Things Korean : A collection of sketches and anecdotes missionary and diplomatic

Preface

There are incidents in the lives of each of us that are of more or less interest to others. Often some of these incidents are of general public interest.

Twenty-two years’ residence in China and Korea, including practically the whole period of the latter’s diplomatic intercourse with the outside world, would seem to indicate an experience fruitful in incidents of general interest. This is my excuse for thrusting a new volume upon a public already burdened with books.

The writer spent a year in China as a medical missionary, three years in Korea in the same capacity, three years in the Korean service, and fifteen years in the diplomatic service of our own government, beginning as secretary of legation and ending as minister plenipotentiary.

The aim in writing this book has been to exclude the personal as much as possible, and to gather up the most interesting and illustrative bits descriptive of experiences had during this rather interesting period, together with entertaining accounts of the quaint people with whom these years were spent.

The poor Koreans are now in desperate straits and it has been suggested that this work be devoted to exposing their wrongs in an effort to turn public sentiment in their direction. Such a course does not

PREFACE seem to be advisable at this juncture, — rich as are the supplies of materials at hand. Opposition on their part seems at present to be unavailing if not suicidal; they can only make the best of existing conditions.

The sad feature of the case is that we deserted them in their time of need and ignored the solemn agreement we had entered into with them as an inducement for their abandoning the centuries-old position of exclusion and non-intercourse and emerging into the dazzling glare of treaty relations.

Our treaty with Korea of May 22, 1882, in its first article, makes the following promise :

“ If other Powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either government, the other will exert their good offices on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feeling.”

We paid no heed to this solemn pledge at the critical time of the Portsmouth convention and must accept the odium attached to such violation of sacred covenants.

Present conditions, and our own mistakes, are sufficiently alluded to in the concluding chapters entitled American Commercial Intercourse ; Diplomatic Incidents, and Political Changes.

It is the wish of the writer that, while fully indicating his earnest sympathy with and kindly sentiments towards the Koreans, this little book shall be non-controversial, entertaining and instructive, and of such general interest that no single page may be

PREFACE found dull or tedious. Actual conditions in Korea at present as well as in China, are detailed in recent books, notably those by an English observer and writer of note, Mr. F. A. McKenzie, and by the well known American traveller and author, Thomas F. Millard.

Horace N. Allen.

Toledo , Ohio.

Contents

I. A Pioneer 15

II. The “ Boy’* and the Ammah ... 20

III. A New Year’s Adventure and a Story of

II Illustrations

Facing page

A Korean Officer of the Old Army . . . Title

Ponies with Pack Frames ..... 90

The Donkey, the Pride of the Lesser Official . 90

Peasants Hulling Rice . . , . . .100

The Three-man Shovel . . . . .100

The Laundry and Mangle — “ Woman’s Weapon 99 . 108

Three Men Sawing One Stick . . . .108

Three Men Swinging . . . . . .150

Bull Loads of Wood for Sale . . . .150

A Royal Tomb . . . . . . .172

One of the Priestly Figures 172

A Stone Lantern . . . . . . .172

A Street-side Temple in Seoul . . , .216

Seoul Officers of the American Firm Controlling

the Electric Plant and Water-Works . . 216

A Group of Seoul Diplomatic Officials . . 223

I

A PIONEER

Among the adventurous spirits who seek fortune or excitement in newly opened lands, there are apt to be vigorous characters whose active careers have caused them to participate in many a thrilling adventure, some of which are highly humorous.

One such interesting pioneer in Korea was Captain Blank. Blank will serve as well as his real name, and the title which precedes it was sometimes given him because of the fact that he once served on a New Bedford whaler, which fact further indicates his Yankee birth and rearing.

In some manner Captain Blank got clear of his ship at Vladivostock, when he was about twenty years of age, and when everything was new and raw in that Siberian country, affording ample opportunity to Yankee enterprise and ingenuity. In time he became an extensive trader, buying skins of all kinds in exchange for general supplies. He married a Chinese woman and became the father of a family of mixed blood, including several stalwart sons who became his able assistants in the business.

i5

A Massacre. — One day on returning from a purchasing trip to Japan, he found his wife and sons murdered, and his warehouses looted and destroyed by a company of Chinese bandits.

The stricken old man went to see the Russian governor at Vladivostock, from whom he received hearty sympathy and an offer to do all in the power of the government to bring the miscreants to justice. The governor offered him a company of soldiers but this offer he declined and requested instead that he be allowed three or four volunteers. These were promptly furnished him and he evidently knew well how to select his men and was able to find kindred spirits.

