A TRAVELLER IN THE FAR EAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3105, 17 September 1913, Page 88

A TRAVELLER IN THE FAR EAST.

THE LAND OF MORNING SPLENDOUR. KOREA’S TRAGEDY.

By the Rev. William Hay.

The Orient is a .groat old book in which .poetry and prose have been written so closely that the lines of one have run far into the lines of the other. Korea’s poetry has its beauty, and its pathos, and I presume, to the Koreans themselves, its irony. It has long been known to the world as the “Hermit Kingdom.” Such it was. And it is only about 30 years since this Hermit Kingdom became open to the world. Mother Earth was largely responsible for its hermit name and nature. It is vision that enlarges one’s world. “ Where there is no vision,” said the old prophet, “the people perish.” And vision liuds it harder to penetrate an Alpine battlement than docs the engineer, especially if imagination on the other side is not on rapport. Mother Earth’s old wrinkled skin, for which she must blame own condensing firennsts, just as you and 1, when our faces wrinkle, may know that Nature’s firomists are condensing in our being, made such formidable mountain corrugations that the unenterprising and unsophisticated Koreans were confined between them and the sea. Mignty wrinkles cross and r.ocross the surface of Korea so that not only was the kingdom isolated, but each of the old eight pro; vinccs were divided one from the other by Nature’s demarcation. This, of course, increased isolation, and made the people still more a hermit nation. Even late in the seventies, when Peking wius still the city of mystery, one annual event never faced to arrest the attention of Europeans there. During thy winter months, a largo party of strangers would arrive, men of odd dress and unfamiliar speech. Their dress resembled that of the Peking folk before the Tartars had come, and they took oft their shots on entering a room like the Japanese. They wore extraordinary hats, made of horsehair or bamboo, and their hair w a3 tied in a knot on the top of then-heads. They wore dark-skinned, flat-nosed, and black-eyed, and yet there was a strange suggestion of the Gatictaisian in their .Mongol countenances. The visitors were ambassadors of tribute bearers, and traders from the Hermit Kingdom. At the end of 40 days, after having paid their dues to the Emperor, the embassy returned back over the great Peking road, where splendid towers bad been built centuries since to mark their annual march—back over the pass of Matienling, where the world seemed stretched out beneath then feet, and through the dreaded bandit belt of the Yalu. Then they wore swallowed up again in the darkness and mystery of their own land.. Its land borders, to the north, baa for centuries been edged by a lawless region, where bandits were allowed to live without molestation, and through which ordinary travellers could not passCbirlamen, who crossed the River * a ‘ u > were quickly decapitated by the stern yanghans on the Korean side. Then all the rest was protected by a long, rocky, and forbidden coast line, which was carefully avoided by most foreign slips. Now and then foreigners presumed so tar as to visu this hermit people, only to find a fierce resentment of their presumption. Madame Korea was not “ at homo to strangers, and sent a bulldog to answer the knock at her door. Less than 50 years ag-o, an American schooner, the General Oh a r man, paid a visit to the Tai Lang River. Ihcy v\ ere “graciously” welcomed by scows, 'fastened together, piled with brush wood and sprinkled with sulphur and saltpetre, set alight, and sent down the river to their ship, which, through ignorance of the na\iLotion of the river, had been run on to the banks. The crew were almost suffocated by the stench and vapour of the burning, and, as the smoke grow thicker and thicker they were forced to jump into the water. Most of them were hacked to pieces before they reached the shore. Those who got to land were immediately cut down, mutilated in abominable fashion, and had their bodies torn fo bits. Parts wore taken off to be used as medicine, and the remainder burnt. The bulldog’s teeth did their work most effectively! Two or three months ago I came through (hat mountain pass, and that dreaded bandit holt of the Yalu, almost impassable 40 years ago, where Nature placed her mighty harriers and man at one time erected another barrier of the fire and the knife, in a luxurious, railway carriage, and ate, in comfort, a well-served dinner in the dining car as we entered the mountain pass, crossed that very Yalu over a bridge about a mile in length, that is one of the greatest bridgeconstructing feats of the world, was welcomed into tiio quondam “ Hermit Kingdom ” instead of meeting with fire and the knife, and all under the regime of—not Korea, but Japan. Japan lias broken down, at one end, the barriers of the rocky, rugged coast, and at the other end lias made an easy way from Manchuria through the mountains and across the great Yalu, and the “Hermit Kingdom” is no more. There is a great deal of poetry in that, but the Koreans can only read the prose; and there is much of prose behind the passing of The Hermit Kingdom that has never been written, but you get bits of it from Korean lips. There is poetry in the new name of Korea, which, however, is not really a new name. When Japan annexed Korea she gave this bride of hers the name of “Chosen,” which was simply a restoration of iier historic name. Chosen is beautifully suggestive of all things ancient and venerable. The oldest name for its meaning is Morning Splendour Other values expressed in English for two Chinese characters may be Dayspring, Radiance of the Dawn, Morning Calm, Tranquillity of the Dawn,, etc. Those who coined the term wore not thinking so much of the blush of the aurora as of the favour of tho “ Dragon Countenance ” —which meant the favour of the Chinese Emperor. The Embassy, already referred to, brought to this people every year from beyond tho “ Ever White Mountains ” the assurance that they basked in the glow of the suzerain’s favour, and from tho Realm of the Twelve Thousand Serrated Peaks tho breath of contentment ascended like incense to the gateways of the day. The restoration of the ancient naino has in it a good deal of irony to the Koreans. They were vassals when their land first received the poetic name “ The Land of Morning Splendour,” hut they were willing and contented vassals, enjoying on honourable autonomy. Now they are vassals with no autonomy. As Mr Pyong K. Yoon, of Seoul, said to mo at the World’s

