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1st. (16th of 3rd Moon). Last few days rainless and warm. Cloudy.
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The most distressing sight in the Korean capital is the shoals of hangers-on. Every “sarang”一especially of men of influence一is filled in and filled out from the earliest hour to the latest by men whose ambition, whole ambition, begins and ends in office. You may talk with them all day long and all night too; yet not a word worth hearing. Office is the only theme. They know well enough that it is a thousand, nay, ten thousand, against one that they may get an office; that the office, if secured, is not sufficient for livelihood; and that they may be turned out of the office anytime by more fortunate rivals. This knowledge does not daunt any from his pursuit of office. I have half a dozen of them on hand. They refuse to do anything. They waste the whole day and the whole month, the whole year, the whole decade, in begging for an office. Office being the object of such universal aspiration, no wonder Koreans are willing to submit to any disgrace or any slavery or to barter away any rights, private or national, to get an office. The system that has caused such a social degradation necessary ought to be wiped off the surface of this fair land.
4
This morning an office hunter complained that he had been wronged by the fact that he who had served a “Chusa” for 6 years in Mokpo was transferred to Seoul to a payless position. This was too much. I said, “Wronged!” Why many a man would have considered himself fortunate to have been a “Chusa” even for a year. Many who paid ruinous sums of money to get a first class magistracy, have been given 2nd or 4th place or sometimes nothing at all, for their money. Now you have been chusa for 4 years. The position is not your hereditary property. To be appointed to be dismissed or to be transferred is the common course of an official life. What “wrong” have you to complain of?
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3rd. A beautiful morning.
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The annual sacrifice to the spirits of the loyal dead at 獎忠壇 “The Altar for the Encouragement of Loyalty.” Enjoyed the place.
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Yi Yong Tai(李容泰) , one of the most corrupt men in the Korean yangbandom, appointed the Minister of 內部. He, with Cho Byong Kap, enjoys the enviable(in Korea) notoriety of driving or squeezing the people of Chulla-do into Tong Haks in 1893-1894. This damnable wretch has been of late an ass-iduous caller to the Japanese Legation. Result: the Minister of Home Department. Another 忠告 of the Japanese!
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4th. Rain from 2 or 3 a.m. Already rainy season.
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Hard for the poor people. Between a corrupt tyrant and the advisory Japanese bad enough for Korea without war and a famine! Koreans are severely punished for their blind and servile submission to tyrants.
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This bad government, this devastating war, this famine will, all have one result: viz., the poor Korean, in the South particularly and throughout Korea in general, will sell the invaluable farms and hills and homes for a mere song to Japanese.
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While Japan, leaping at one bound into the family of great powers of the world, is fighting the “battle of nations, while on the other hand the life of Korea as an independent country is suspended by a thread; while the North and Western Korea is being devastated by war and famine; while the South Korea is practically deserted by oppressed population, the Palace is engaged night after night in consulting fortunetellers, while the Ministers of State are busy in “biting” each other. Ex., Min Byong Suk, the Minister of Household “bites” Yi Ha Yong to the Emperor, because Yi had dismissed Min’s man from a position in the Forrign Office. Pak Ui Byong, the Japanite, “bites” Yi Ha Yong because the latter would not appoint Hong Sook Wook the Kamni of Sung-Chin. So the biting goes on acting and reacting, setting one man or a group of men against another. While, those childish dissensions and whisperings and backbitings and biting-backs are keeping the Palace and the government in constant wars and rumors of war, Japanese are gradually and steadily tightening their grasp on the very vitals of Korea.
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The Emperor is using his old tricks of setting his ministers one against another. There seems to be two parties, one Imperial party, the other pro-Japanese. The leading Mins are among the latter, while Yi H. Yong belongs to the former. Min Byung Suk, the Minister of Household, is pro-Japanese, but his ambition is to make money thereby and not to reform. He is in all kinds of dirty tricks.
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If there were one or two or ten or even a hundred or a thousand rotten men viz., any definite number of them, I may hope that they could be, one after one, got rid of. But the number is simply limitless. You can not turn to any side without stumbling on a whole nest of rotten eggs. Practically no hope to clean out the business except the fountain or source of stinking corruption be once and forever cleaned. But who will? Certainly not the Japanese who seem to have decided to keep up, not only, but encourage the rottenness in order to feast on the carcass of Korea.
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The vultures now fattening themelves on the stinking Koreans are not Korean only but Foreign too. The arch-devil Yi Yong Ik made all kinds of contracts with French adventurers. One of them is an instructor for making procelain ware. The other day the Emperor ordered him to make thirty pieces of plates of a ceartain design. The French asked for Yen 37,000 for making them!
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Yi In Yong, the interpreter of the French Legation, is deep in these wholesale robbery schemes. Is there God and such men as Yi In Yong, Hyon Sang Kun, Yi Hak Kiun, Min Yong Chul, Yi Kun Taik, Yi Yong Ik, Kil Yong Soo and a host of other villains have enjoyed and are enjoying their ill-gotten riches while those more innocent are their victims?
