My Modern Career

Author: Zheng Zhouyong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-06-01
Features: I was born on November 25, 1915, five years after the Treaty of Japan-Korea Annexation was announced. At that time, the Japanese imperialists ordered that every private school must sing the Japanese national anthem. At that time, our country had established numerous Guangfu Secret Death Squads. The Hamgyeong Line was launched, the Kyongwon Line was opened, and the Busan Port, Jeonnam Port, Dugeo Port, and Yunsan Port were all completed. Japanese rubber shoes also appeared in the Korean market. Four years later, the March First Independence Movement broke out. Before primary school, I studied at my grandfather's academy, starting with the Thousand-Character Classic, followed by Tongmong Sin, Xiaoxue, Daxue, Mencius, The Analects, and other poems such as untitled poems, linked poems, and Tang poems, totaling three years of study. In front of the person who was both my grandfather and my teacher, I was able to recite every word without missing a single one, not because I was interested in learning these, nor because I had understood their content, but because if I couldn't recite them perfectly, my grandfather would whip my legs with a broomstick. Before I could fully understand the meaning of the classical Chinese I learned in the academy, I started primary school when I was ten years old. Primary school was too easy for me. I jumped directly from the first grade to the third grade. However, because my calligraphy and singing grades were poor, my ranking remained second until I graduated from primary school. I am a quick-tempered person, so much so that I often wore my shoes on the wrong feet, and I was often criticized for it. Writing calligraphy requires patience, but with my quick temper, I was definitely not good at it. I was naturally a tone-deaf person, so my music class grades were also the worst. The classmates who were always top-ranked later became a prison guard. As soon as I entered primary school, my father began training me to be a "first-class farmer" and to take over his job. During holidays and weekends, I spent my days and nights learning to do farm work by his side. Even after school, I had no free time. Other parents were quite lenient with their young children, but my father was very strict, even making me harvest buckwheat the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, giving me no free time at all. Helping my father with some farm work while attending school wasn't considered real work. After graduating from primary school, my father formally began training me to be a real farmer. I once dreamed of entering a higher school to become a teacher. However, this dream also became a due to circumstances. I was doing heavy farm work, and whenever I had a moment, I would think: Farmers work hard all their lives, bending over from exhaustion, and still can't afford a full meal. Would my life also be like my father's, spent in hardship and toil? Whenever I thought about this, my heart would grow frustrated, and I would feel lost about the future. Staying in the countryside like this would also lead to a life like my father's—farm work, where the rewards were far too little compared to the hard labor. I wanted to leave my hometown and try something other than farming. Although this was a vague idea, I thought that no matter what I did, as long as I put in the effort equal to farming, the rewards would surely be much greater than farming. In any case, I wanted to go to the city and give it a try. At that time, there was another reason that pushed me to leave my hometown: the Dong-A Ilbo, the only newspaper in the entire village, which was subscribed to by the district chief's family. This newspaper often appeared in