JOURNEY OF A YOUNG MAN

It was a predawn morning in September, 1951 - one year and three months into the Korean conflict.

In the western sky above the Quitar Arms Village in the Toishan district of Guangdong Province, China, there was complete darkness still, while in the eastern horizon, above the low-lying hills, there appeared a tinge of light orange color setting off streaks of gray and then becoming gradually dark toward the sky above.  No Winds.  It looked like it was going to be a fine day.

In these early morning hours the village, nestling at the foot of a hill covered with some bamboo groves and trees, still lay asleep.  The eerie silence was broken now and then by the occasional barking of a dog in some alley. Through a window of one of the houses came a glimpse of light. Mrs. Lee, with unkempt hair and in her pajamas, came into the room with a kerosene lamp in her hand.

h a kerosene lamp in her hand.

“Ah-Ken.  Ah-Ken,” She called, her voice low, almost a whisper, yet there was a sense of urgency.  She put the lamp on a table beside a bed in which a boy lay sleeping.  Lest she could be heard by the neighbors, she carefully closed the window shutters.

“Ah-Ken.  Ah-Ken.” She called again, standing against the bed pen.

The boy, who was sleeping soundly, turned slowly, yawned and rubbed his eyes, and got up suddenly as if remembering something exciting and important.  He embraced his mother by the waist.  “Ah-Mah.  I

don’t want to leave you.”

“I know.  Ken, my son, remember what I said yesterday?  We will meet again in America.  Come on.  Hurry.  Second Auntie will be here soon.  Or you will be late.” She gently stroke his hair and kissed him on the forehead.  “Go wash yourself and try your new clothes and shoes on.  See if they fit you.” The dim lights from the kerosene lamp flickered causing the long shadows to dance on the mosquito net.

“Now give me a big smile,” his mother said.

“Yes, Mah,” The boy said.

Ken was only two when his father left the family for overseas. He did not remember much about him, except from old pictures.  Many a times he wondered why his father had to leave home for so long.

“Mah,” He had asked his mother while she was tending the family potatoes lot that his grandfather had terraced out of a hill.  “Why did father have to leave us home?”

She dropped the hoe and sighed.  “He has to make money so that we have enough to eat and you can go to school.” Half satisfied with such an answer, Ken went back to play with his marbles in the shade

under the pine at one end of the lot.