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1st. Tuesday. (11th of 11th Moon, Kyong-ja Year). Samwha
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On the whole a sunny day.
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Trust in God, and keep your powder dry.
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In the afternoon, received a telegram from home informing me that Father was today reappointed the Governor of South Chullado. I don't relish the news (1) because the absence of Father from Seoul deranges our family affairs. (2) Being thoroughly wedded to the ideals and principles of the corrupt "Yangbanarchy," the old gentleman regards strict integrity as a sign of mental disorder. His kindness of heart and common sense keep him from indulging in the unblushing corruption we see on every side; yet he would consider it a downright foolishness, if not a sin, to let go any gain, however irregular in its moral aspects, that maybe covered by the convenient but ungodly formula: "If I don't take it others will" or "Honesty doesn't pay in this world (Korea) of dishonesty." His subordinates, all too intent on making hay while the sun shines to think of the interest of their chief, are liable to lead him into speculations with the public fund and other customary but questionable practices which may cause him a great deal of annoyance. (3) His absence will embolden our―my―enemies in Seoul to maneuver against us without let or hindrance. All things considered, I wish my Father Didn't have to leave the Capital.
7
14th. (24th). Monday. Cloudy-mild.Chinnampo
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After a week of violent coughing in Samwha, I had to return to the Port on the 10th―a beautiful day. All the hills and fields are thickly mantled with deep snow which fell on the 4th and the 5th. On returning, I was delighted to read the home letters which Kang Chusa had brought.
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1. The Kim Sun Dal Pom or Mr. Kim the Tiger.―There lived a man named Kim Sun Dal in the magistracy of Jang-yon (長淵) in the Province of Whanghaido. By dint of hard study, Mr. Kim came near mastering the miraculous art of transforming himself into the shape of any animal that he cared to become. He made himself now a serpent then a cow and again something else. He was not, however, advanced far enough in the science to resume his human appearance without consulting the textbook. One day his wife, wondering at the strange sounds in his room, made a hole in the paper window with a wet finger and peeped through it. Her fright and amazement might well be imagined when she saw her husband turned into a big tiger. The last thing she noted before she ran into her room was a little book which the man-tiger put into the drawer of the desk. A minute later she heard the tiger going out. No sooner was he out of sight than the woman took out the magic book and burned it up. In the meantime Kim Sun Dal, now a veritable tiger, went about the hills and enjoyed the exquisite pleasure of seeing his friends and neighbors running away from him with all their might and main. In the evening he quietly returned home and opened the drawer to get the book in order to rehumanize himself. But, to his utter confusion and consternation, the book was no where to be found. He roared to his wife asking what she had done with the book. From away in her hiding place, the woman told him in a trembling voice that she had committed the haleful book to the flames.
11
The bridge over the gulf between man and beast being thus burned, Kim Sun Dal was doomed to live and die a tiger. He had to shun human habitations and seek shelter in mountains and forests. Now and then he was seen in his native village begging at the doors of his former friends, for a dog or a pig. Tigers becoming numerous, the magistrate of Jang-yon, some years ago, ordered a general tiger hunt. Kim Sun Dal-tiger, in order to escape from the general destruction, prayed his old friend, a Mr. Jung to save him. Jung hid the man-tiger under a big tree in his back yard, until the danger was over. The tiger died only about seven or eight years ago.
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Mr. Yi who told me the story showed no sign of doubt as to the absolute truth of the narration. "Everybody knows it in the Western part of Whanghai-do," said he to me. Well, I came near thinking that Yi had also learned the art of transformation and that his wife too had burned the magic book when he had made himself an ass.
13
The Crown Prince of Korea, in a memorial praying the Emperor to celebrate his 50th birthday, by adding some more honorific terms to his already long enough title―in fact, too long by forty li―assures His Majesty that he, the Emperor, excels in glorious achievements, civil or military, and in lofty virtues, private or public, all the great and good rulers that the world, ancient or modern, has known. He who swallows this princely statement needs not strain at the man-tiger story. The Emperor, in answer to his hopeful heir, said: "Nobody knows you better than I" (alluding to the proverb which goes: "Nobody knows the son better than his father") but you don't seem to know me. "An exquisite reply!"
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By the by, the title of His Majesty is composed of forty Chinese characters thus: 統天隆運肇極敦倫正聖光義明功大德堯峻舜徽禹謨湯敬應命立紀至化神烈巍勳洪業啓基宣曆大皇帝
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A Korean whose digestive organs have been vitiated by increasing doses of red pepper, comes to take heaping spoonfuls of it without much effect. So the diseased stomach of an oriental despot can bear bushels of flattery without being upset.
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A Maing Kam Yuk and Mr. Nam Jung Chul used to be great chums in childhood. When school boys together, they pledged each other in a written contract that either of them who became influential first should help the other in official advancement. Nearly half a century passed. In 1897, Nam Jung Chul, by the grace of Kim Hong Niuk, whose favors he had bought with bribes, flattery and sharing his concubine's bed with the powerful interpreter of the Russian Legation―in short by hook and crook―Nam became the Minister of the Home Department. Maing, now an old man of sixty, saw his chance had come. He called on the Minister, his old chum, once, twice and many times, but always a cold reception. Getting impatient, the old man one day, followed Nam to his antechamber, where he produced the written contract, begging His Excellency to make good his youthful pledge by securing him a position. The Minister angrily told the man that it was a nonsense, pure and simple, to expect anybody to redeem promises made in irresponsible boyhood. The old man more grieved than enraged, tore up the once precious document before Nam there and then, and left him for good after saying: "When we made the contract, did either of us know that you would be a Minister of State and I am supplicant at your feet, or that the vice versa might not have happened? I only wish I had known when a boy, the faithlessness of men."
