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2
4th. (5th of 11th Moon). Thusday. Cold 44 degrees F.
3
Really cold. Called on Mrs. Hardie, at 4 p.m. and was detained to dine with her. I did not enjoy the evening, partly because I hate to be often invited to her hospitable meals without being able to reciprocate the kindness and partly because I did not like the manners of the new missionary, Mr. Gerdine. There was something like condescension and superciliousness in his behavior toward me. He may yet turn out to be a Judson or a Nevius, but not with those manners toward Koreans. Polite and courteous behavior doesn't necessarily make a good missionary, but a good missionary is necessarily a courteous gentleman. To be oversensitive is the fault and misfortune of us Far Easterns; but to brush it aside with contemp is a greater misfortune and a more grievous fault of a missionary.
4
Mr. G. seems to be courting Miss Knowls.
5
Mrs. Hardie is a whole-souled woman, proving herself a capital wife and housekeeper. It does me good to see her now and then. Women of this type, strong, simple, sincere, home-making and home-keeping, is the mother of the Alglo-American greantness.
6
The whole government in Seoul, from the Prime Minister down, seems to be making a desperate attempt to overthrow Yi Yong Ik. It is reported here that the arch-squeezer was caught in some disrespectful allusion to Lady Um. I do not think his opponents will succeed, simply because, on the Emperor's balance, gold weighs heavier than the honor of his concubine. Possibly His Majesty may nominally exile his idol, the "Gold-calf" as Yi is nicknamed, and keep him in the Imperial ante-chamber until the storm blows over.
7
Even if Yi were unsaddled from his Imperial horse, no solid benefit could be anticipated, except the transient satisfaction that a villain was served right. For no sooner he was down than another devil, seven times more wicked than he, would be riding the horse faster than ever to cover the remaining miles to Hades.
8
A Japanese who is going to start a Japanese paper in the Japanese settlement of Wonsan asks me to pledge a monthly contribution to its support. I hope his head is not as thick as his cheek.
9
A young fellow who was caught in the act of stealing away a bicycle from Dr. Hardie's verandah told me the other day that he had gone there to get Christianity but that finding the house empty, he was tempted to steal the wheel. He is not the first, nor will he be the last of those who go into a certain business with a holier motive than he comes out of it. Did not the Pilgrim Fathers go to America with the conversion of the heathen as one of their motives, and wind up the business by robbing, the Indian of his home?
10
The short and simple annals of Hawaii tell a similar story of the white man. The day before yesterday, Allen and Candler came to me with bows made of small stiks of "sari" and arrows of broom corn stalks. They said; "Abaji, please stick sharp nails into these arrows. Quick, please. We are going to shoot pheasants." "How many are you going to shoot pheassants." "How many are you going to kill?" I asked, "O," said they, "four, five, or as many as we see." They were perfectly confident and their naivete was ravishing. No need of laughing either, for to my positive knowledge. His Majesty has spent, and no doubt, is spending, tens of thousands of dollars in manufacturing bows and arrows and armors which he believes to be incomparably superior to European rifles and cannons in the way of offensive and defensive weapons.
12
6th. Saturday. Big snow. 36 degrees at 12 a.m.
13
From 2 or 3 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. a big snow, 22 inches on the ground―must be over 2 feet but for the but for the constant thawing.
15
8th. Monday. Cloudy 40 degrees.
16
Mr. Kang, one of the chusas, returned last night from Seoul. He tells me that Father does not think it at all wise for me to leave Wonsan, as resignation may be risky, while transference or promotion is impossible. Kang's words must be taken with a grain of salt since it is to his interest that I should stay here longer. Yet, Father's letter holds out no better hope for my relief.
17
Of the three letters received from impecunious friends belonging to the mighty host of hungry hangers-on, who are imitating Confucius in nothing but office hunting, one of the letters, I say, which distressed me most was from Mr. Yang Kyong Soo. Forty years ago, he was powerful and rich, thanks to the influence of his sister, the famous Na-Hap, who was the concubine of then reigning minister. When Tai Won Kun came into power, the regent, true to the instinct of his race, robbed Yang of his lands and gave some to his, the regent's, favorites. After the fall of Tai Won Kun, Yang tried hard to get back some of his property from a man named Ha. Not succeeding, Yang, reduced to downright beggary, wanted to join one of the Christian churches in Seoul for the express purpose of regaining his rice fields through the political influence of the missionary. I was importuned by Yang to help him get into the church. Of course I told him that the Protestant Missions would not and could not aid him in matter of that nature. This was in 1895.
