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WITNESS UNBOWED
My mother was horrified. She said I couldn't go. She pleaded and begged. "You are the only one I have left. How do you expect that I can live if you also leave me? Besides, you are only fifteen and you have never been anywhere. Two years in a Japanese factory! It's unthinkable." Of course, she didn't know the true state of my father. It was bad enough to leave, but to persuade my mother was something else. Finally, resigned to the situation, my mother quietly packed clothes made of fine materials, occasionally stopping to wipe her tears and pointing to some as special items she had prepared for my wedding someday. I can't tell you how I felt when I followed the Japanese man, leaving my mother behind. Every step away from home was prompted by the image of my father, especially the bandaged hands and feet. His pain was mine; we were so close. Even if I was a girl, I was the only child. I was my father's baby. This stubborn man whose facade was stern as rock had unlimited love for me. Do you know what my name, Seo Woon, means? It means 'feel empty/sorry' [no English equivalent]. My parents were sorry that I wasn't a boy but I didn't care. You know why? My father loved me to death, I knew that. |
On a ship headed to Japan, there were many girls and women, some even bubbling with hope that they would earn lots of money for their poverty-stricken families. A Japanese woman introduced herself as the person responsible for taking us to a factory. I closed my eyes and blocked my fear, thinking only about my father who by then would be home under the tender care of my mother. Upon arrival in Japan, we were made to wait for a few days. Finally, one day, my number was called out. They didn't bother to use our names; we were numbers. I thought we were going to a factory but again they ordered us to get on a huge ship. I still thought we were traveling within Japan. When the ship pulled in some place, I didn't know then but later learned that it was Taiwan. After leaving some girls there, we moved on to Bangkok, Saigon, Singapore, and Jakarta, at each place leaving girls. When we arrived in Bangkok, I felt a strange sensation, knowing that we were not going to a factory in Japan. You understand all these names became clear to me much later. At the time, I didn't know what was happening. I was a prisoner on a ship that kept going. By then, I was devoid of any sense of time--time just felt endless. PAGE 5
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