[ESSAY COMP] Princess Bari by Hwang Sok Yong (Theme: Quest/Journey)

N.B. I wrote this essay for a Korean literature competition held by the KCCUK this year. Unfortunately, I didn't get a place in the top three, but I hope you enjoy my piece on Hwang Sok Yong's book 'Princess Bari'!
Image banner credit goes to Lore, it originally comes from her review of the book.

=WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! =

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The theme of a quest/journey can be applied in many ways to the book ‘Princess Bari’ by Hwang Sok-yong. Bari’s namesake, Princess Bari, undertakes a long and arduous journey in  the Korean folktale which serves as the undercurrent for the physical, spiritual and personal journeys Bari herself embarks upon in her life. Each of these areas will be explored in this piece.

The physical journey

            In the folktale, Princess Bari travels to the far west in order find the life-giving water she needed to help her father. During this long journey, the princess endures terrible hardships for many years. This is mirrored in Bari’s own journey from North Korea, to China and finally to London.

Throughout the physical journey, Bari’s family is ripped apart by North Korean officials, her mother and a few of her sisters are sent away and forced to work, one runs to China and another is sold into slavery. Bari, her grandmother, father, two sisters and dog Chilsung flee across the Tumen River to China. After some time spent with a kind farmer family, they are forced to move into a pitiful, makeshift campsite in some nearby woods. As time passes, Bari slowly loses the rest of her family through death or simply not returning when going out - aiming to find a better life for them all. Bari begins to trek back into North Korea with Chilsung to try and find any family she has left, but after a close call during a forest inferno and subsequent death of Chilsung, she abandons hope of finding her loved ones there and begins to travel back and further into China with the help of the farmer family and an old friend of the family that occupies an important position within the Chinese government.

            Bari begins to work as a masseuse, and spends a few years working and living with a friend she had made at the massage parlour called Xiang and her husband Zhou. The peaceful time is short-lived though, as trouble with dangerous loan sharks forces the three of them to flee the country. Xiang and Bari are the only two able to be smuggled onto a cargo ship in the dead of night. The stowaway immigrants are subjected to horrendous treatment at the hands of the smugglers (referred to as ‘snakeheads’). The illegal passengers are frequently abused and forced to endure it all in cramped conditions until they get to England, with many dying on the way, simply tossed overboard by the snakeheads that wish to cover their tracks.

            After escaping to London, England, Bari attempts to make a life for herself while working extremely hard as an illegal immigrant trying to pay off her colossal smuggling debt. Thanks to some good fortune and the kindness of work colleagues and flatmates, she is finally able to settle into this foreign land. However, this physical journey is only one part of the story.

The spiritual journey

            Just as with Princess Bari in the folktale, Bari is born with special spiritual abilities, as does her grandmother. She is able to communicate with some others through telepathy, communicate with the spirits and even later travel through the spirit world. While she is young, her capabilities are shaky and difficult for her to control. She is able to communicate her deaf sister’s thoughts to the rest of the family and communicate with the family dog, but her visions of the spirit world are difficult for her to grasp and make sense of. As she grows up, her shaman abilities become more solidified and, by the time she has reached adulthood, she is even able to control her entrance and movement into the spirit world.

            After her grandmother and dog Chilsung pass away, Bari is able to visit them for brief periods. As she is smuggled onto the cargo ship, she is informed that they will be her guides throughout the tough times ahead. Bari’s grandmother informs her that her task from now is to do as Princess Bari had done in the story and endure much hardship as she travels to the west. Every night, she visits her grandmother and Chilsung as a way of escaping terrible events on the cargo ship. She slowly learns more about how to navigate through the spirit world with some help from her familial guides. This journey continues for many years, often as Bari sleeps, and her grandmother offers her advice in what paths she must take in her physical life as well as her spiritual one. Bari grows increasingly confident in her navigation of the spirit world, though she often still feels perplexed and frustrated by the way things work there, often pining for the embrace of her grandmother and dog which she cannot fulfill whilst living.

            Years pass, and Bari is still going through many hardships in her physical life quite a while after arriving to London. Her husband and brother in law become lost in Pakistan during the volatile aftermath of 9/11. She also loses her baby through a terrible accident for which she blames former friend Xiang. As she descends into the depths of depression, her quest in the spirit world picks up the pace. It is time that she finishes what she started years before.