This little band, well armed and supplied with abundant ammunition, disappeared into the wilds and were quite lost sight of for some time. After a few months, however, telegrams were received at Vladivostock from St. Petersburg, to the effect that the Peking government had complained that some one was killing hundreds of Chinese in the Amur country. On investigation it was found that the snow of the whole Vladivostock region was simply dotted with dead Chinamen. The captain and his volunteers had gone out for blood vengeance and had killed every Chinaman in sight or that they could find.

The governor called the American in and told him that, much as he regretted it, he would be obliged to arrest him, but that he would not issue the order for his arrest until noon of the next day. A steamer

A PIONEER was leaving for Japan that evening and of course the old man took the hint and left with her.

Korea was just then opened and it was most natural that this adventurous pioneer should seek new fortunes in this fresh field. That is how we got our genial, honest, and only storekeeper, who was highly appreciated for his many good qualities and his general usefulness as well as for his interesting eccentricities. His vivid red and gray beard grew straight out around his ruddy face like a brilliant halo, making him much the most interesting of all of us foreigners to the natives, to whom all western foreigners were interesting in those early days, because of our — to them — absurd ways, our colouring, and our strange dress.

Before long an American minister came to reside in Seoul and the captain, with a keen sense of the proprieties and with not a little experience in official matters, from his long residence among the punctilious Russians, prepared to do the proper thing and make his formal call at the new legation.

False Teeth Cause Panic. — One hot July day, therefore, he donned a ruffled shirt, white tie, evening dress suit and silk hat, and mounted a pony to ride the long twenty-five miles across the country and its sand plains to the capitol, to make his call. At a little inn situated about half way on his journey, he stopped to eat the lunch he had strapped upon the back of the perspiring coolie who led his slow paced horse. Now these inns are arranged around a courtyard, across the rear of which stands the house proper with its tile roof and large open veranda-like room, off which are located the small sleeping rooms. The sides of the court are formed by the kitchens and servants’ quarters, while across the front stands the long low building containing the stables, with a high roofed gate in the centre.

Seated on the veranda of the house, our traveller was quietly eating his lunch while his pony was being fed in the stable before him. One by one the natives flocked in on one pretense or another, to see the strange foreigner eat his stranger food. Finally all pretense was abandoned and the whole village, including the chance passers and their servants, crowded into the court to see the strange sight, until the space was simply packed with a quiet, perspiring crowd of sightseers.

The meal being finished the red bearded foreigner reached up and removed his false teeth for cleansing purposes. This was too much for his audience. It was a thing absolutely unheard of by them as yet and far beyond their comprehension, that a human being could thus take himself apart. With a scream of terror and the common call upon their mothers, " Ay goo Amonye,” the mass struggled to get through the single gate and away from a being who could thus dismember himself, lest he call down upon them some dire fate or spell. Soon the gate was piled high with writhing forms each making all the noise possible, while the old man certainly enjoyed the unexpected effect of his casual action. From that time until his death the captain enjoyed even

A PIONEER more of the native attention than before, and he seemed able to get more from the coolies and pony men than could his competitors when they began to locate near him.

II

THE “BOY” AND THE AMMAH

The Ammah (pronounced Ahmah) is a most useful institution in the foreign communities of Asia. She is primarily the children’s nurse, though she is just as often lady’s maid, and she is not above doing duties that properly belong to the boy or valet, when he is missing.

The “Boy.” — This boy, who may be a man of mature years, is another useful member of the household, and in addition to his general duties as butler, valet, waiter, and chambermaid, he is sometimes called upon to fill the place of the absent Ammah when my lady’s waist needs buttoning in the back or shoes are to be laced or unlaced. He has even been known to shampoo and brush to silky softness the tresses of his mistress, and he quietly takes his place as an intimate member of the household whose interests he seems to have at heart, providing he is a good specimen of his class.

One lady acquaintance in diplomatic circles was horrified by the accidental blundering into her bath room of the boy, who had not fully completed arrangements for her bath and was bringing her fresh warm towels, not knowing that she was even then performing her ablutions. Backing hastily out in

THE “BOY” AND THE AMMAH response to her shriek he called back in a pacifying tone of reassurance, “ Never mind, missy, we all b’long one fambly.”

The Ammah. — Our first experience with that useful creature, the Ammah, was about as amusing as it could well be. We had arrived from a severe Pacific voyage of twenty-five days to find that in Yokohama everything ' seemed topsyturvy. The boatmen in ’83 dispensed with clothing very largely except for a large loin cloth ; ashore the men served as horses, hauling loaded wagons, while others drew us in little carriages like overgrown perambulators, and we saw still other men sitting on the ground sawing boards from a log suspended above them, drawing the saw towards them in cutting.