Chfstmn Citizenship Conference in Portland: “I a.m a man of no country, I am only a representative of a people.” Japanese suzerainty was as shortlived as Korean neutrality*. The Japanese regime, which is suggestive of the mailed fist, never permits of the overlooking of the'fact that Korea is now an integral part of the Japanese Empire. And Koreans, probably because of that very* regime, never forget that they are not Japanese. The policy of the supreme race is intensely one that is coercive of loyalty. Every official, even the teachers in the schools, are led to understand very definitely and significantly that the objective of everything is to “ make loyal citizens,” and one cannot come into touch with institutions and conditions in Korea without "sensing” the coerciveness of the policy. One senses scarcely anything of autonomy; in office, in institutions,- in authority, one finds Japan everywhere. The policy is greatly in contrast with the American policy m the Philippines, and the British policy in South Africa. THE NEMESIS OF INERTIA. However one may criticise the Japanese policy, and however justified such may be, the present loss of Korea to the Koreans is the nemesis of inertia. It seems to be the law of the universe that in place of those who fail to “ replenish and subdue ’’ the resources that are made available to them, there comes sooner or later another race who demonstrate the possible. That law, if such it be, has worked with a pathetic inevitableness in Korea. Mr F. A. M'Kenzie, in his ‘‘Tragedy of Korea,” attributes it mainly to the corruption and weakness of her old national administration. But is not one the complement of the other? Corruption and weakness of national administration are the counterpart of a moral inertia. The soil of Korea is capable of producing more than enough food for the people who dwell in it. The surrounding ocean is au endless storehouse. The rocks are r : ch in lodes and galleries of mineral wealth; indeed, the whole inventory of natural resources and potencies is so great as to stimulate all the creative, industrial, and research faculties of man. But the Korean has slumbered in the Morning Calm; and has the bitter experience that is fairly common of seeing others usurping his position in his own home in consequence. Korea fought against the genius of progress, but her methods and policy were effete. There was much in her life that was good, lacked vigour and enterprise, and along with the good were conditions that always become the disintegrating and destructive force of a nation or an empire. The last century’s hifatory of Korea has in it many black and bloody annals, especially in the endeavour to exterminate Christianity and to prevent it from re-entering tne empire. Throughout the whole of, 1801 and part of 1802 the executioners were never idle. In more recent years foreigners were brutally massacred, just as they were in Japan in,the first decade that followed her opening to the world. As most of the foreigners in Korea in earlier days were Japanese they, of course, suffered the most. Ignorance and fanaticism were behind much effort at extermination, however, just as they were in Japan in early days,-and have been in China in more modern days. Mud and filth and squalor have been the concomitants of Korean inertia and the neglect and avarice of rulers. Men emerge Horn their private life in immaculate white or in gaudy silk garments, and women’s goats are the peers of' pearls and snowflakes, acd yet “ how rare,” said Mr M'Kenzie a few years ago, “ is a house that contains a true home; and in the whole realm how relatively few dwellings that are clean and comfortable!” “ The white lotus may rise from the black mire.” Long ago Korea’s “ twelve thousand serrated hills,” which are now barren, wore a thick clothing of rich forest, the growth of ages; but, like the wasteful Chinese of ancient and some other countries of modern date, the Koreans cut down their trees from necessity; but inertia prevented replanting, while Japan plants two trees for every one _ she cuts down. Korea needed an awakening. She has liad a rude and cruel one! THE HARSH POLICY OF JAPAN. lc was probably inevitable that Korea would lull a prey to ijpnto stronger and more progressive Power. Japan moved along modern lines just in time to work out her own national salvation. Korea began the movement along those same lines evidently too late. Treaties were signed with foreigners, reforms and industries on Western models were introduced, European diplomatists took up their permanent residences in the capital, and a still greater departure was made when a special embassy was sent to the United States with a near relative of the Queen at its head. The King was adapting himself to tho altered conditions of the time, and the strong-minded and influential Queen had shown her willingness to meet Europeans in social inteioourse. A party called Progressionists, however, became the traitors of Korea, and played into tho hands of Japan, who took advantage of it to become so unwisely and harshly aggressive in Korea, as far back as 1884, as to incur the hatred of the Korean people in general—a hatred which their subsequent policy lias done nothing to diminish. Japan has been sincerely desirous, we believe, of leading Korea into the paths of modern progress, but she lost the chance of gaining the respect and affection of her pupil, without which no teacher, however accomplished or earnest, can ever be successful. After the war in which Japan triumphed over China —a war which virtually began in an attempted reform of Korea- the Japanese undertook, with a firmer hand than before the reforms which she thrust upon the people. The one great mistake of Count Inonye’s great career was tho insistence upon certain reforms which were by no means the most important upon a people that were entirely unprepared for them. His successor, however, Viscount Miura, was a tyrant. Ho was an old soldier, competent, perhaps, to discharge the duties of a military dictator in a conquered country under martial law, but no other. His appointment was one of the worst of many blunders which Japan has made in Korea. The ordinary Japanese citizens who flocked to Korea exploited the Koreans, and treated them in harmony with the spirit of tho military personal representative of the Emperor. Justice was withheld from them. Longhand tolls us “an outraged Korean had aa much chance of redress through the offices of a Japanese official in a district remote enough to be safe from foreign criticism ns a negro slave from a magisterial bench of Southern planters, or an English poacher in the 18th century from one of the game-preserving squires.”

