동북아역사재단 2022년 05월호 뉴스레터
- Yoo Jeong-ae, Professor of History, Sungkyunkwan University
Now a traveler crossing Amnokgang River,
who lost all of beautiful lands and rivers.
Arirang, arari, arariyo
I'm crossing the Arirang Pass.
Nostalgia
The silt from the Taklamakan Desert flew in and piled up for thousands of years to form a loess plateau. This plateau was eroded by running water for thousands of years to form a deep valley. In the loess plateau of Shanxi Province, only red sandstone creased with wavy patterns remains to testify to its long history. A crease in that valley must have kept the memory of Kim San. Is the wind passing through those creases the song of Arirang that he sang more than a hundred years ago? Wouldn't he be waiting to return to his homeland, even if it was as a handful of dirt? What does a homeland mean to strangers, the diasporas, regardless of where and whom?
I first read 『Song of Arirang』 in the USA in my early 20s. Korea was crossing another Arirang pass due to the Gwangju Democratization Movement, and this book contains the story of two unlikely people. One was an independence activist and East Asian revolutionary, Kim San (real name: Jang Ji-rak), and the other was an adventurous American journalist Nym Wales (real name: Helen Foster Snow). They met amid the vortex of the Long March of China in 1937. Wales saw in Kim San, a man of “a confident and dignified attitude and hands as lean as those of a scholar,” a depth of thought and insight that was not found in the 25 Chinese revolutionaries for whom she wrote biographies. Kim San left his own voice through her, leaving traces of countless unnamed 'Kim Sans' in history.
"After a peaceful demonstration turned into bloodshed and shattered into pieces…"
Born in Yongcheon, Pyeonganbuk-do, in 1905, Kim San was a 14-year-old boy during the March 1st Movement. The effervescence from the movement that made him feel full without eating all day and "so happy that it would fill his heart" did not last long. After witnessing his country being brutally trampled on by the ruthless oppression of the Japanese Empire and turned into a prison, a young boy crossed the Yalu River, vowing to himself that he would “never return until the cries turn into the roar of struggle.”
Kim San, who had crossed the Yalu River and went to Harbin, turned around and headed for the Military School of the New Rising in Hani River, Western Jiandao. He arrived at the Military School of the New Rising by overcoming troubles, such as following the tracks of the wagon wheels dented on the road and sleeping curled up in the cold of winter. Kim San had to be at least 18 to enter the school, but he was not. However, the school authorities put him on a three-month short-term course. After graduating, he went to Beijing via Shanghai, dreaming of his country's independence. He made connections with his ideological mentors, Kim Chung-chang (real name: Kim Seong-sook), Oh Seong-ryun, Kim Won-bong, Ahn Chang-ho, and Lee Dong-hwi.
Koreans in Guangdong: "Salt in Water"
In the heat of the Chinese Revolution in 1925, many Korean revolutionaries, including Kim San came to Guangdong, the city of a new revolutionary regime. They believed that the Chinese revolution could expedite the independence of their country. In 1926, Kim San formed the Korean Revolutionary Youth Federation, representing Koreans with Kim Won-bong and Kim Chung-chang. Later, he founded the Korean National Independence Party as a nationalist party centered on the Righteous Brotherhood.
When the Chinese Communist Party caused the Guangzhou Uprising on December 11, 1927, against Chiang Kai-shek's coup, about 300 Koreans, including Kim San, took part in the uprising believing it was a Chinese revolution and "it would defend Korea" at the same time. Many Koreans were trying to achieve the goals of independence and revolution through international solidarity.
However,
after the Guangzhou Uprising ended in just three days, the Nationalist Party's retaliation
was fierce. Nearly seven thousand people were slaughtered, not only the
communists who took part in the armed uprising but also the crowds that joined
the efforts. Kim San witnessed the massacre in Guangzhou and fully realized how
the revolution was coming to pieces due to division. 'I cannot live in such a
cruel country. Absolutely not,' wrote Kim San in his poem
Kim San escaped from Guangzhou and went to Hailufeng in Guangdong Province, where China's first Soviet government was, but this too was soon attacked by the Guangdong's warlords, and fierce battles took place everywhere. In the end, Hailufeng was lost, and Kim San and his comrade Oh Seong-ryun struggled to escape. Kim San's detailed account of the horrors of the Guangzhou Uprising and the daily life at the Hailufeng Soviet, which Kim San recorded in detail through his experience, awakens many of our imaginations today. The experience of 1927 changed Kim San's thoughts. He believed that his goal was to make China's revolutionary movement and Korea's revolutionary movement a joint struggle. He traveled to Shanghai, Beijing, and Manchuria to strengthen the solidarity of the anti-Japanese movement between the two countries.
Kim San was arrested twice during the Japanese occupation, in 1930 and 1933, and suffered torture and conciliation attempts, but he survived and did not turn. After he was released for the second time, he returned to China to avoid the eyes of the Japanese Empire, but what he found there was not a welcome of his comrades but distrust, deprivation of his party membership, poverty, and illness. Tuberculosis was the evil that came to him when he was exhausted. In 1934, while suffering from illness, he married Zhao Aping (趙阿平), a Chinese woman who cared for him warmly and devotedly. Later, he heard the news of her son's birth in Yan'an. He must have felt sorry for the child who could not even see his face. The two years of marriage must have been the most peaceful time since he left his homeland at 14. Those short years that he spent with his wife while working as a private tutor, writing literature, and earning money must have been the only time when he felt happy.
