumbled and fell to the ground. Wails trailed along the hills. Doves and mountain birds stirred and fluttered to the air. He had "much to say" to his father. He had missed him badly. He was so sorry for all the ills and the sudden death. He had sinned, for which he would never be forgiven.



5
A Night with Boolim at Danuishill, 1940
Toung Doung's wife Boolim Lee threw an adoring glance at her husband as she put a room pot of copper make under a corner window sill, which she had brought with her at the time of her marriage to Toung Doung Wang. Country lavatories were usually situated "two and a half miles" apart from the main living quarters of a house because it had been considered best left alone for hygienic reasons.

As a result, a convenient substitute with a compact size was concocted for human relief particularly during nightly hours for spouses. Which is why a yokang, that is, an urn for urination, had taken a place in common households then. Toung Doung's eyes went so far as to meet Boolim's just above the pot.

The thatched-roofed cabin, shaped like hangul character ㄷ, which housed two living rooms and other adjacent small rooms, a cow barn and a warehouse for farming tools, was not tight, indeed, because the rest of the residential area around the two rooms was a spacious lot, of which the one room was allotted for the head of the household and male people and the other room was for his wife and female population.

The husband used to receive guests, changed clothes, dined, and slept in the sarang, or sarangbang, by which it meant the room for the patriarch. It had been actually reserved for the male people of different age levels while the wife had spent days and nights in the anbang (pronounced ahnbahng), by which it meant the room for the matriarch. It had also been used by the female population of various age levels.

There used to be a concept of distance, or separation between the husband's habitation and the wife's. That is, they had resided in the same house but had not "lived" in the same room. To elaborate, they had not slept together for most days of the year. To that end, the two rooms had not been contiguous to each other. They had been "far" apart from each other. Herein should lie a partition space called maru, the wooden floor which bridged the two chambers.

A maru had played a role as a podium for the chief who could command domestic functions. He had for most of times directed the household chores and checked their procedures. Most of the country dwellings had been so erected on elevated ground levels that the chief of a specific household could shout directions on the maru from way up to his servants down below, if any, and his inferiors.

The maru as a border line had not demanded visas. It had demanded that you keep a semblance of human propriety or decency. Still, a head of a household had without permissions or restrictions from anyone been allowed to cross the border and enter the anbang. But it had been regarded as an indecent act for a host of an anbang to cross the maru to enter the sarangbang, which had been considered a taboo.

How indecent? It had been considered indecent to the extent that it would probably be played on the mouths of the villagers, especially women, giggling away. Rumors had usually been milled around the village well from which it had taken wings.

There hadn't been a concept of trespasses. The villagers had gotten their living quarters open. Most of them had had no gates. Even if some of them had, visitors hadn't been trapped in or out of the quarters because the village folks had not kept their gates locked and not their doors, either.

They had had no locks. They had known the outer world, of course, in which the locks had been being used. But they had been afraid of biting opinions and gossips of others. (What is there to hide?) That is, they had hated themselves to become the objects of the other folks' gossips and back talks. They had not wanted to be thought of as man-haters or guest-haters.

They had also been ignorant of knocking. They might have developed an instinctive hatred for blunt impersonal sound. Or they had preferred human voice to mechanical noise or otherwise. They had naturally coughed. Coughs had really been humanitarian. What kinds of coughs? Asthmatic or convulsive coughs penetrating the ears of those around? No, not real coughs. False coughs, indeed. You could name them gentlemen's (or ladies') coughs.

Thus they had coughed all along the way. In a decent manner in front of the lavatory (Is anybody in there?), louder and longer before the gate (Hello!), in a low and calm voice before someone's room (Open the door! Or be prepared for my opening it). Then there had been responding coughs from inside the lavatory (I am here! Or you are supposed to wait!) Or there used to be voices from inside the house (Who's there?).


Toung Doung Wang gave low coughs and threw a quick glance toward his wife one more time. He wanted to know about his mother's whereabouts that night. His wife's voice trembled as she casually uttered a tip that their mother would while the night away at a "a clan sister's".

The ondol floor was aptly warm as changjak, or chopped fire woods were burning under the floor. The room was smelly, which was not undescribable. As the room got warmer, a miasma of urine and delicate aroma of wheat flour paste pricked Toung Doung's nostrils.

