"-- stories that began, 'Once on a time'"

I think it’s fair to say that a lot of what goes on in Nora Ojka Keller’s “Beccah (from Comfort Woman)” is hard to fully comprehend. True, it’s not difficult to get the gist of things: Beccah has a complicated relationship with her mother, Akiko; Akiko has a complicated history with Beccah’s father; and spirits of the dead have a complicated interaction with Akiko. These are some pretty heavy elements for only 9 pages of story. That in mind, I think a good strategy is to pick out a few details and squeeze every last drop of meaning out of them, so to better understand the rest of what’s going on. My choices are from the end of page 195 and the beginning of page 196 when Beccah says: “Then the spirits – Saja the Death Messenger and Induk the Birth Grandmother – descended upon her, fighting over her loyalty and consciousness” (Keller, 195-196). It seems logical to me that if these two spirits are the driving force behind her mother’s actions, through researching them we might be able to better understand just what the hell is going on with her. 


Click on the "Read More" link below to see how these two size up!

“Saja the Death Messenger”

Saja the Death Messenger is a pretty elusive guy. I mean, aside from existing in a space between the living and the dead, he is also pretty good at hiding from Google. Bear me with me as some of my research sources aren’t the strongest, but I think they are good enough to help us piece together what kind of spirit Saja would be.

Chongho Kim wrote a book titled, Korean Shamanism: the Cultural Paradox that thoroughly explains the spiritual goings-on in Korea. I totally read the whole thing just for this blog post (no, I didn’t) and upon flipping to page 143, I found the passage, “Even while he was sleeping, he would sometimes shout, because of nightmares in which, he claimed, he was being hauled by ‘death messengers’ (jeoseung saja)” (Kim, 143). Ah, ha! Just like with Rumpelstiltskin, we figured out Saja’s full name “Jeoseung Saja” – and it only took us one guess. With this newly acquired knowledge, Google might be a little more forthcoming with its information.

“Jeoseung” (That World/Death) “Saja” (Messenger?) But what does a Death Messenger do? A totally reliable site that is definitely not Wikipedia lists “Juhseung Saja” under Korean Mythology. It says that these Death Messengers “reap souls and guide them through the dark misty forests into the netherworld. There is no heaven or hell, just a place where the dead go.” I think this is helpful for characterizing Beccah’s father, to a degree. We can’t assume he was an evil man condemned to Hell, nor a holy man floating up to Heaven. He, like many other characters, is in a complicated area of in-between.

What are the Jeoseung Saja like? TVTropes, of all places, makes a very interesting connection between how they’ve been portrayed in manwha (Korean comics) and how they are described in “Beccah.” In an article detailing all different kinds of “death messengers,” they write of Jeoseung Saja: “They tend to be much creepier than their Japanese counterparts […] They’re traditionally displayed as corrupt government agents, who threaten to abuse the departed soul in their custody unless bribed with offerings.” This puts an entirely different spin on Beccah’s repeated “sacrifices” (Keller, 194) throughout the excerpt. Arguably ineffective, she says, “no matter how many piles of rice I left for the gods, no matter how many times I prayed, there came the time when […] the spirits claimed my mother.” (Keller, 194). These spirits are heavily described as forces that deter the well-being of her household. Her offerings aren’t made out of respect, but as a plea for independence – an exchange for peace.

VERDICT: Saja the Death Messenger is kind of a jerk. Aside from being an evil spirit who holds the dead hostage, he shows some capability of possessing the living via Akiko -- and he won't back off no matter how much rice Beccah offers. 

"Induk the Birth Grandmother"

The initial Google search of "Induk" brings up pages and pages of Korean schools, taekwando centers and charity organizations -- so she's already better received than Saja. Further searching brings up a whole lot of Nora Okja Keller's book, and not much else. In fact, it seems as though Induk's origins are entirely within the novel and beyond that, it is just a Korean name. This is not to say that there was nothing to find -- here's a paragraph from a FreeLibrary essay written by Sung-Ae Lee titled: "Re-visioning Gendered Folktales in Novels by Mia Yun and Nora Okja Keller"

"From her first narrated section, Soon Hyo represents her life as a story of repeated deaths and rebirths [...] These are metaphoric deaths ... being sold at twelve; being generically and numerically renamed "Akiko 41" (when forced to replace her murdered predecessor, Akiko 40), raped and then given a crude abortion at fourteen; being taken as a wife by the missionary shortly afterwards. [...] Soon Hyo becomes "Akiko 41," taking the place of Induk ("Akiko 40") who had asserted her own subjectivity and found agency in bringing about her own death by shouting assertions of self and nation at her Japanese abusers: 'I am Korea, I am a woman, I am alive. I am seventeen, I had a family just like you do, I am a daughter. I am a sister' (KELLER 1997a, 20)."

Ah, ha! Akiko's real name is Soon Hyo! ...But somehow, this time, finding out a real name is less fun. Jeez. So Induk isn't necessarily a god, but just another human girl that Akiko knew. Man, with all of that on your track record, it's hard to blame Akiko for being a little eccentric in "Beccah." Does this take away from some of the mysticism? Does this add to Beccah's repeated claims of her "crazy" mother? 


VERDICT: Saja still sucks.