Arrived at the hotel the obliging clerk asked if I did not want an Ammah for my wife who was ill. This was a new word but as he offered no explanation and as it sounded so like llama, I thought he was speaking of this mammalian. I therefore concluded that in this strange land where men served as horses llamas might be used in the place of cows, and as a milk diet was certainly indicated I acquiesced and asked if she could be kept on the place. On being assured that the hotel had regular accommodations for them I asked if some one would be furnished to do the milking.

After numerous explanations on both sides the Ammah was duly installed and she became a fixture, while no llama, not even a cow, directly furnished us our milk, which came out of a can. After twenty-five years’ use of canned milk we prefer even now to use the evaporated and unsweetened article sold in tins, rather than run the risk of disease from using the fresh variety, while by so doing we avoid all trouble with the noisy and often delayed milkman who seems to be such a trial to some of our acquaintances in this land flowing with milk — if not with honey.

Ill

A NEW YEAR’S ADVENTURE AND A STORY OF ECONOMY

A part of the refrain of a recently popular song contained this promise : —

“If ye work all day ye’ll have sugar in yer tay.”

Few tea drinkers in America would consider this a luxury to strive for, sugar being considered a necessity by those who take it in their tea. There are people, however, to whom this bit of sweetness is considered as one of the compensations of hard labour and pinching economy.

Riding uneasily at anchor in a Korean harbour in the cold gray dawn of a stormy new year’s morning, I listened to the cheerful tale of a woman’s struggle for existence in a foreign land, and after twenty years, tea still tastes better with its regulation sugar, for knowing what a luxury it was to that one woman, who was so successful in earning a living for herself and her little children that she proudly boasted of the fact that they had tea every day — and sometimes they had sugar in it.

She was an Alsatian who had gone to Japan with her husband, — an artisan. He had died of typhoid leaving her with two small children. In time she had secured employment which paid her fifteen dollars (30 yen) per month. This was enough for a Japanese at that time, but it was a meagre pittance for the support of a western family in that foreign land.

She hired a room and they all slept in one bed. Everything purchased was in small quantities and for a definite purpose.

“We had rice and fish, and salad and bread, and sometimes we had butter on our bread,” she told me.

“ Every day we had tea and sometimes we had sugar in our tea.” This in the land of tea and in a city where the air was fragrant almost to intoxication with the odour of tea from the great tea firing establishments.

“And every Sunday we would go to the hotel where the maitre d' hotel , my countryman, would let us have our dinner, with a glass of red wine, for a small price.” How good those Sunday dinners must have tasted after their week’s fast.

It was an interesting and pathetic story told that morning as we watched the gray dawn dimly light up the barren Korean hills peeping through their thin coating of snow.

A Chance Acquaintance. — We had not voluntarily sat up to exchange experiences. We were merely chance passengers on a very small Japanese steamer making the six days’ trip from Kobe, via way ports, to Chemulpo, with no other white person on board aside from the Scotch captain whose quarters

A NEW YEAR’S ADVENTURE were forward in a house on deck. We had dropped anchor well off shore, in the extensive wind-swept harbour of Fusan on New Year’s eve.

The cabins were below deck at the stern of the vessel and opened off the little salon. This salon was simply a passageway down the middle of the lower deck with the cabin doors opposite and the narrow dining table extending down the middle of the floor space.

A New Year’s Celebration. — We had retired early, glad to exchange the gentle roll of the anchorage for the tempestuous seas of the Korean straits. We could hear occasional bits of song from the forecastle where our Japanese crew were beginning the celebration of the incoming year, for which purpose they had brought along a generous supply of sake. As midnight approached, however, the festivities increased and the copious libations began to tell. With the stroke of midnight and the advent of the new year, the crew, armed with pans and kettles from the galley, began to drum lustily and to march about the ship making a frightful din. Soon they came down the little companionway yelling like demons and beating their tom-toms as though all bedlam had broken loose. They entered the large cabin of my fellow passenger, and her shrieks and those of her children added to the general uproar. Jumping out as I was, thinking that some crime was being committed, I was eagerly hailed as a new recruit and our tormentors did what might be taken for a scalp dance around us while the poor woman on her knees called upon all the saints to protect her. We could not understand each other’s language but we saw that the intoxicated revellers wanted us to drink with them and join in the festivities. They were just drunk enough to resent our reluctance and they became ugly at our refusal to join them. As matters seemed to be getting rather serious a steward and cabin-boy, who seemed to retain some degree of intelligence, finally interceded and, on some pretext, got the crowd up the companionway, the door of which we promptly barricaded ; but the tears and fright of the foreign woman and her children seemed to stimulate them and they made many attempts to affect another entrance, so that we put on all our clothes and spent the remainder of the night pacifying the children and trying to keep warm during our vigil.

