JungHo glared at his host, sudden viciousness rising in his eyes. “My father was so honest he starved to death. By the time he died he hadn’t eaten anything in three days, except some warm water with soy sauce. That was our family’s ‘soup,’ Mr. Rich Man. How dare you lecture me about honesty and simplicity? You have no right.” Though JungHo knew he wouldn’t actually attack this well-spoken, kindly gentleman, he instinctively balled up his fists. Loach reached over and touched his sleeve, as if to calm him.
“I am sorry, Mr. JungHo,” MyungBo conceded gently, surprising the younger man. “It’s true, I have no right. You have done what you needed to do to survive. But if you were given the chance to live honestly and still thrive, wouldn’t you prefer that?
“I asked you about your wish in life. I will tell you mine,” he continued. “My first dream is our country’s independence. My second dream is that all our people will have enough to eat and prosper and live as human beings ought to. A fair and just society where no one is forsaken. And one dream is not possible without the other . . .”
MyungBo again closed his eyes; this was the revelation that had transformed and occupied him since being released from prison in the summer of 1921. He had taken the earliest ship out to Shanghai, the stronghold of expat activists from across political factions.
Though they had all risked their lives for the same cause, MyungBo quickly found that he distrusted many of his fellow activists. Before his time in prison, he’d reserved his scorn for those who were greedy for money or for prestige. （SungSoo had belonged to this camp, though in memory of their early friendship MyungBo didn’t think this, except in the most hidden corner of his mind.） In Shanghai, he was amazed to discover that for some people, an even stronger motivation was power. He also noticed that these activists spoke of Warren G. Harding as if he were some rich and beloved relation who might someday bequeath an outrageous inheritance—with unbecoming deference and eager expectation. A group of them went to Washington, D.C., to plead directly to the president, and asked MyungBo to come along; but he could never forget how the American consulate had promised help and delivered nothing. Instead, he joined a group of socialists and took the Trans-Siberian train to Moscow in order to beseech Russia.
Though he had spent the previous fifteen years traversing through foreign lands, MyungBo was not a born traveler. But like all those who have poetry in their hearts, he was mesmerized by the wild stretches of the Mongolian steppes, dotted with shaggy ponies grazing upon the frosted grass. The nameless purple and yellow flowers swayed in the windswept moors, raising their plain little faces up to the open sky, and nothing could have been more glorious. As the train snaked around the shores of Lake Baikal, its unfathomably ancient and azure waters lapping against the cliffs, and the mountains rose with the pink sunrise and bowed into darkness at evenfall, MyungBo pulled his eyes away from the window and even dozed with his head bobbing against the glass. Noticing his excitement, one of the socialists said to him, “Russia is truly a great country. It has more beauty than China, which is very grand, and more grandeur than Korea, which is very beautiful. If this landscape is any indication of their spirit, they’ll surely help us.”
Russia was, most of all, a vast country, and the train kept moving for ten days and ten nights. MyungBo, still very frail, hid from the others how often he couldn’t hold down food or felt faint with exhaustion. But in Moscow they were amply rewarded by a private meeting with Lenin, who warmly welcomed them and pledged a generous funding of six hundred thousand rubles.
At exactly the same time, the delegates to Washington met with a completely different sort of reception. Harding was then busy dividing Asia and the Pacific with the Japanese: the United States would colonize the Philippines, and in return let Japan take Mongolia from China and Siberia from Russia. Washington was not going to anger its new ally by encouraging some rebels demanding independence. The Korean delegates trudged back to Shanghai without even a courtesy meeting with a low-ranking official.
This was how MyungBo became convinced that Russia was the one solution to the two evils in his world. Korea would become independent with Russia’s help, and create a fair and prosperous society for all based on communism. That would eradicate both the Japanese colonial government and the avaricious landowning class, which were the two main causes of the suffering of the people. And as for America, some of its people were good and honorable. But for all the talk of world peace and justice, America was a greedy colonial power no better than Japan.