I am Sun Mu

Talking about peace and reconciliation between North and South Korea has become a “crime.”

Talking about world peace has become a “crime.”

Talking about the people who live in this world, about the life I have lived so far and the life I will live in the future, has become a “crime.”

Here is the song this “criminal” wanted to sing out loud at his Beijing exhibition.

I, too, have a heart given to me by my parents.

Somebody pinned a red badge over it.

I was grateful and happy to be somebody’s subject.

It became everything to me.

The world made me into an orphan who wasn’t an orphan.

It gave me the pain of parting and it gave me new encounters and huge courage.

The badge that somebody had pinned over my heart fell away.

Now I have a heart that beats only for me.

I am Sun Mu.

It was all I believed.

It was all I knew.

It was my whole life.

Now, I think I understand somewhat.

If that is happiness, I won’t be happy.

If that is everything, I don’t want to live.

Now I know my own separate self.

Now, I cry out to the world.

I am Sun Mu.

After the separation I never wanted, I flung myself into the wilderness.

I spent every day in fear of being discovered and deported.

Then, spending one New Year away from home, I wrote a letter to my family.

With no hope that it can ever be delivered, I pray that its spirit, at least, reach them.

I didn’t want the pain of separation.

I didn’t want the life of a slave.

I didn’t want to die.

The sun in the sky shines dazzlingly,

but the struggles of those living in the darkness

bring pain to my heart.

Whom is the ideology for?

Whom is the politics for?

Whom is the war for?

Let the sky be my witness.