COREAN LADIES ON A JUNKET.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10673, 24 January 1911, Page 2

COREAN LADIES ON A JUNKET.

- When a Corean woman 70 years old consents to take her first ride on a railroad train there is opportunity for marvelling among her countrymen and women. ,Bfit when that Corean, grandmother goes all the way to Tokio, across the sea and in the land of the conquerors, the Corean conservative may well shake his head and prophesy that soon the stars will begin to fall. Such a trip was taken recently by such a daring old lady of Chosen, and hot only'that but there were many: Corean ladies of younger years with her. The,-Jspanese looked upon the excursion as a good augury of the breaking down of Corean prejudice and the acceptance by them of the new regime of Japanese suzerainty. The papers of Tokio'were 'filled with the most intimate details of ■■the-'doings' and sayings of this unusiial band of" pilgrims. The; expedition was planned by the •Japanese masters in Seoul as a little journey to enlighten men for fifty-odd Corean yangbans, or scholars of leisure, who had recently been in receipt of new titles in the peerage of Corea and who were supposed to be thoroughly reconciled to the absorption of their land by the conquerors from the eastern islands. The party was headed by the junior Prince 0 Li, the, eldest son of the lastshadow Emperor of Corea, and the Countess Yi Chyong, one. of the ladies of the old court, set the fashion for .her more shrinking sisters by announcing herself as one of the party. The expedition set out from Seoul on October 24 so as to be present in Tokio when the celebration of the birthday of the Emperor of Japan should occur, early in November.

For nearly all of the women in the party-a railroad journey and the crossing "of the seas in a steamship was a new and somewhat terrifying adventure. The high caste women of Corea have hitherto been subjected to a seclusion even more rigorous than the women of China.. They never ventured on the streets in the daytime unless behind the closed curtains of a palanquin, and to make their appearance in any. public place was considered a thing so unseemly as to merit ostracism or even divorce. But according to the statements made by several of the women in the Imperial junket-and set forth glowingly in the Japanese press the world beyond the women's quarters of a house in Seoul was very marvellous. Why, the Corean ladies even heard it said in Tokio that away off beyond the rim of the eastern ocean men with wings flew above the earth. That of course was a Japanese joke. , The Tokio papers did not neglect to say that «imong the party was Ming Clihong-sik, a reformed "bandit." A bandit in Corea, according to Japanese understanding, is a man who resents the invasion of his country by taking his old muzzle loading tiger gun, retiring to the mountains and sniping Japanese whenever the opportunity offers. This Ming had been a leader in the Wipyon, or Righteous Army of the insurrection, in 1906, and before he had been caught and condemned to death he had killed many of his country's enemies. The death sentence had been commuted to banishment and it was only after the general amnesty had been proclaimed upon the complete overthrow of Corean •independence that Ming had dared go back to his country. Ming -is quoted as having pleaded with the Japanese Governor-General of Chosen, the Japanese name of the new province, to be allowed to join the excursion in order that he "might see with his own eyes the civilisation and progress of the empire of which Chosen has now become a part."