            Bari takes a journey on a ship in the spirit world accompanied by her guide Chilsung. On their way, she is confronted by many of the spirits of the people she has encountered in the life – her mother, some of her sisters, North Korean officials, her brother in law and his fallen comrades and all of the people that have done her wrong in the past. All of them ask her what all their suffering was for, or what the meaning of their deaths is. She cannot give them an answer, struggling to even look many of them in the eye, but promises to answer them when she returns.

            After trekking to a massive castle on foot, she completes many tasks and is confronted with the King of Hell – a giant, armoured being. After she defeats him however, she comes face to face with his true and much frailer form. She begins to channel many of the answers to the previous questions through her own body and voice, which she offers to the spirits on her return. Many of which tell of forgiveness and to let go anger and desire.

“They say we’re here because of desire. In our desire to live better
than others, we are cruel to each other. That’s why the god who rides that boat
with you says he has also suffered. By forgiving them, you help him.”
(p. 232).

Bari is also confronted with a vision of her most-hated Xiang, but then realises that she is channelling the spirit of her deceased child as she says:

“Mama is the one who’s bound. When she is free of her hatred, you
too will be free…Poor Mama…Poor Mama…”
(p. 236).

It becomes clear to Bari that her beloved baby daughter has been with her all this time, and that it is also Bari’s duty to let go of her hatred and to forgive those around her. Whilst Princess Bari brought back the life-giving water to save others, we see this Bari learn and bring with her this most simple of sentiments – the importance of forgiveness.

            As if to add even more weight to this lesson, during her travels through the spirit world, Bari watches the leaders of many different religions talking and climbing all over each other as they all fight to be heard. She acknowledges the futility of this battling among religions and poignantly suggests:

“Either take turns and let each other talk, or work together
and speak for each other. Or maybe just don’t say anything at all.”
(p. 232).

The personal journey

            Perhaps most extreme of all the journeys that our protagonist takes is her personal one. She is forced to grow up very quickly, after enjoying a very brief childhood which in itself was full of rejection and lack of food. She is lives an incredibly closed off life in the poverty-stricken North Korea until she is left alone and forced to flee to China for work. She sexually assaulted subjected to terrible and degrading conditions and forced to work hard for next to no pay. Throughout her journey though, she is also exposed to people from many different ethnicities and walks of life, whom she learns about and forms friendships with. She even marries into a Pakistani family under the guidance of her grandmother’s spirit. Through her work and shamanistic abilities, she is able to help a wealthy British woman through her own hardships and assist her in accepting her past.

            As times get harder for her, Bari moves forward for the honour of her family and for herself. Even when enduring the hardest of times, Bari is pushed forth and told to carry on for her family’s sake:

“”See,” the farmer’s mother said, “you have to carry on for your family’s
sake. Someone has to survive to tell the story.”
(p. 86).

This teaches Bari that she must live on even if she finds it nearly impossible to do. Even after losing her child, spiralling into depression, and questioning all meaning of life itself, she realises that she must carry on and move forward, if not for herself, then for her loved ones.

            Bari’s increasing strength in the spiritual world also helps her complete her destiny, similar to her namesake’s. She learns even more about humanity and about life and death. It opens her mind to perhaps more than she could have ever imagined after her humble beginnings in the isolated North Korea. She learns that, after all the cruelty and unfortunate circumstances she has been subjected to, the only way to live on is to forgive. She learns to forgive those that she hates the most and those who have exhibited real cruelty towards herself and her loved ones. She sees that cruelty is not the answer no matter what has been done to you.

Conclusions

            The first words that come to mind when thinking of Bari’s multi-faceted journey might be ones like: “endurance” and “resilience” – she is certainly a tough and strong character. However, these are only a part of what can be taken from Bari’s experiences. Bari’s journey reminds us that every single one of us is a human being, living and battling through the difficulties of life. No matter what languages we speak or what country we are from, we all have this in common. One could also suggest that, regardless of the many religious beliefs that occupy this world, the simple ways of kindness and forgiveness could help us all live better lives and help us get along more cohesively. Most of all, it could be said that it teaches readers that, no matter what life throws at us, we all have the ability inside of us to deal with it as best we can.