Dictee

This section begins with an uncaptioned photograph of a woman. The narrator then addresses her mother directly and describes her life story. Her mother was an exile who moved to China from Korea due to the Japanese occupation. She was a child, only 18, when she left home because she did not want to witness the suffering in Korea any more. Even though she has left, however, the past is still her present and “it burns” (45). She is not allowed to speak Korean in China, as it is illegal to do so; however, she does so in secret because her mother tongue feels like home to her. She waits patiently until she is able to retrieve a sense of belonging: She says that in her “MAH-UHM,” or her “spirit-heart” (46), she feels certain that one day she will feel able to sing the song of her mother tongue.

Her parents (the speaker’s grandparents) regret dying before Korea become independent again. Her job as a teacher in a small village in China began in 1940. She is the first woman teacher to come to the village in six years. Due to Japan’s occupation of China, Japanese was also the official language in China.