“Comfort Woman” by Tanya Ko-Hong
On August 14, 1991, in Seoul, a woman named Hak Soon Kim came forward to denounce the Japanese for the sexual enslavement of more than 200,000 women during WWII. They were referred to as “Wianbu” in Korean and “Comfort Women” in English.
1939, Chinju, South Kyangsan Province
Holding tiny hands
fingertips
balsam flower red
colored by summer’s end
ripening persimmons
bending over the Choga roofs
fade into distance
When the truck crosses the last hill
our hometown is the dust
Soonja kicks off her white shoes
1941, That Autumn
that night, Japanese
soldiers wielded swords
dragged me away
while I was gathering
Pine needles
fell from my basket
filled the air with the scent
of white blood.
When you scream in your dream
there’s no sound.
Grandma made Song Pyunon. The maru,
asked mom, Is the water boiling?
I feel pain
there—
They put a long stick between my legs—
Open up, open, Baka Chosengjing!
they rage, spraying
their sperm
the smell of
burning dog
burning life
panting
grunting on top of me—
Under my blood I am dying
1943, Shanghai, China
One night
a soldier asked all the girls
Who can do one hundred men?
I raised my hand—
Soonja did not.
The soldiers put her in boiling water
alive and
fed us.
1946, Chinju Again
One year after
liberation
I came home
Short hair
not wearing Han Bok
talk without tongue
Mother hid me in the back room
At night Mother took me behind the house
and washed me
Hot steel scars like burnt bark
like roots of old trees
under the crescent glow
She always smiled when she washed me
Your skin is white jade
She bit her lower lip
washing my tummy softly like a baby’s
but they ripped opened my womb
with the baby inside
Mother made white rice and seaweed soup
put my favorite white fish on top
—but, I can’t eat flesh.
Mother hanged herself in the granary that night
left a little bag in my room
my dowry with a rice ball.
Father threw it at me
waved his hand toward the door
I left at dusk
30 years
40 years
forever
mute
bury it with me
They called me, wianbu—
I had a name
1991, 3:00 AM
[That night
the thousand blue stars
became white butterflies
ripped rice paper
flew into my room
Endless white
the web in my mouth,
unhealed red scars,
stitching one by one—
butterflies lifting me
heavier than the dead
butterflies opening my bedroom door
heavier than shame]
At
dawn,
I stand
____________________
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Tanya Ko Hong’s artist statement: My art is a border, a threshold between English and Korean, voice and voiceless, secrets and truth, dark and light. I came from South Korea, where as a woman I was taught to be submissive, silent. Poetry was forbidden, but absolutely essential. Living in Los Angeles, I’ve learned what it means to use my voice. My work engages creatively and critically with the role of women and diaspora. My works says, I am here and won’t be silent. My warm hands melt the walls of marginalization. I stand at the shoreline, collect the shells of our untold stories. I am here to bring our sisters to the lighthouse. We will support and create our art in freedom.–Tanya Ko Hong (고현혜)