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Today the Japanese are celebrating their first decisive land victory over the Russians in the capture of Ku Ryon Sung the inst. Glorious Japanese! They invited high dignitaries or rather the indignitaries of the Korean Government, to a garden party in the Eastern Palace 昌德宮. When I went to the ( ) in the 後苑 of the Eastern Palace and saw the beautiful place full of Japanese exulting, I could not help tears filling the eyes. It was sad that the Emperor should have deserted such a beautiful palace to live in a den like the 賴寶軒; sadder still that his misgovernment has brought the country to shame and ruin; but saddest of all, that I find no hope for the future of Korea either in the Emperor or in the servile and corrupt minister of in the thrice dead mass. Sick in body and mind I came to Yong Do Su for a rest. Got here at 4:30 p.m. Feverish, chilly and thoroughly broken down.
25
Mr. Cho H.W. kindly brought meat etc., for a picnic. Back of the main temple, there is a valley with a stream murmuring its way through a sandy bed and over rocks, forming miniature falls here and there. There is not much grandeur or beauty in the scenery here; but the wooded hills, scanty but winding rills, and comparatively clean surroundings with quietness are a great relief to one sick of the venerable smells and vile sights and the unedifying chats of "politicians" of Seoul. Delighted with the scene, I said to Pak Sung Bin, "I wish the Ministers would spend a day or two every week in a place like this! Communing with nature may give them some wholesome inspirations such as can not be given by constant whisperings and intrigues." "I dont think so," said the young man. "If they get no higher ideals and stimulations from the sight of the wonders of civilization in a foreign country, do you expect them to become any better by seeing a few pines here?"
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11th. (26th of 3rd Moon). A week of fine days, but rain today.
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I have been quite unwell―feeling chilly every p.m.
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Father came to see me.
30
C.A. Henty makes a Spanish say during the Carlist War: "Society (the Spanish) is split up into a number of sections, each working secretly against the other. Outwardly there is no sign of this; everyone goes to receptions and looks smiling and pleasant. Practically everyone doubts everyone else; and there are numbers of well-known Carlists, but they hold their tongues, at any rate in public, and rub shoulders with the men whom they would gladly kill. I believe two-thirds of the people you meet don't care a snap which party wins. Altogether I consider that the Carlists are more in earnest; the Christinos are the more numerous simply because they hold the Capital and the government. If the Carlists were to gain one great success, it would be the other way." Substitute "pro-Russians" for "Carlists" and "Pro-Japanese" for "Christinos"; you have a perfect description of the Korean society of today.
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27th. Rain last night.
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I feel still weak after a spell of intermittent fever. The causes of my sickness.
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1. The rottenness of the P. Kicows no end. Unscrupulous villains, the special protégées of the Japanese like Hyon Yong Woon, Pak Ui Byong, etc. are running the government. Min Byong Suk, Yi Yong Tai, Kwon Joon Suk, Pak Yong Hwa, etc. etc. are under their Japanese masters, doing everything that one can think of to ruin the country.
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2. Russians in the North and West provinces commit outrages wherever they go. Their cursed tracks are marked with burnt villages, murdered women and children, destroyed fields. Fire and blood are Russians, favorite means of war. Beaten by Japanese, the savages wreck their impotent wrath on the helpless Koreans.
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3. In the southern Provinces, through which the Fusan Railroad runs, Japanese are treating Koreans pretty much as whites treated Indians in America years ago and still treat blacks in Africa at present. Japanese nominally buy but practically rob fields, forests, and houses of Koreans. If any resist their sweet will, they kick, beat and sometimes kill Koreans like dogs. Korean has no place to appeal to for protection. The Japanese professing to be fighting for the welfare of Korea, don't even disguise their well-known intention and policy of making Koreans their slaves.
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4. While all this is happening, the Emperor is busy in building palaces. He who whiles away his time in a couple of rooms with sorceresses and fortune-tellers,―he who has neither the wish nor time to see the light of the day or breathe a pure atmosphere outside of a heated antechamber,―he to whom might is day, corruption is joy, intrigue is life―this man wastes millions on millions, extorted from the accursed people of this accursed country, in building useless palaces only to be burnt down, or to be occupied by someone else.
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5. The Ministers are so many dummies doing nothing, nay, doing only such things as the Emperor or the Japanese bid them do, no matter how hurtful the measures may be to Korea.
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6. Japanese seem to have decided to do nothing in the way of reform until they shall have, through the corrupt and cowardly Emperor, obtained every source of interest in the country. When they feel satisfied―can a leech be satisfied?―that they have no more to get in the shape of concessions, they may, for the sake of appearance, blow trumpets about reformation etc. etc.
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7. Add to these, I have no room for undisturbed reading or writing or sleeping in my father's house. Oh, the unnameable smells in the house! The water is not fit to wash a stable much less to drink. The smells of sewers and gutters are sickening all around the house. I have asked Father to get a house in some cleaner locality, where we may get purer water and air. No, he would not do anything of the sort. Why should he? Is the water brackish? He―he alone―has a handful of sweet-water, so called, brought by a servant from some cleaner well. Is the air impure? Why, that is nonsense, for Koreans are breathing that kind of air all their lives, yet are able to live to a good old age. Are the surroundings dirty? That is no matter, for his room is clean. Besides I do think that the good old Gentleman firmly believes that filthy surroundings are especially blessed by the gods of wealth.
