2 November 1932
The winter following Japan's invasion of Manchuria was a difficult one. Biting winds sheared through the small boarding house, and the women stuffed cotton in between the fabric layers of their garments. This thing called the Depression was found everywhere in the world, the lodgers said frequently during meals, repeating what they'd overheard from the men at the market who could read newspapers. Poor Americans were as hungry as the poor Russians and the poor Chinese. In the name of the Emperor, even ordinary Japanese went without. No doubt, the canny and hardy survived that winter, but the shameful reports-of children going to bed and not waking up, girls selling their innocence for a bowl of wheat noodles, and the elderly stealing away quietly to die so the young could eat-were for too plentiful.
That said, the boarders expected their meals regularly, and an old house needed repairs. The rent had to be paid each month to the landlord's agent, who was persistent. In time, Yangjin had learned how to handle money, deal with her suppliers, and say no to terms she did not want. She hired two orphaned sisters and became an employer. She was a thirty-seven-year-old widow who ran a boardinghouse and no longer the shoeless teenager who'd arrived on its doorstep clutching a set of clean undergarments wrapped in a square bit of fabric.
Yangjin had to take care of Sunja and earn money; they were fortunate to this business even though they didn't own the house.
On the first of every month, each lodger paid twenty-three yen for room and board, and increasingly, this was not enough to buy grain at the market or coal for heat. 매달 1 일에 각 거주자는 하숙비로 23 엔을 지불했으며, 그리고 점차로 시장에서 곡물을 사거나 석탄을 사기에 충분하지 않았습니다.