The Righteous Perish

Part 3

The Shuteye Village sits in the belly of the Korean Peninsula. What people know is that it is eccentric, easily identified by the sloping shark-tooth-shaped Music Mountain. Even its neighboring villages neglect it, so strange, so confused by civilization. After years of intensive investigation, I have excavated the untainted truth. Centuries before the collapse, an assorted array of anthropologists were challenged to create a backwards village as border patrol over the decaying DMZ. On the border, the Shuteye Village was built- a village whose name meant nothing. Though time tarnished its traditions, intrigue infects all regarding its off-color illusion.

As previously stated, it was the result of a challenge among colleagues. Tasked with crafting a strange, secluded, and savage society, it was a creative way to prevent people from crossing Koreas. It became a threat of sorts, as real and repulsive as a dragon's den. Many ignored the warnings, and wound up wide-eyed, wild with fear regarding the peculiar practices of the Shuteye Village.

These bizarre beliefs were borrowed from prehistoric cultures, shards of conquered civilizations, morphed into a megalomaniac mosaic. These included, but were not limited to: Moche,Inca,Nazca, Chinchorro, Aztecs (or Mexica), Inca, Maya. Minds were martyred, as volunteer villagers portrayed peasants and stuffy Shaman, servants and artisans, vendors and village officials. Souls were martyred, as many were sacrificed, eyes secured shut by several spools-worth of stitches.

Cruelty conquered this composite culture. Centuries coursed, and descendants of the aforesaid volunteers were deafblind to any mention of an "artificial culture". With authentically odd border-villagers, there is no chance of unifying Korea. They are but scarecrows in this phantom field.

Unfortunately the two occupants of this peninsula prefer isolation. This mirage has made for a marvelous mousetrap- no Korean has stepped foot there. It repulses rebels and revolutionaries, whose lives would've been immortalized, glorified. It's reunification repellant. If anything, it encourages ignorance. Yet my colleagues couldn't call it that.

This matriarchal, emotion-eschewing, blood-bathed, illiterate, and nymphomanaic village isn't a cult. To call it such would be inaccurate, as the world outside must be acknowledged to be avoided. Sanity's seams strained, sumptuous societies and sight-soaking screens beyond them. Anything written by them was blissfully burnt- we've set our souls aside for the sake of separate Koreas.

Enclosed are recollections from a certain villager, who learned literacy quite late. Her name was Song Kisook. Miss Song was the daughter of the Pyongyang diplomat Song Hyun-Jin and an uneducated Mongolian woman- a Shaman. Although her father was sophisticated and culture-savvy, some speculate that a beautiful woman seduced him into village life. A notorious philanderer, Mr. Song had ten daughters by ten different women. His career sent him across Asia, so he'd a half-Cambodian, a half-Filipino, a half-Vietnamese, a half-Hui...a half-Mongolian. He died of a heart-attack in Pyongyang, aged seventy-two. When I told Miss Song, she smiled and said nothing. She was quiet when she was young, but a little louder now that she is old, and she's always been "hard to read". I wasn't sure what to make of this, but her father had earned the privilege of her silence.

Enforced isolation is injurious. Yet our elders insist: knowledge is illness, ignorance is medicine.

-Dr. Cho Byung-Hee, Ph.D

Head of Anthropology Department, Daejeon University

Incheon, South Korea

When I was a girl, Kisook said, I was so lonely, I whistled at night. I know what you're thinking-- that attracts ghosts! But ghosts were my only friends. And since I only had my father, they were my mother, too. If only I could feel that warmth again....!