In 1895 the Japanese lent themselves to another atrocious plot. I forbear to use the description of it that some of the critics of Japan have used. A crowd, mainly composed of Japanese troops and police, and the native soldiers of the ex-Regent, made an attack on the Korean Imperial Palace. Some of the bodyguard of the King and Queen tried to resist, but after a few were shot the others retired. The Japanese made Straight for the Royal apartment. Some caught hold of the King and presented him with a document by which he was to divorce and repudiate the Queen, who, with her strong will, stood in the way of the exRegent and the Japanese. Despite every threat the King refused to sign th;s document. Some were pressing into the Queen s apartments. The Minister of the Household tried to stop them. He was killed on the spot. The soshi seized the terrified palace ladies who were running away, dragged them round and round by the hair, and beat them, demanding that they should tell where the Queen was. The men pressed into the siderooms. Okamoto, the Japanese Adviser to the Korean Department of War, who led the way, found a little woman hiding in a corner, grabbed her head, and asked if .she were the Queen. She denied it. freed herself, and ran into the corridor, shouting as she ran. The Japanese were speedily upon her and cut her down. Some of the female attendants were dragged up, shown the dying Queen and made to recognise her. and then three of them were put to the sword. The conspirators threw a bed-wrap around the Queen, probably not yet dead, and carried her to a grove of trees in the deer park not far away. 'lhere they poured kerosene over her, piled faggots of wood around, and 6et all on fire, ihey fed tho flames until everything was consumed, save a few bones. \Vhen this crime became published in Europe and America it did Japan more harm than the loss of a great battle. This is probably wellknown history now, but I mention it as a part of a general critique of Japanese policy in Korea. Many of us who love Japan for many reasons can endorse the words of Colonel Cockerell the New York Herald correspondent: “The senn-barbanc condition of Korea has given to her benevolent neighbour an opportunity to teach bloody instructions' which will not soon be forgotten, I fear; and as a sincere wellwisher of Japan, I grieve to record facts which not only proclaim her cruelty, but her injustice and indifference where her interests are involved.” The Koreans themselves arc not devoid of brutality \ but then the Japanese were a long way ,ahead of them in modern knowledge and progress. The treaty by which Korean independence was completely destroyed was forced upon Korea by the Japanese at the point of the sword by the Marquis Ito, the Bismarck of Japan ; and the negotiations, unfortunately, form no aoceptah e relief to the harsh policy hitherto adopted, although Ito s subsequent career was that of great statesmanship. Korea was undoubtedly essential to Japan as a strategic position for operations on the field of Asia, and as a field for emigration; but we wish it had been acquired more justly and less harsh y. Since then it has evidently been the aim of Japan to destroy Korean nationality and to make Korea entirely Japanese. One of the most reliable authorities has asserted that: “There is a wholesale system of exploitation that touches every side of Korean life. Concessions are granted to Japanese, contracts are given on the most generous terms to Japanese, and emigration laws, land laws, and general administrative measures are made solely with regard to Japanese interests.” When the old Korean army was disbanded the rescript issued was written in the most insulting language possible. As a prominent critic has said: ‘lt was as though the Japanese, having their heel on the nock of the enemy, slapped hie face to show their, contempt for him.” Ito was made a prince for his splendid service in Korea! Hie life was taken by the hand of a Korean whose country ho had wrested for his own empire !