18
Two years later my Father told me that Yang had recovered his land from Ha; that the old man was now living in a good house, well furnished, lolling in the soft pleasures of silk and of a young concubine; and that all this good fortune had come to Yang through the simple fact of having joined the Catholic Mission. No wonder the Mission Apostolique reports tens of thousands of converts.
19
This Yang now writes me that he has not a house even of his own to shelter him and his and that he is now living a dependent in Father's house. A man whom a long and useless life of penury could not teach the habits of common economy runs no risk of dying a millionaire, no matter if he is a convert.
21
15th. Monday. Sunny. 54 degrees(!)
22
From last Monday until last evening, cloud, rain, wind (South East) . On the 13th and 14th the storm was so bad that the Y.K. boat, Takasago, had to postpone its departure until today. The weather has been so unseasonably mild that azaleas and apple blossoms are seen to blush as out of pure shame. I wonder if the gigantic volcanic eruptions in the West Indies and elsewhere have thrown more heat on the market than the customary demand of the world required.
23
Candler has been confined his room for nearly a week, on account of a bad cold. He is so good, obeying my orders to the letter. Allen stays with him all the time.
24
The crusade against Yi Yong Ik has turned out pretty much as I predicted. While all the ministers of state were memorializing for his punishment, the arch-extortioner was having a good time in the Emperor's antechamber. When he got tired of it, he went to the Russian Legation for a change, I guess. Though nominally dismissed from numerous offices, he is still the real king of his wretched land. Am told thet Mr. Waeber had informed His Majesty how able and true a minister Yi Yong Ik is. Mr. Waeber seems to have a wonderful knack of finding able and true ministers for the Emperor. Kim Hong Nuik was No. 1, and now Yi Yong Ik comes in for no. 2.
25
After all, what is the charge against Yi Yong Ik? What has he done to merit the distinction of being a "Traitor, unprecedented in the annals of 4,000 years?" Why, this: he compared Lady Um, the prospective Empress, to Yang Kui Bi, the beautiful but voluptuous concubine of Hyon Jong of the Tang Dynasty, which came near being destroyed by her paramour, An Rok San. Yi's enemies try to construe his thoughtless and ignorant remark into a deliberate comparison of the Emperor and his Lady to Tang Hyon Jong and his concubine. This is the kind of nasty tricks to which Korean Ministers, from time immemorial, have had the meanness to stoop in order to make "pen-point traitors" (붓녁 젹) in the history of this inglorious dynasty. Yi is no doubt a dirty wretch, but the trick his would-be punishers are playing is decidedly dirtier.
26
The upshot of the whole business is that Yi Yong Ik and, through him, the finance and the Emperor are driven into the clutch of Mr. and Mrs. Waeber. She will tea him, wine him, and caviar him, for Which favors he will pour gold and silver and ginseng, and mines and forests and Korea into her spacious lap. When she is done with amassing another great fortune, she, her riches and her husband, will take to wings for their Russian home, declaring Yi Yong Ik to be the most honest and loyal man in Korea, as she accorded that honor to Kim Hong Niuk in 1897.
28
18th. Thursday. Cloudy. 50 degrees. Wonsan.
29
A Hindoo, hailing from Bombay via Japan, has been honoring us with his visit. He claims to be a graduate of the Cambridge University in England. The first time he met me, he gave me, uninvited, an inventory of his linguisic acquisitions, including Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, French, German, English, Japanese, Chinese, Hindustani and a few Korean words. He forgot to mention the language he spoke most and best etc: Lie. His name is A. Kershaw, "S. History and Law". The S. standing for "student," I reckon. He professed to have travelled in America, Africa, Australia, Europe and, of course, in Asia. He says he is now doing up the Far Eastern countries to collect materials for three books, two on Japan and one on Asia. He thinks the twentieth century is for Asiatics. To help his fellow British subject, Mr. Wakefield drummed up an English speaking crowd to hear a lecture on Hindoo Customs and Manners by Mr. Kershaw. Hour, 7 p.m. Admission: 2 yen, Place: Mr. Waeber's parlor. The lecture was a jumbel of incoherent remarks, flat, dry and dead. "In general", "general idea", "generally," "This is the chief reason", "that is all",―these words were repeated so monotonously that the "general idea" I got was that he was an ignoramus "in general" and a cheat in particulary that his chief reaon "for roving "generally" was to make money by playing on the anti-European prejudices of the Japanese and the world-wide patriotism of the Britisher. "That is all." He tried to defend the custom of early marriage by saying that, though the Hindoo girl is engaged at 7 or 8 years of age, she is not formally married until she has spent 5 years in worshipping the god of wisdom, and that she does not therefore assume the obligations of a wife until her 12th or 13th year. I should say that is early enough, in all conscience. To my unphilosophical mind, early marriage is an evil in India, as it is in Korea, and we may just as well own it and be done with it. The "general idea" which his scattered remarks gave me about the duty of a Hindoo girl may be summed up in the following words: Respect thy husband and worship the cows in whom the 330,000,000 gods live.
