George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 82

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“Ah, I wanted to eat this.”

Lee Chun-shik chewed and swallowed the hefty hamburger. It was the taste of cheap capitalism, a stark contrast to what he knew from North Korea. Frankly, in terms of pure taste, North Korea’s version was superior. That was because North Korean hamburgers were handmade, essentially high-end products reserved for the privileged elite, making their superior quality inevitable.

Fast food, which prioritizes speed, and first-class cuisine crafted by a kidnapped chef were clearly different beasts. Regardless, Lee Chun-shik devoured it, trying to make up for lost time away from such simple pleasures.

‘I don’t know about anything else, but I really like this one thing.’

His bank account held a vast sum of money, more than he could possibly spend in his lifetime. It was a fitting reward for the years he had lost and a rightful compensation for the battles he had fought. Outwardly, he had to maintain the facade of a nouveau riche who had won a modest lottery, but who cared? It’s money. Money! In America, where capitalism reigned supreme, having money was akin to possessing the world.

“It tastes really good.”

Wilting lettuce and low-quality beef patties disappeared into his stomach. The artificial, stimulating sauce designed to mask these shortcomings also went down, but Lee Chun-shik’s body, accustomed to all sorts of bizarre foods, was grateful for even that much.

He was part of the State Security Department’s investigation team, a position he had only attained in 1998. Initially, his mission was simply to report on North Korea’s activities while posing as a civilian, but he couldn’t stomach it any longer, so he maneuvered to gain a small but significant amount of power.

Before joining the State Security Department, he had survived by eating ‘speed battle cakes’ [a type of quickly made, often poor-quality food] made from moldy corn and the meat of dead animals riddled with parasites and maggots. Even if he tried to buy food at the market, he was perpetually broke, and accepting outside support was too risky in such a tightly controlled environment; any sign of wealth would trigger an immediate investigation. He was left with no choice but to cultivate a garden.

But what good was a garden? The People’s Army bastards would come and strip it bare. They even took the furniture from his room, but they always left the farming tools, ensuring he could grow more for them next time.

“You damn bastards!”

Suddenly, he was overcome with emotion, and a curse word burst from his lips.

“Ahem.”

Although the housekeeper was the only other person in the house, it was still embarrassing.

“Heh heh, I’ll never go back again.”

In North Korean style, it was Ri Chun-shik. In Korean style, it was Lee Chun-shik. In American style, it was Chunshik Lee. He chose Chunshik Lee.

Before him, as he devoured synonyms of fast food like hamburgers, pizza, and cola, a plate bearing a massive tomahawk steak was placed on the table. Perhaps his monologue had reached shouting volume, prompting the startled housekeeper to interpret it as an urgent request.

“There’s no such meat in Korea or North Korea.”

With that, he tore into the freshly prepared tomahawk steak with gusto. Bringing the meat directly to his mouth was a habit ingrained by his time in North Korea, where one ate whenever the opportunity arose.

No one could truly understand the depths of his suffering. A CIA agent struggling to find a single drop of sesame oil to enrich his vegetable soup! It wasn’t the end of the century, but did it make sense for the CIA to be reduced to such straits?

‘So when I heard that I should pretend to be dead and lie low for half a year, I wondered what this was all about.’

Soon after, he was even more bewildered when instructed to amass military supplies using his accumulated wealth. Initially, he was so dumbfounded that he suspected they were trying to abandon him. But when assured that he would be rescued as soon as the task was completed, he desperately collected the supplies, walking a perilous tightrope between life and death.

In the end, didn’t the dynamite gathered by Lee Chun-shik and his network trigger a massive explosion in a corner of the Kim family’s residence? Lee Chun-shik found satisfaction in that alone. He would have preferred to march in and topple the Kim dynasty entirely, but that was too ambitious a leap, so he chuckled while sipping his beer.

‘Hmm, I thought it would be a big deal.’

The American newspapers, which he expected to be filled with the news, were surprisingly silent. Instead, most of the front pages were dominated by the upcoming 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and the daily life of the American president, George W. Bush.

It felt like reading the Rodong Sinmun [North Korea’s state newspaper] from North Korea.

“What is this? It’s not like this is North Korea. Are all newspapers like this originally?”

It was remarkable that Lee Chun-shik recognized the strangeness. Despite being born in South Korea and spending his youth in the United States, his senses hadn’t dulled after nearly a decade in the closed kingdom of North Korea, a testament to his exceptional perceptiveness.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. God bless America. America, fuck yeah!”

The liberating thoughts fueled by beer flowed down his throat, watering the parched communist garden within.

* * *

“Didn’t you already sweep everything away last January? Are you really saying that the quota for our village this month is 500kg? This quota is too harsh.”

China was becoming increasingly frantic. The donation movement had morphed into a gold quota movement, with quotas being imposed on cities and villages, forcing the people to scramble to meet them.

