90-year-old emcee’s tears and dream

Song Hae, 91, a long-time Korean emcee, went to the funeral of the mother of Song Dae-kwan, a famous Korean teuroteu singer, on the Lunar New Year's day. While having conversations over soju at the funeral, he got drunk thinking of his mother who he left in North Korea. Song is from Jaeryong in Hwanghae Province, an area known for a field called Yeonbaek. He has often said that Yeonbaek is much better than Kimjae and Mangyeong, its equivalents in the South. He must have had a heavy heart because of North Korea’s playing with fire the day before.

Song headed for the South alone in December 1950 during the Korean War. He was 23 years old and his mother was 60. Every time North Korean soldiers came down to his village, he hid himself. He thought it would take only a couple of days to come back home and his mother asked him to take care. It was their last goodbye. He went to Yeonpyeong Island by boat and took a U.S. Landing Ship, Tank (LST). He said, “I didn’t know where I was heading for and eventually arrived in Busan.” He changed his name from Bok-hee to Hae, meaning the sea.

If his mother is still alive, she would be 128 years old. Until eight years ago, he did not even have a memorial service for his mother because he did not know whether she was alive or not. On this Lunar New Year's day, he sang, “If she were to visit me in a dream.” When I had a dinner with Song two years ago, he talked about Yeonbaek, his hometown. After a few glasses of alcohol, I glimpsed at him. His eyes were welled up with tears. The lyric of “You Rang Cheong Chun (wandering youth),” a song that he recorded in March last year, is heartbreaking. It goes as follows: “My mother who was waving her hand on the tearful balcony, the field in Namuri whose sky was already dark, my son who is hitting the road, take care, it has been already 70 years since I heard the voice. I miss, and miss again my mother.”

Korean women voted Song as the best husband because, as everyone knows, he is “healthy, makes good money, does not eat three meals a day at home, and takes all special local products across the country.” He who misses his mother dearly has a dream of emceeing the National Music Contest in his hometown if Korea is reunified. As he likes to either take a bus and subway or walk, he is healthy. He will live over 100 years. The inter-Korean relationship is dark like before daybreak. However, his dream might come true sooner than expected if the nuclear-armed North collapses after playing with fire.

최영훈 tao4@donga.com