It was then that the poor woman confided to me the cheerful tale of her little economies and extravagances.

Bad weather compelled us to run in behind some islands and lay by another day after leaving Fusan. From this pitching unsteady anchorage the little straw-thatched huts of the natives on the lee hillside of the island, with the thin smoke curling above them, seemed actually inviting at our distance. They at least meant warmth and quiet, with no seasick qualms, though they did stand for an economy so rigid that the story of my fellow passenger seemed in comparison to be one of luxury ; for in the case of the people in those weather-worn huts, while they

A NEW YEAR’S ADVENTURE might have fish, rice and salt, so far from the stimulating tea with " sometimes sugar," it was simply hot water with the tea entirely left out and sugar an unknown luxury.

IV An Oriental Bunco Game

The Koreans are of a confiding nature. They are also over sanguine and inclined to espouse schemes that would not appeal to more sophisticated people.

One of my early native acquaintances had an experience in this line which is quite illustrative.

He and a few friends determined to prevent all the best business opportunities from going into the hands of foreigners in the early days, by occupying the field themselves. As the operation of steamships appealed to them as likely to be very remunerative and easy of control, they decided to establish a line of ships to connect their country with Japan, and thus keep this profitable undertaking from passing into outside hands.

They subscribed and paid in as capital stock a sum of money that loomed very large in their eyes and such as would buy a very creditable native junk. This sum, twelve hundred thousand cash, was equal to $ 1,200 in Japanese money.

My friend had been in Japan and knew the language, therefore he was intrusted with the mission of going to one of the Japan ports to purchase their first steamship.

Arrived at Nagasaki he was soon made acquainted 28

AN ORIENTAL BUNCO GAME with a very polite and entertaining Japanese who showed him the sights of the city, wined and dined him, and for several days carefully avoided any serious talk relating to business.

After some days of this careful preliminary work, so characteristic of the Oriental, the Japanese began to urge upon the Korean the advisability of the latter’s people undertaking the development of their country themselves lest foreigners usurp the field and drain the land of its resources.

This advice had great effect since it was right in line with the opinions held (and doubtless unintentionally expressed) by the Korean himself and bore directly upon the object of his mission. When it had been given ample time for patient assimilation, the new-found friend proceeded to suggest that steamships seemed to offer the best opportunities for such enterprise as he had suggested. This also met with hearty approval and it all seemed a strange coincidence to the Korean, since the advice of his genial '"^friend Was so entirely in line with the object of his own mission.

Further discussion disclosed the fact that the agreeable Japanese chanced to have a cousin who owned a fine large steamer which he might be prevailed upon to sell since the illness of his father compelled him to remain on shore and caused him to be in need of ready money. On enquiry being made it developed that this cousin would part with his ship and that he would sell it for $1,200, which was just the amount the Korean had to pay.

All necessary preliminaries having been arranged, the Japanese took his prospective purchaser on board one of the great Peninsular and Oriental ships that ply between England and Japan, and, passing him off as a prince who was making his first visit to a foreign ship, they were kindly received and shown all over the vessel, the Japanese acting as interpreter and putting into the mouth of either party the kind of words he wished him to utter.

The inspection having proved the vessel to be entirely satisfactory, the pair went ashore where a bill of sale was drawn up and signed by the reputed cousin. The money was paid over and the attentive Japanese left for the country.

The next day the Korean went on board and ordered the captain to sail for Chemulpo. It required the services of a policeman to rid the vessel of the importunate Korean, who never discovered the whereabouts of his genial friend and who never got back any of the capital stock of the first Korean steamship syndicate.

V

STEAMSHIP TRAVEL TO AND ABOUT THE FAR EAST

Coral Islands. — On one of our twelve trans-Pacific voyages we had as a fellow passenger a senator of the United States ; and for his benefit the ship steamed close to that wonderful chain of atolls or coral reefs, which extends our boundaries nearly eighteen hundred miles west of Hawaii. It was a sight never to be forgotten. Some of these formations were actually mere circular reefs with the spray dashing high on the windward side where the sharp, flinty, rocklike material effectually checked the continual onslaught of the waves, while inside the lagoon the water lay peacefully basking in the sun like a beautiful pale green crystal. Other reefs had accumulated sufficient animal and vegetable matter at some one place to support quite a little vegetation, which with its deep tropical green, against the lighter tint of the water, backed by the banks of white surf and coral sand, composed a general picture such as it is not often the lot of man to look upon.