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8. The low selfishness, the low ambition, the low ideals of life―in fact everything is low in Korea, and Confucianism is largely responsible for this low and materialistic and gross and dirty standard of life in this country.
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9. Oppression, repression, and depression are the cornerstones of Korean life, political and domestic.
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10. Confucianism, by making the king the despot over the country; the father the despot over the family; the mother-in-law the despot over the daughters-in-law; the husband the despot over the wife; the man the despot over the woman; the master the despot over the slave, has succeeded in killing out all spirits of freedom and joy in the home and in the country. Confucianism may be called the hierarchy of despotism.
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11. I have no cheek to ask my boys to spell C-A-T and pronounce it k-a-t. Every time I do it, I feel like telling a piece of lie to them. No more can I have the cheek to tell them, or any children, that good is rewarded and evil punished. The whole course of events in Korea during the last 40 years belies anything of the kind.
45
I thought Yi Ha Yong, the present Minister of Foreign Office was a man of some blackbone. But his appointment of Hong Soon Wook to the Kamniship of Sung Chin, at the request of the Japanese is a disappointment to me.
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Why does a Korean seek after office and that alone? Because:
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1. Confucius has taught for centuries on centuries that it is the prime duty of a man to serve the sovereign in office. The sage himself wandered about like "the dog of the house in which a person had died," when he had no office for three consecutive months. He―not the dog but Confucius―teaches that a man can best serve the nation only in an office. Those outside of office may have no voice in the affairs of state. Men would rush for offices even if they were forbidden to hold offices by their religion. Then how much more men would seek office when they have the full sanction of what they believe to be the true religion or teaching?
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2. Office alone, in Korea, confers the mark of a gentleman on a person, honor, consideration, privileges are all invested in office alone.
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3. One gets a livelihood along the line of least resistance. He neither sows nor spins, but he is better fed and clothed than the toiling millions.
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4. Being in office is the only means of securing one's life and property. Nay more: it is the means of robbing the property, even the life, of others. This benefits, positive and negative, tempts all Koreans with an unquenchable thirst for office.
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5. In former days the lines of separation between the office-getting classes and common people were drawn tight and fast. But the tipsy-turby condition of the social demarcations has opened the gates of officialdom―the paradise to a Korean―to all who have either money or cheek or influence. Thus the market is entirely overcrowded, the supply of offices being very short of demand. Hence the shameful scramble after office. Like a lot of starring men rushing to a loaf of bread, the army of office hunters spares no pains and sticks to no principle in struggling for a position.
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For this condition of affairs, the imbecile and treacherous and abominable―is responsible.
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Ten years ago, when I went to the Japan Legation and saw that the situation of Korea was in the Japanese hands, I was sad. Today the situation is a hundredfold worse. Ten years ago, between the jarring factions, I had to steer my course by three principles alone―simplicity, straightforwardness and sincerity. Today I have to do the same; the factions are so numerous and ephemeral and dangerous. All being corrupt and corrupting, I can espouse none of them.
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The scurrilous quarrels and intrigues between ( ) and( ) , and their respective partisans are distressing to be hold as long as the pot of stinking stuff remains in the pot. No hope of getting rid of these maggots and that the keeping up the regime of corruption and oppress may serve Japanese purpose for the time being and would be injurious to the true interests of the two countries. Tukuki said he agreed with me that he regretted the attitude of the Japanese Legation; that Hayashi had intimated that no attempts should be made to introduce good government until all the principal sources of interests which might fall into the hands of other nationals shall have been secured by Japanese! Just as I thought! Hayashi is really a wolf in sheep's skin. All his promised of reform then, turn out to be lies. If Japanese continue this course of utter selfishness, they will drive, as they are driving, Koreans into anti-Japanese feelings and sooner or later Japan will regret it.
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29th. Exceptionally cool.
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At 7:30 p.m. went to the Japanese school to hear Reverend Honda and Mr. Ko-muchi 神鞭. The former urged the importance of educating a youth with due regards to his three old responsibilities: as a citizen, as the head of the family, and as a man. Public achievements, however brilliant, should not be an excuse for had character as an individual.
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The thought was wholesome throughout. But he lacked force and authority in tone and delivery. Mr. Ko-muchi was a better talker, though quite jingoistic. He said that though Confucianism, Buddihsm, and even Chritianity were imported into Japan from other countries, China, Korea and Europe, Japan had the credit of carrying into effect the teachings of these religions. The Emperor of Japan, he said, was in virtue and achievements, etc., equal if not superior to 堯舜禹湯文武周公, the ideal standard of princely qualities. In conclusion he told the audience that the best thing in the education of Japanese youths was to revere and worship the Mikado as god. The talk reminded me of the cries of the Ephesian silver smiths; "Great is the Diana of Ephesus."
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