“There are still nouveau riches in your village who are not loyal to the Party! Does this village reject the Party and Chairman Hu Jintao?”

“No! How could that be!”

A young member of the Communist Youth League stood before the village chief, waving his hands frantically as if his arms might detach.

The village chief, a former Red Guard [a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1968, during the first phase of the Chinese Cultural Revolution], tended to avoid strange powers and gods. However, he had always placed his faith in physiognomy [the art of judging character from facial features]. In fact, he wasn’t even aware that physiognomy was considered a superstition. Regardless, he regarded the Communist Youth League member as the quintessential sycophant.

“But I know that these people are connected to the Communist Youth League….”

“They’re rotten! They’re trying to exploit the Communist Youth League, the future of the Party Central Committee and Chairman Hu Jintao, to protect their ill-gotten gains!”

The way he was using other people’s names to wield power was a classic example of influence peddling.

‘I don’t know what the problem is, but it looks like there’s trouble upstairs.’

The village chief could roughly deduce what was happening at higher levels based on his experiences as a Red Guard.

‘Those days were really good.’

He had been suppressed after Chairman Deng Xiaoping came to power, but in those days, unlike now, he could hold rallies as he pleased and form groups to protest against the government as he pleased. Even information media could be handled freely without censorship.

Of course, no government agency in the world would allow such freedom to a group that even Mao Zedong couldn’t fully control. But it was undeniable that it was a golden age for former Red Guards.

Anyway, the immediate task was to fulfill this damn gold quota, but it wasn’t insurmountable.

‘I have no choice. I have no choice but to use a clever trick to fill the quota.’

Never underestimate the elderly. Never dismiss the wisdom accumulated over years of experience.

The birthplace of all sorts of tricks and forgeries was China, and the masters of this deception were the old folks.

From the Great Leap Forward [an effort led by Mao Zedong to rapidly transform China into a socialist society through industrialization and collectivization] to the Cultural Revolution. From the indigenous blast furnaces to the campaign to eliminate the four pests [a campaign by the Chinese government to eliminate mosquitoes, flies, rats, and sparrows]. Who spread and implemented Chairman Mao’s directives most zealously?

‘I am what you guys have grown up to be. You little punks, have a taste of the original.’

The village chief exceeded the quota by 130kg of gold the next day while still pocketing 10kg of gold for himself. 5kg of it was transformed into jewelry to adorn the hands of the Communist Youth League members, who showered the village chief with praise.

The reason the village chief could achieve the quota so easily was that the quota was measured by weight. The village chief melted the gold and diluted its purity, multiplying its apparent quantity several times over. The gold inflated in this manner had a low purity and could hardly be called gold, but it was classified as gold in the quota and loaded onto a truck bound for the Party.

What else could he do but conjure gold from thin air? Even if the impurity was discovered, it wouldn’t matter. He would simply insist that the gold had been that way from the start.

From the beginning, there was no reason to be questioned for such a trivial matter. The higher-ups weren’t that stupid either, and if they kept nagging like this, a certain amount would be collected.

“How the world is turning.”

The chief sighed deeply. However, there were a few things that even this outdated village chief could discern. The mining industry was expanding and developing rapidly, as if planning to extract every last ounce of gold within China.

The reason was difficult to ascertain and inevitably speculative, but the village chief boldly surmised that it wasn’t solely for the gold they were currently collecting.

The village chief knew that the Party Central Committee wasn’t a group of philanthropists who would invest anywhere, but rather exploiters of the people. It seemed the Party was about to shift the national project towards primary and secondary industries and natural resource exports, which required minimal investment.

He poured the alcohol he bought with some of the money he made from selling 5kg of gold down his throat. Even if the gold he retained through trickery was only 5kg, it was the gold he would use for the next month’s quota.

‘Yes, the alcohol in the alcohol must be 40% to warm the body and warm the heart.’

The village chief chuckled as he watched the Communist Youth League’s truck drive away.

“What’s the point of being so pathetic? I have to do more farming.”

The problem was that the ‘golden alchemist’ hiding in the village wasn’t just the village chief.

“There are overachievements everywhere! This, this is not good!”

Usually, overachievement, whether it’s a donation or a quota, is good news, but overachievement can’t come out like this for a long time. This means that there was an error in the administrative processing in some way, or that someone was embezzling somewhere.

“They must have been playing with the purity.”

This problem was surprisingly nothing. First of all, it was collected in some form. Looking at the gold gathered in the warehouse, there was not much to worry about. Gold was the most valuable mineral regardless of East or West, and it was the incarnation of fascination that took people’s souls away.

“First, melt them all down and make the purity constant at 99.99%.”

First of all, it is important to have a content of 99.9% or more to be used as a gold bar, so it is important to melt it down to secure a constant purity and cast it into gold coins or gold bars that can be distributed in the market.

And the conclusion was as follows.

“Are you telling me to believe that 25,000 tons has been reduced to 500 tons?”