이시영 (I Shi-Young) 1949 -

정적

반포대교를 건너면 그곳은 나타난다
아침마다 헬기가 내리고 뜨는
거대한 그린 필드
서남으론 삼각지에서 서빙고역,
동남으론 이태원에서 한남동,
북으론 남산 아래턱 남영동 후암동까지.
옛날엔 이 땅이 조선군 사령부였지
버스를 타고 가다 부면
수지 미용실, 크라운 골프샾, 킴스 드라이크리닝 건너편으로
숨죽인 듯 그저 고요한 막사들
1900년대엔 흰옷 입은 농 꾼들이
곡괜이를 을러메고 와
내 땅 내놓아라 소리치다 피 흘리던 곳
그때의 감나무도 땀 배인 호박 구덩이도
해방의 길을 단숨에 달려온 지까다비도
철조망 안에서 썩고 있는데
오늘은 자작나무 희 숲 아래로
유우에스 아미 용산 메인 포스트의
번쩍이는 선명한 금빛 마크, 햇빛 아래
굳게 닫힌 푸른색 문
그렇다 친구여, 오늘의 발자국은 소리가 없다
혈맹도, 미소짓는 흰 이빨의 굳은 악수도
저 낮은 퀀셋 그림자처럼
우리를 한번 삼키면 다시는 내놓으려 하지 않을 뿐
모습없이 소리없이 고요하기만 한
서남동북 수만 평 넓고 푸른 땅


Silence

If you cross Seoul's Panp'o Bridge you reach the spot:
a vast green field where choppers take off and land
from early morning, extending to the south west
from Samgakji to Sobinggo station
to the south east from Itaewon to Hannam-dong northwards
from Namyong-dong below Namsan as far as Huam-dong.
In old days this was the Choson Army's HQ, of course.
Now take a bus, go and look: across from
Suzie beauty parlor, Crown Golf-shop, Kim's Dry-cleaning,
you see barracks so quiet they seem to be holding their breath.
In the early 1900s simple farmers dressed in white
came to this spot waving hoes in threat,
shouted "Let go of my land!" and shed their blood.
The persimmon trees of old days, sweat-soaked pumpkin beds,
the sneakers that came rushing down the road of liberation,
are all rotting now inside the barbed wire fence
and today, below the grove of white birch trees, you see
the US Army Yongsan Main Post's clear golden emblem
in the sunlight, firmly closed green gates.
And friend, today's footsteps make no noise.
Alliances are sealed in blood, firm handshakes
with flashing white teeth, like the shadows of those squat huts.
If they succeed in making us theirs, they'll never let go again.
Devoid of shape, devoid of sound, simply silent there,
to north and south, east and west, that vast expanse of green.

-translation by Kim Young-Moo and Brother Anthony of Taizé

I don't like this translation. Of course, I can't tell you for certain whether I like the original poem in Korean, or not, since I can't read all of it. But I can tell you that I'm dubious about a lot of line breaks and added punctuation in the translation, and that I'm pretty sure there are some interesting pronoun issues going on (I vs. we) in the original that the translation doesn't even try to address. And I don't like how the translators tried to make the poem as "English" as possible, which doesn't make sense. I know the goal is to translate the poem into English, but I don't like how everything gets changed around to leave you completely devoid of any sense of how the poem sounded or was structured in Korean. Sometimes they go so far as to completely change verbs around in order to (presumably) change the wording into more common English phrasing.

It really annoys me. Korean uses verbs and pronouns and everything in a very different way than English does, and why do we have to ignore that when translating things? What is so scary about translating a poem's phrasing in a way that will sound strange (and interesting!) in English?

Anyway, all that aside, I'm obsessed with the final emotions of this poem, esp. the line "If they succeed in making us theirs, they'll never let go again," which is translated okay, as far as I can tell. I don't want to sound cliché, but: sometimes I forget how recent Korea's history of war and colonization is. And then things like this poem and the (Korean) army base on the mountain behind my school make me remember. Here is a simplification: in the early 1900s, Korea was struggling against Japan; in 1910, Japan took control of Korea and forced everyone to speak Japanese; in 1945, partly due to U.S. involvement in WWII, Korea ceased to be occupied by Japan and was instead occupied by Russia in the North and the U.S. in the South. And then the U.S. troops never left, as they are wont to do.

Some Koreans feel very amicably towards the U.S. They call WWII the Japanese War, and there's still a lot of "Hey, America did us a solid! Yay America!" sentiment. It surprised me when I first got here, but it makes a certain amount of sense. There's far more animosity towards Japan than there is towards the U.S., even though the U.S. is the current presence in South Korea.

But then there's this poem, and I just don't understand why everyone in Korea doesn't resent the continued presence of U.S. Army bases. And why won't the U.S. let go, why did we ever think we had the right to stay.