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When the old man returned to his home in the Island of Kang Wha, he went about the village schools and wherever he met with a 童蒙先習 or Child's First Reader, he would draw writing brush across the sentence, “朋友有信” or Friends are or (should be) faithful one to another, saying that this might have been true in the days of old, but it is a stark lie in the present age.
18
Jong Soo Dong was a wit and a cynic in his day. There is many an anecdote about him. The one follwing is a good specimen: One day while he was smoking away his time in a friend's "sa-rang", a woman servant of the house ran to him with her features all spelling alarm and distress. "Sir," cried she, "please save my boy!" "What the deuce is the matter with your son?" calmly asked the old man. "Sir." said she, "he has swallowed a cash." "Whose money was it?" questioned the imperturbable cynic. "His own, sir," was the reply. "Well, woman," said he, "I guarantee that your boy will be all right. In this age when folks become healthy and wealthy by swallowing other people's money, it won't hurt anybody to swallow his own."
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22nd. Tuesday. Beautiful.
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Had a big snow yesterday, at least a foot deep. But the weather continues bright and warm. This Winter is said to be the mildest they have had since 1894.
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Now that my dear parents have left the Capital for Kuang-joo, my Darling must be practically alone in the Seoul house. But for my faith in her calm courage and patience, my anxiety for her might drive me crazy. God grant the sea may soon be free to voyage so that I may have my Darling and children come to me. What a fool I was not to bring them in last November!
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Read "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" with great interest. The dual nature of man, the predominance of his wicked half, the inability of his better self to assert its mastery as soon as the other has grown to maturity―this double existence of man is capitally brought out in the story. God knows I have my own Hyde―not so wicked and murderous and base as the one in the novel but bad enough to make me ashamed of him. Yet how unequal often the fight between him and my better self! I may theoretically doubt a personal fatherly God, but in practical life I realize my inability of getting along without looking up and praying to a God of Providence. Almighty God have mercy on me, sinner!
25
Tigers are causing trouble among the scattered villages of my district. So far no man hurt. In the night the beasts prowl about seeking stray pigs and dogs to devour. There are no hunters to take the field against the dangerous intruders. Only means of catching them are pits. Even this the people would not do―though the longer they let the tigers go about the greater is the danger to themselves. All this because, I am told, the custom of the country requires that a tiger caught becomes the booty of the magistrate while the hunter gets nothing for his pains and risks. I had to tell the people they need not fear my robbing them of any profit they may realize on catching a tiger.
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Some years ago, certain villagers caught a tiger at the expense of some 35 Yang. The magistrate seized the valuable property paying off the hunters with a few strings of cash! It would have been fairer if the villagers had shot the greedy magistrate instead of the animal. But then, the rascal wasn't worth the powder, I suppose.
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Official corruption goes on in full swing everywhere. In some―many―districts, while the legal tax per "Kyol(結) " is 50 Yang, 20 Yang are levied as the "pocket money(救獘錢) " of the magistrate besides 5 Yg. for "string money," or 繩串債, thus making 75 Yg. per Kyol. After all, this is not a heavy tax, if it were applied to proper uses―such as the improvement of roads, establishment of schools, developement of natural resources etc. But as the public funds are now squandered in frivolities and devilment, every cash the people pay is a dead loss.
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One of the ways that are dark by which Korean magistrate extorts money from a man reputed rich is the charge of filial disobedience (不孝) or fraternal unkindness (不悌) or sexual intercourse between relatives (相避) . A story goes the rounds to the effect that an enterprising magistrate of the district of Kang-Soh, some years ago, arrested a rich man for some unknown cause. The poor fellow, on being ordered to be beaten, prayed the "father of the people(民之父母) " that he might know his crime. "I hear," said the magistrate, "you have been a disobedient son to your parents." "Sir", exclaimed the man in tears, "I lost my parents in infancy and have not known the love of a father or mother all my life." "But," roared the official, "you are accused of being unkind to your brother and sisters." "Please Your Honor," groaned the prisoner, "it has been my life long regret that I have neither brothers nor sisters to share with me the sorrows and joys of life." The magistrate, like the proverbial wolf finding fault with a lamb, was not to be so lightly thrown off his track. With saying "you must know your own crime" 네죄 네 알니라, the man was locked up in jail. Of course the rich man knew his own crime―that is, he was better off than his neighbors. So he got himself free by paying the magistrate a certain sum of money, and went home determined, we may hope, to be more obedient to his parents whom he had never known; more affectionate to his brothers and sisters whom he never had; and more careful to look and live like a beggar who alone was safe from the ravenous official.
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The magistrate of Yong Kang, Yi Pom Suk, is fair specimen of the three hundred and sixty-odd magistrates who are now busily engaged in squeezing out the life of Korea. He, being a son-in-law of Mr. Min Yong Kyu (閔泳奎) , plundered the people under his tender care without fear. His extortions became so unbearable that the patient villagers started an insurrection last November. They held Yi a prisoner in his own Yamen, and demanded of him the money he had taken. A squad of Pyong Yang soldiers was ordered out to the afflicted district, and the poor villagers, with no other means of offensive or defensive warfare than clumsy sticks, were scattered at the point of the bayonet. The only punishment which the guilty magistrate got was the forfeiture of a month's salary!
30
An insurrection used to be the only means the people had of redressing their grievances. But now, thanks to the local garrisons, no popular rising is possible.
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