30
I was soon put to sleep but was awakened by the titter of Dr. Hardie and Mr. Gerdine, who were struggling hard to suppress laughter. I caught the infection and had to stuff my mouth with a handkerchief to keep back an unmannerly hilarity―I would be the last man in Korea to laugh at the broken English of a non-English foreigner, knowing full well that my English must be a source of amusement to others. But he had prepared me to expect something worth hearing, in style and substance, from a graduate of the Cambridge University.
31
The Japanese settlement has been making a kind of lion of the Indian visitor. It is very good of the Japanese.
32
Hear Yi Yong Ik has left Seoul for some parts unknown (?) under a Russian escort. His Majesty seems to be standing by his partner with creditable perseverance.
34
25th. (26th). Friday. Wonsan.
35
Had snow last night, thus making an ideal Christmas day, according to the English and others who dwell in the high latitudes.
36
Dined at Dr. Hardie's. Mrs. H. looked finer than she has been for a long while. The rooms were warm and the dinner good. Miss Carroll was trim and Miss Knowles, pretty. The Hardie girls were bright and the night starry and sharp. In spite of all that, I was bored and miserable and uneasy and internally came to the decision that if ever a lie is justifiable it is when you tell one in the absence of any real excuse to decline an invitation to a company you can not feel comfortable in.
38
31st. Wednesday. Windy. 38 degrees at 4 p.m.
39
Mercury has been ranging between 26 degrees in the morning of the 26th and 40 degrees at 12 or 4 p.m. the day before yesterday.
40
The notorious affair of Yi Yong Ik ended in his reinstatement in all his offices. The Prime Ministers, Yun Yong Sun, Sim Soon Taik, and Cho Byong Sei, with the younger breed of the degenerate yang-bans, had to climb down the anti-Yi attitude so fast as make one to wonder how these venerable N.G's could perform the feats without breaking their necks. The Official Gazette is as full, now, of their memorials of apology as it was some days ago bristlings with anti-traitor petitions. The methods which the Emperor employed to bring about this result are worthy of an unworthy monarch. He suborned a number of base parasites to memorialize against the anti-Yi ministers exposing their former misdeeds, or to set up false accusations of treasonable plots etc. The depth to which the moral degradation of the Boss and his slaves have reached is appalling.
41
The number of Imperial Grave keepers appointed in the single month of January of this year was 115; that of Privy Councilors, 81; that of "Chusas", 303. In the month of September the number of Chusas reached 755.
42
By means of despotism on one side and Confucian materialism on the other, the Korean's brain seems to have been pressed into little blocks of wood with a few crude ideas immovably buried in them like certain fowls embedded in petrified substances. No other supposition can satisfactorily explain the utter impenetrability of our brains to new ideas. It is positively impossible to make a Korean artisan, be he a painter or silversmith, to think out or learn a new design in his work. The nonchalance, nay, the insensibility to national shame, is another proof. The only art on which the Korean brain shows a remarkable degree of adaptability, resourcefulness and fertility is that of official squeezing and swindling. The Korean would have remained a Korean of today to the doomsday but for the new influences of the outside world, which will either break his brain of blocks of wood into dust or re-transform it into its original, impressionable substance.
43
Candler got a Japanese toy sword of tin. No sooner was he armed with the mighty weapon than he seriously proposed to go tiger hunting. In his childish imagination, he had already killed five tigers, which he distributed with childish generlosity. I was reminded of a scene I had witnessed over twenty-five years ago. The spacious 春塘坮, or Spring Lake Park, was alive with scholars from all parts of Korea for a national examination, or qua-ko. A greenhorn, surveying the teeming multitude, shouted, as only a greenhorn could shout, saying; "With such a mighty multitude of people, what have we to fear from a Japanese invasion?" I was then too young to know how far he was right or wrong. But now I am wiser, though no happier, than that countryman or Candler.
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