Toung Doung had had a nose for smells. He had been able to identify the sources of smells in the room and he had liked them all as parts of his life. The urine, which was not so strong, must have erupted from the room pot and the aroma of wheat flour paste must have come from the quilt which had been washed, starched, dried and ironed. The wall of clay of course prided itself on its own aroma.

The room was not so bright. But Toung Doung wanted the room to get dimmer. "Why don't you darken the room?" She nodded and crawled several kneels to the lamp and toned down the light a notch, which gave them a cozier ambience.

Without further warning she began to arrange bedspreads with pillows side by side yet with "an aisle" apart. "Why don't you lie down beside me?" Toung Doung suggested. "We mustn‘t," she insisted, blushing beside herself. "Why?" he demanded to know. "We're in mourning," was her crisp reply.

He had been sorry for all the toils she had had to go through during his absence. Their mother had been a nagging and drilling type even before she parted with her sick husband at a relatively young age. Boolim's privations were high and deep. Her tasks which had to be taken care of by her on a daily basis were "mounting." Preparations of three daily meals were her major job. She had to feed a bull and two cows. There had been higher people up the tiers of ranking in the familial pecking order.

Sorry expressions and comforting words had failed him. They had from time to time been at Toung Doung's tongue tips but actually been out of reach for her. His hearts had always ached at the thought of her wife in plight back home when he had been in Mudanjang. Now she was near at his arm's reach but consonants and vowels could not compose any significant remarks to comfort or apologize to her. He had not been good at them, not having been trained in them. He only stammered, saying, "I am leaving for Nippon tomorrow."

She knew that second hand from her mother-in-law. She had already packed his belongings for his departure. She took it for granted that her husband was again on the move. She had to accept it as a fate of the people of the ruined country. Overwhelmed with emotions she betrayed her sorrow, showing tears and hurriedly wiping them with her knuckles. Toung Doung gave her a hard pull at her shoulder and let her lie down flat on the warm ondol spread. Then he pulled the top bed sheet and covered her body.

He got undressed and moved his naked body onto the thick cotton blanket. Stirring, she shifted. She turned sideways to the left. Holding her by the shoulder with his left hand, he put his right hand on her hips. He clung to her just like cicadas do to the trees and hugged her from behind. He shoved her soggot, or, rather loose underwear to find that it was parted in the middle, his right hand gliding up to her privates. Her opening was wet and hot...really hot.

He tried to part her thighs. Fuming a moan, she recoiled like a cocoon. He clung to her more tightly, with his hand massaging the wet opening. She spread her thighs a little beside herself for his hand to move with more ease. Holding her breath, she found his yangkun (the root of yang) rising its way to huge erection. Sensing his body touching her, she made a backward protest. She pushed his hand backwards with a damp palm of her right hand, her trembling voice uttering, "No, we can't!" "Yes, we can," he whispered to her hot ears.

He bent his lower body, with his right hand pulling down her underwear from her waist down. She made a meager protest this time, too, but with futile efforts. Boolim was still his bride. She was just like a virgin up to the time. She was so fresh, so new to him. This must be what the paternal ancestors had used to tell their sons on the eve of the departure for the wedding at the brides', he thought aloud. "Do as your mind guides you," he had also heard at that time. His shaft knew its way. Tightening the grip on her shoulder by the left hand of his, his stuff went uphill toward her opening with the aid of his right hand. To his pleasant surprise, her right hand held out to meet his big stuff, holding it gently and guiding it to her wet and hot stuff. Her stuff was wetter this time to the extent that his stuff would trip and fall.

He entered her from behind, a totally new and unexplored approach. The thrust met no hindrance, though. Slow yet brutal, the rough and hardened staff penetrated far deep into her. She gasped and fumed a moan. His proud staff, exploring the walls of the cave, sent titillating waves onto his spine and hers, too. She squirmed, turned her head backward to the right and bit his arm. Popping it deeper into her walls and then pulling out of them, he kept pounding her with regular frequency. Then he gave her a slight push and let her take a prostrate position, him mounting her back, with his legs enveloping hers.

The feeling was so good...and hot, with her vaginal opening clamping on his hard stuff with regularity. Her opening was getting more juicy, him feeling her liquid running onto his shaft. She was biting off screams, gritting her teeth, blurting out feverish moans. He at last kept pounding in successive rapidity, exploding. He ejaculated his semen deep into her in convulsive tremble, falling to her back. Ecstatic waves overwhelmed him and her. She panted loudly with short breaths and then remained motionless eternally, with her extended right hand holding his.