독재자
내 일기책은 두 권 -- 반항과 복종
열린 마음인 양 한 권은 사무실 책상 위에
숨통에 꾸려 감춘 다른 한 권에서는
도둑질 같은 땀이 귄다
반항과 복종이라는 두 명이
나는 어른이 되었네
이스트를 넣어 부풀린 삶 속에서
밀 덩어리를 반족하듯 -- 일기책
반항적 남성은 복종이 기쁨인 여성을 지배한다
흐르는 강물과 사계절은
지하실 남골당의 뚜껑 깨진 푸른 단지
두 갈래 습관의 혓바닥이 쓰네
노동의 참신한 내 하루
도둑질 같은 땀을 훔치며
도망치는 보상없는 내 하루
두 명의 나를 길러 끌고가는 나는
집단심리를 제대로 쓰는 재벌 아닌가?
어느새 나는 민중이라는, 내,
독재자가 되어 있다.
The Dictator
My diary is in two parts -- resistance and obedience.
One is an open heart on top of my office desk
and the other is shoved inside a throat,
a cold sweat gathers inside.
Now I'm a grown-up
with a yeast-bloated existence
as if working dough.
The diary of two things -- resistance and obedience.
A dominant male subdues a female
who finds happiness in obedience.
A flowing river and the four seasons
are a blue jar with a broken lid in a crypt.
The tongue of divided habit tastes bitter.
My new day of labor, a day of loss,
running away in a cold sweat.
I drag along the two of me I've raised.
Could I be the corporate class
proficient in manipulating group psychology?
Already I've become the populace,
the dictator of myself.
They fucked up the second stanza real bad, this time. This is a word for word translation:
resistance and obedience the two beings'
now I'm a grown-up
a yeast-bloated existence
as if working dough -- diary
I'm pretty sure that diary is meant to be read as a possession of the two beings. I have no idea what the clearest/best way to translate this is, but I don't like the way they switched around the word(s) following the hyphen in the English translation.
"Crypt" in the third stanza is also inaccurate; "underground room" or "basement" is more likely.
There are probably loads of things I don't understand about the original poem and how it was translated, but I like it, especially the line "I drag along the two of me I've raised." And I relate to the resistance/obedience conflict, I think.
The new secretary at my school found me in the subway on Friday, and we sat next to each other on the blue line going north for a while. She's a kind woman who has never been anything but sweet to me, and I didn't mind her company at all until she asked me what church I go to.
It's not so unusual here, the assumption that because I am American, I am also Christian. I am always carefully polite when I say I have no religion, far more polite than I would be in Michigan if someone made the same assumption about me. Should I feel the need to be this polite? The people who ask me these things have, after all, made a somewhat racist assumption about me, somewhere along the lines of: "she's white! she speaks English! she must believe in God!"
But Christian missionaries from the U.S. are a strong presence in Korea, and may have been an even stronger presence in the past. Maybe the association of American<-->Christian is not so unreasonable.
I feel as though the religious pressure on me is increasing these days. It wasn't so long ago that Park Mi-Ran wanted to introduce me to a famous singer who attends her church, wanted me to come to church with her. She knows I'm not a Christian, and I told her that I would probably feel uncomfortable going to her church because of this. She accepted my feelings, and told me to think about it. She told me that I am young, and I don't know what may happen to me or what I may believe in in the future.
Park Mi-Ran is a reasonable woman; she's not going to put undue pressure on me to do something she knows I am uncomfortable with. She's essentially just left the door open for me; she's not going to pressure me, but if I wanted to, she would be happy for me to bring the subject up again.
I won't bring the subject up again, but neither am I angry over this interaction with Mi-Ran. It's true that I don't know what will happen in my future. Having been a Christian as a child and having long since decided that God is not something I believe in, I doubt that Christianity is in my future - but I won't deny that it is a possibility. Mi-Ran was not disrespectful of me, I was not disrespectful of her, and we are going together to eat (Korean-version?) Argentinian food and watch a tango show this Tuesday.
My reaction to the kind-hearted and well-meaning secretary lady was just as polite, but I seethed for hours afterwards, maybe I'm still seething. After I told her I had no religion she proceeded to tell me that she wants me to believe in God, and that she thinks in 10 years I will be a Christian. I was never so happy to get off the subway.
It's acceptable for elders to interfere in the lives of younger people in Korea, I keep telling myself. It's acceptable for them to give un-asked for advice in all kinds of situations. I am a young person; she is my elder. It doesn't mean I have to follow her advice, but it does mean I should accept her input without anger.
But it makes me so angry. I have been working hard this whole time to accept the people who are in my life in Seoul, and to understand where they are coming from without judgment. It makes me (unjustly, I know) angry that they do not always return me the same favor.
Anyway, resistance vs. obedience. Most of the time I contain my resisting impulses and choose obedience - and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
**update: in retrospect, "rebellion" seems to be a more accurate translation of "반항" than "resistance".
