Dano Leaves the Job

26
Dano Kicked off the Job, 1981


Thanks to Tschai's superhuman efforts to tighten belts and to save what little money the pair had earned, and thanks to her financial somersaults of some sort, the Dano couple bought a house from a previous owner, called it their own, such as it was, registered it with a real estate registration office of a local jurisdiction, and proudly hung Dano's name plate on the entrance of the gate. Time was over at last that they had been rudely warned by a landlord to move out.

Toung Doung had his two feet stuck in his land, such as it had been. He had always set up a strong footing on what meager land he had taken, tilling, shoveling and picking up rocks for removal. The Toung Doung and Boolim pair, returning bare handed from Daejon, planted apple trees on a new clearing land of his own which had previously been flooded.

Toung Doung did not take to task his son Dano's brash inclination to part with the status quo. He harbored a deep-rooted distaste for his son's recklessness which would amount to irresponsibility. He wondered aloud why his son would not settle as a household owner with wife and children. Why he tried to run from what would appear stable. He did not trust his son but he put an unconditional trust on his daughter- in- law. Even when he saw the son couple off headed for Seoul, Toung Doung said, "I leave my son with you, my dear daughter. I can rest assured because of you."

------------------

Dano left the Korea News Daily on a winter day of the year 1981. In Korean corporate terms, he was "fired on recommendation." He was kicked off a decent job, after all. Dano realized to his bone deep that he had made a great mistake of ditching his hard- earned job in a sewer. He was crazy. He got regret and sorrow seeped in his bone-marrow in the bleary street, left alone, with no one to look after him, with wife and children scared to death about their future.

He had to be patient. He didn't have any reason not to. Was he possessed? Possibly. Was he insane? Probably. Why did he get to his feet and dare yell to his bona fide Managing Editor Mr. Yoon of all the people? He was only being kind and generous to Dano and his colleague proof readers. He deigned to step down to the proofreading desk and merely suggested that Dano and someone else go and meet a returning desk member from a foreign travel at Kimpo International Airport.

A "free" foreign travel which had been provided by the Chun Doo Hwan military regime. Why did Dano have to confront his superior? why did he put an affront on the editor and defy him? On what grounds did he think it was improper for a media guy to welcome his colleague member returning from a pleasure trip at an airport?

Couldn't he do it out of sheer pack mentality? Or out of corporate colleagueship? Did he assert that he was the man of media protocol? It was totally insane. The managing editor swore at Dano? It was just because he had been provoked by Dano's lousy protests against practical considerations.

The managing editor made a gesture of attack on Dano with his fists? Nevertheless it couldn't be any reason for a corporate underling to confront his superior with bloodshot eyes. He had to race to the rest room, wash his face, blow his nose, take a deep breath and say cheese.

Things turned in odd ways: The very person, who had been in charge of the office room, was on his good-intentioned desk tour, when he was so much offended by a fresh underling who had been working for him, and in another unexpected turn of events, he exploded and got physical, to which the very person, who should have run for cover, took an impudent stand, and about which virtually the rest of the room got physical, too. Dano was the very culprit who had made a scene, a really disgusting scene.

Dano had been referred to the Disciplinary Committee of the Daily News which held Dano responsible for all that fiasco. Dano had filed a complaint with the disciplinary committee, but the committee hadn't had any organization which would hear and put a verdict on it. There had been no presiding judge, no witness stand, no questions sought and no answers provided. A few heads on the spot had been a mere sedentary lot with their mouths tight shut.

They hadn't seemed to notice the presence of the complainant. They hadn't even pretended to listen. Dano had made a statement nevertheless to the effect that it had been not right of him to confront the editor, but that any member of the press, who had been registered with the Ministry of Culture of the Korean Government as a reporter or something, should not have taken chonji, a kind of cash bribe or something. The verdict he had been notified from a secondhand was that he had been fired from then and there. Technically, he had been recommended to quit. He had decided not to sue the company nonetheless.

A convincing rumor had it that the press folks had periodically gotten their palms greased from the relevant news sources of the government agencies. Crux of the rumor was that the press people had comprised a press corps of which the head had made a practice to contact the source, take the chonji and divide it among the members. In case of the big source, that is, a central government agency, one spoils-dividing chance had amounted to 1,000 dollars per head.

Dano had questioned at that time the validity of an idea that the government had rightly endowed all the gamut of favors on the whole population of the press, with a huge tax money of the people. All the gamut of favors? They ranged from the reporters' seven days or so of free pleasure trips, low-interest-rate loans to the reporters and their dependents and financial assistance for foreign studies of the cadre desk members.

It's beautiful to stop a nuisance of a crying baby by feeding or releasing it. It's also right of you to console the bereaved who lost their loved ones. It'll be a good Samaritan act of you that you should hand a fresh cup of drinking water to a thirsty traveller. You're supposed to inquire after those who are sick in bed. But it is abominable, disgusting, and deplorable for a dictatorial government to bribe the whole population with specific professions, that is, the news medias of the nation, using a huge tax money of the people, by which the information would be warped and the public opinions distorted, Dano thought.

The Chun Doo Hwan government had done all that. The Chamber of Commerce of any country is built by the contribution of every CC members but the Korean media people had not chipped in to build their own Press Center, or the new designation of the Korea Press Foundation: The Chun Doo Hwan government had built them the facility of enormous profits from which the welfare benefits for the press folks had been financed. The dictatorial government had even built professional apartment complex for the sake of the reporters or the like at Gepo-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul and sold them at a bargain price. The corruption scheme was categorical.