These lagoons, lying like placid gems on the heaving breast of that great ocean, seemed so quiet and peaceful as to be just suited for havens of refuge for ships, especially as each had a more or less conveniently placed entrance. One such island is now used in connection with our trans-Pacific cable, but this appears to be the only one of the group where conditions are such as to permit of utilization. The quiet water in the lagoon is usually too shallow for ships and the low lying reefs are wind-swept and offer little protection, while their outer work is so dangerous that ships strive to give them a wide berth.

Rat Island. — We were told that one of these islands was so infested by rats that it was dangerous to land there. These rats had gotten ashore from some wreck and, subsisting on fish washed up on the coral sand, they had multiplied until no other living thing could exist in their midst. It is said further that the crew of a wrecked vessel were destroyed and eaten by these rats upon making their escape from the sea to this inhospitable land. This may have been but the “ captain's yarn," however.

Summer Seas. — Sailing over these southern summer seas with not enough ship motion to prevent daily games of cricket and quoits, and with access to a great canvass swimming tank on the main deck, through which the sea water kept constantly flowing to a depth that was over one’s head, we could quite agree with the Balboan nomenclature and willingly give to this vast expanse of tropical waters the title of pacific.

Atlantic travellers expect too much of the Pacific perhaps because of its name. It has its moods and some of them are ugly and spiteful. I once heard a Scotch captain exclaim that he would wish an enemy no worse fortune than to be consigned to the north Pacific route along the fog-swept Aleutian islands.

Bad Coast Weather. — This ocean seems to fret over the presence of large bodies of land. The sea seems always to behave itself worse as one nears the continent of America or Asia (including the Japanese islands). On one trip we left San Francisco on a Japanese liner when a gale was blowing of such force as to cause some damage on shore. Knowing what to expect we spent the time in stowing away our belongings and preparing for the fast approaching time when we would care more for the quiet of our bunks than for anything to be seen from the deck of the ship.

Some of the tourists to whom we suggested conditions that we thought likely soon to prevail declared that they intended to see the Golden Gate no matter what happened. They saw it. They also saw the staunch ship apparently stop in its course as it met a huge sea on the bar, shake its head for a moment as though indignant at such interference and then, like a horse taking the bit in its teeth, plunge madly into the seething race of rushing waters, where it kept on its course but with violent plunging and rearing.

It was pitiful to hear those good people as they abandoned the Golden Gate to the blanket of wet winds and dashed for their cabins, where trunks and valises met them chasing each other over the floor, so that it was dangerous trying to do more than make a rapid jump into a berth. One elderly couple near us dropped into their bunks as they were, and when later we got the stewardess to them in an attempt to relieve their loudly proclaimed misery, she found that the poor woman was too miserable to have her bonnet removed, so that she spent the night dressed as when she came on board. This weather continued with us much of the way to Honolulu after which the sea was like a mill-pond until the proximity of the Japan coast was reached.

A First Voyage. — Our first Pacific voyage was made on the old City of Peking , and it was one of the worst of these twelve trips as the last one was the best. On this first voyage in 1883 we spent twenty-five days out of sight of land. A full passenger list had compelled us to accept a cabin right in the stern of the vessel. It was large and more inviting than the others while the ship lay in dock, and we congratulated ourselves upon our good fortune, until we realized what it meant to try to be comfortable at the end of that tetering ship, where we got all the motion up and down side ways and corkscrew, as though we were sitting on the tail of some great water serpent that was lashing the elements in anger. Then every time the ship would poise on the crest of a mountain of water or fling its stern high in the air as it plunged down the other side, the screw would go whirling madly through the air right under our cabin, leading us to believe that everything in the machinery line had gone to smash, and afterwards as the stern sank and the propeller began churning up the waters again, while everything loose rushed sternwards, it seemed that we were surely headed for the bottom stern foremost. The whole passage was one long delirious nightmare from which relief seemed only temporary.

Three subsequent voyages were made on the old Oceanic for the reason that she had her cabins built up amidships. In fact she was an old Atlantic liner and was one of the first to have her cabins arranged in this manner at the hub instead of the circumference of the circle of motion. Both these old ships are now of the past and comment upon them is allowable.