Around this time, Kim San tried to establish a national front for Koreans. He said, “We are no longer in a position to lose ourselves like salt dissolved in water. We must join China as a force joining other forces, not as expelled individuals... We must quickly direct our strengths toward building up and preparing the Korean movement for future action.” In July 1936, he formed the Korean National Liberation Alliance with Kim Chung-chang and was elected as a representative, and was dispatched to Yan'an, the capital of the Chinese Soviet Union, in August.
Kim San, a Pilgrim in Pursuit of Truth
In 1937, Kim taught Japanese economics, physics, and chemistry at the Military College in Yan'an. He was told that an American reporter wanted to meet him one day. It was Nym Wales. She wrote the autobiographies of 25 revolutionaries in China over seven years. She persistently persuaded him to write a biography of himself because she rated him so highly. She recalled that he was a ‘pilgrim in pursuit of the truth.’
Kim San had trust and affection for Koreans' harsh reality and persistence. “Since 1910, there has not been a single day Koreans did not fight the Japanese. Although we have not yet been able to destroy the colonial system on the Korean Peninsula, an armed struggle is taking place in Manchuria.” With confidence, he said that the current war would liberate Korea. He thought Korea was crossing “the last Arirang Pass” (turning the final corner).
Kim San liked singing Arirang in a low voice. He explained this Korean folk song to Wales. Arirang is a song of death that leads to death even after constantly turning the corners. Still, he said death is not a defeat, but victory is born over numerous losses. Thousands of people have died, and many more are wandering “across the Yalu River.” They believed that they would soon return to their homeland. Wales must have noticed his rough and rugged life in Arirang while also spotting the hope that he would eventually return to his independent homeland. Later, she titled the book 『The Song of Arirang.』
The Last Arirang Pass for Kim San
“I am now standing by the riverside. Tears are wetting the sandy field by the river. I am thinking of leaving Yan'an and going to the front line. When our child grows up, raise him up to be a person who fights for the white-clad people (Koreans).” In his last letter to his wife Zhao Aping, Kim San expressed his ardent love for his countrymen. Shortly after, he died somewhere in the valley of the loess plateau at the age of 33, without seeing his own child or the liberation of his country.
Kim San was executed, falsely accused of espionage by Kang Seng, who was infamous as the “Fearful Red Star.” Regarding the end of Kim San, Volume 2 of the 『Biographies of Korean Anti-Japanese Patriots』 records, “In 1938, the security office of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region reviewed the personal history of Comrade Kim San. ‘Isn’t he a traitor?’ ‘Isn’t he a special serviceman for Japan?’ ‘Is he a Trotskyist?’ They reviewed with many questions, but there were no grounds to come to a decision. Kang Seng then ordered the execution to be executed secretly. Comrade Kim San met a wrongful death. He was 33 years old.”
After his son, Gao Yongguang, who never even got to see his father's face, made efforts to clear his father's name, the Chinese Communist Party acknowledged their mistake finally in 1983 and reinstated Kim San by saying, “his execution was an erroneous action under special historical circumstances.” He was forgotten in both North and South Koreas due to the division. In 2005, the South Korean government awarded him the Order of Merit for National Foundation Patriotic Medal posthumously.
Kim San left the following words in the last chapter of 『The Song of Arirang』 “Almost all of my friends and comrades from my younger years are dead (…), but to me, they are still alive. They do not care at all about where their graves should be (…). Their fervent revolutionary blood has flown into the lands of Korea, Manchuria, Siberia, Japan, and China proudly. They fail to see the victory before their eyes, but history makes them victors. A person's name or a short dream may be buried with their bones. But in the final balance of power, not a single thing they have achieved or failed is lost (...), and nothing can take away their place in the movement called history. Nothing can pull them out of it.”
A Memoir of Kim San
History often records the stories of victors. Most of us do not realize how we are involved in history. Wales reminds us that we are the protagonists in making history through 『The Song of Arirang』. At the age of 15, Kim San traveled about 300 km from Harbin to southern Manchuria on foot. At 22, he took part in the Guangdong Uprising. He showed how to live as a protagonist in history throughout his life. In closing this essay, I recall the return of the remains of the independence activist General Hong Beom-do 78 years after being buried in Kazakhstan. His return last summer was a moving moment. Many people, including Kim San, whose remains are buried somewhere in a valley far from their home, must still want to return to their home across the thirteenth Arirang Pass.
Comrade, my comrade,
I won't stop at the twelfth pass.
Arirang, Arirang, arariyo
Arirang, Arirang, arariyo
I will cross the thirteenth pass.
동북아역사재단이 창작한 '‘백의민족의 영상’ 김산' 저작물은 "공공누리" 출처표시-상업적이용금지-변경금지 조건에 따라 이용 할 수 있습니다.
