The young woman came in March with a tablet. She asked the usual questions. When she came to "nationality", she paused and asked: "Is it Korean or Koryo-saram?" I said, "Write what you like, but we are not those Koreans." She wrote Koryo-saram. Behind her, my wife whispered "tell her about the rice", and I said "madam, this is a census, not a lecture".
The result, I read in the summer: about 1 percent of the population. Nobody believed it was so little; we are in all the bazaars, in all the offices, in all the schools. A neighbour told me, "you do the work of three percent." I said, "we eat the work of three percent."
I remember my father in 1979, at the old census of the Union: he refused to put "Korean". He said "put Soviet." My mother said, "put what they ask." They did not speak to each other for two days. In the end they put "Korean", and for the first time in my life I saw my father tear up a form.
No Comments
Comments are closed.