Xia of Tumen

Chapter 5

Soon Xia and Chung-Ae were not getting much food either. Xia couldn't bring lunch to school. But she was worried for Dasom and all her other friends. They had even less food than her, and she couldn't even share lunch with them anymore! Xia still knew that if she went to college they would put high priority on her food, but... then she would be getting food, while none of her friends would.

Xia was having "lunch" break, though you could hardly call it that since no one had lunch anymore, when a teacher rang the bell. It wasn't time for the next class yet, but Xia came in anyway. She was curious why they were ringing the bell.

One of the teachers was talking: "Everyone gets to go home from school early," Everyone cheered so you couldn't hear the teacher. She quieted the class. "The reason is because there is going to be an important lunchtime announcement on the news."

All the children were already beginning to flood through the door. Xia and Dasom rushed home. Since Dasom didn't have a TV to watch the news, Xia invited her over to watch the news. They rushed in and turned on the TV. It flickered to life slowly. Chung-Ae wasn't home from work yet. He would probably watch it from there.

Xia was trying to make sense of what they were trying to say on the news. Finally she understood. The great leader, the shepherd of the people, Kim-Il-Sung... was dead. Xia couldn't take it in. He provided their food, their clothes, everything. How would they survive? Tears were streaming down her face. Xia looked over at Dasom. She had the same reaction.

"What will we do?" Xia asked the ceiling.

"We can't do anything!" Dasom said.

The news kept babbling about Kim-ll- sung's death and all the mourners. It talked about Kim-Jong-Il being the new ruler.

"Kim-Il-Sung is not supposed to die!" Xia said, "If he can die, anything can happen!"

A few minutes later Chung-Ae stumbled into the house bruised and bloodied. Xia rushed down the stairs when she heard him come in.

"You're early!" Xia said, then she saw him, "What happened?!"

Xia and Dasom rushed up to him, afraid he would fall over and helped him up the stairs to his bed. He didn't seem to have the strength to answer. Xia got a bucket of cold water and a cloth, and started cleaning all the scrapes and cuts.

"What happened?" Xia asked again after cleaning his wounds.

Chung-Ae opened up his eyes again. "Kim-Il-sung died, and then they didn't like what I said. The soldiers came and beat me up and sent me home. They told me I can't come back to work."

"What did you say? Why can't you go back to work?" Xia asked, "If you don't have a job, we won't have any food either!"

Xia and Dasom looked up at each other. This was going to be a big problem. Xia and Chung-Ae were probably just moved to the lowest class; "Hostile". Xia couldn't get to college unless she was in the upper class, and they wouldn't get any food without a job.

Xia couldn't think of anything to do but cry. Dasom tried to comfort her. It didn't help much. But Xia was glad to have a friend nearby.

"Do you want me to stay for the night?" Dasom asked.

Xia just nodded. Then she stood up and stopped her tears. "We can have Kimchi for supper. We have a little leftover. I probably don't have a job either, So tomorrow, I will find somewhere to work."

Dasom didn't want to say it, but she knew finding a job in North Korea right now would be hard.. very hard. Even if she were not a Hostile, no one had enough money to hire anybody. Some people had money coming from Japanese and Chinese relatives, but not enough to hire people, and they didn't want anyone to know they had it!

Dasom was nearly certain that Xia would have to start her own business, or do the forbidden, find a job outside of North Korea. Xia would soon know how hard it was to find a job.

BUt they didn't worry about it that night. They took care of Chung-Ae. They didn't have the money to take him to a doctor, so they just hoped he didn't have any broken bones. They turned on their TV and watched some of the Korean movies. When they got bored of that, they pulled out some Russian books. Russian books were hard to get but it wasn't impossible. But tomorrow, Xia would face the impossible, getting a job.