「妻の道標（みちしるべ）」　～妻の故郷である旧満州地方の北朝鮮国境を訪ねる～

私の妻は、朝鮮族で北朝鮮との国境である吉林省龍井市開山屯の出身である。

今、家族は延吉市（延辺朝鮮族自治州州府）に住んでいる。

2015年5月初めて開山屯を訪問したときに、歴史が止まっている感覚があった。
妻、父親、叔父が勤務した繊維・パルプ会社が、倒産して時間が経過していて町は廃墟に、鉄道は廃線になっていた。
町も鉄道も会社も小学校も日本人が造った。
家族は日本人が作って日本人幹部がかって住んでいた元社宅に住んでいた。

延吉市中心街は、70年前に日本が統治していた面影を見ることは、全くもって出来なかったが、ここではその匂いを感じることができた。

2015年9月の再訪で、妻は荒れ果てた自宅を訪問した際に、学校当時の日記を発見した。
そこには母国語ではない中国語を使って、青春の叫びを書き込んでいた。

彼女はタイムスリップした感覚に襲われた。
僕はそのことに共鳴するように心がけながら、かの地を歩いた。

2015.12.16

 

Signposts to My Wife’s Past　
Visiting the Former Manchuria on the Border with North Korea

My wife is an ethnic Korean, born in the town of Kaishantun in the city of Longjin in Jilin Province right on the border with North Korea. Her family now calls the nearby city of Yanji (in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture) home.

On my first visit to Kaishantun in May 2015, I felt like time had come to a standstill. The fiber and pulp company that my wife, her father, and her uncle had all worked at went bankrupt long ago now and the town now lies in ruins, a disused railway line running to it. The railway, the company, the local school, the town itself – all built by Japanese during the period of colonial rule. Even my wife’s family home was formerly occupied by commissioned officers of the Japanese Imperial Army. In the center of Yanji, it was impossible to see vestiges of Japanese rule from some 70 years ago; in Kaishantun, it was very much evident.

When we visited again in the September of 2015, we went to her dilapidated former family home. There, she came across an old diary she had kept during her schooldays. The cries of youth written in Chinese – not her native tongue.

For an instant, she felt as though she were caught in a timeslip. I tried to sympathize with her past as I walked around the town…

2015 December 16,