CHAPTER VI
An Audience at the Palace—Dancing Girls—Entertainment Given after the Audience—Printing the Dictionary and Grammar—A Korean in Japan—Fasting to Feast—Death of Mr. Davies—Dr. Heron’s Sickness—Mrs. Heron’s Midnight Ride—Dr. Heron’s Death—Difficulty in Getting a Cemetery Concession—Forced Return to America—Compensations—Chemulpo in Summer—The “Term Question” in China, Korea and Japan—Difficulties in the Work.
Early in the fall of 1889 I was invited to another audience at the palace, with some of the foreign state officials and their wives. After the audience a dinner was served, and later, a performance by dancing girls was given. And right here I must say, that although on several occasions at the palace I have seen dancing girls in these entertainments, I have never beheld anything at such times in their actions that was improper or even undignified. Their motions are graceful, usually slow, circling around hand in hand or in various combinations of pretty figures. They wear high-necked and long-sleeved jackets or coats, and long skirts, the figure quite concealed by the fashion of the dress. And yet, thus to appear in public, allowing their faces to be seen by strangers, is the gravest breach of propriety in the eyes of all Koreans, and these girls are, alas! as depraved as women can be. Like those of their class in all countries, they are the most pitiable and hopeless of women, but unlike those who have thrown themselves away, they deserve small blame mixed with the compassion one feels for them, for these poor girls have been sold by their parents into their awful lives, and were given no choice of their destiny. Many a poor little Korean child is sold into slavery for a few bags of rice, to be trained as a dancing girl, used as a common drudge, or married to a man she has never seen, while she is hardly larger than our little ones playing with their dolls in the nursery.
But to return to our palace entertainment, from which I have made a rather long digression. The guests were seated on the veranda, or “maru,” in front of the dining hall, and in the grounds before us appeared a pretty boat with wide spread sails, in which were seated some gaily dressed girls. Others now appeared, dancing to slow native music, a stately figure, almost in minuet fashion, with waving of flowing sleeves and banners. They were evidently the spirits of the wind, and the boat was waiting the favoring breeze. The music grew quicker, while faster and faster stepped the dancers, more and more swiftly fanning the sails with sleeves, skirts and scarfs, till at last the boat slowly moved forward, and with its attendants moved out of sight. When the boat had been thus gracefully fanned away, a couple of mammoth lotus plants were brought out, with great closed blossoms seen among the leaves.
Following them came a pair of gigantic storks, extremely well simulated. The birds came forward slowly, advancing, retreating, sideling, mincing, waiving their heads and long bills about, all in tune to the music, wavering and uncertain, yet evidently with some definite, not to be resisted, purpose in mind. At length, after long hesitation, one of them plucked up courage and gave a vigorous peck at a lotus bud, which forthwith burst open and released a pretty little child, who had been curled up at its heart. The other stork, with similar good fortune, discovered another little one. I was much interested to find this stork and baby myth here in Korea, centuries old; but those hoary nations of the East are ever reaching down into the apparently limitless depths of their remote past, and dragging forth some fresh surprise whereby to convince us there is nothing new under the sun.
Late in November of the same year we went to Japan to publish Mr. Underwood’s grammar and dictionary, as there were no means of printing such books in Seoul. In Japan we were forced to wait while type was made, and during this delay Mr. Underwood perfected the grammar, adding what is now the first part. A Korean teacher or scholar accompanied us, but great was his distaste for Japan and all her ways, and herculean our toils and efforts, as each steamer sailed to prevent his returning to Korea.
Rice is the staple article of food in China, Korea and Japan, but it is cooked and eaten differently in all three countries, and no one of either will, except under dire necessity, eat the rice prepared by one of the other nationalities. Our literary assistant was of the Yangban, or noble class, he had never soiled his hands in labor, or cooked anything for himself, but after enduring a Japanese hotel with many and doleful complaints for a very short time, he begged us to find him a room and let him keep house for himself. That a Yangban should make a proposition like this showed to what straits he had been brought, so we at once complied with his request, and from that time on he prepared his rice with his own gentlemanly hands. He was a Chinese scholar of fine attainments, and his learning was much respected in high Japanese circles. He was often invited out, and was distinguished by an invitation to the house of the governor of the city.
Now, when Koreans attend a feast, they expect to finish an incredible amount of food on the spot (nor is it altogether unusual, in addition, to carry away as much in their sleeves and hands as strength will permit). Sometimes they fast for several days previous in order to do full justice to the entertainment, and generally, I believe, quantity is considered of far more import than quality. Not so with the Japanese, among whom our teacher visited. If his word was to be believed, they had developed the æsthetic idea quite to the other extreme, and provided a few tiny cups and dishes of supposedly delicate and rare viands for their guests. So on this occasion to which I refer, it was almost pathetic, the poor Korean fasting to feast, with visions of quarts of rice and vermicelli soup, pounds of hot rice bread, nuts, fruits, fresh, dried and candied; meats with plenty of hot sauce, “kimchi,” or sauerkraut, etc., etc. Alack the day! A few microscopic cups of tea, a few tiny dishes of articles which knew not Korea (among them no doubt raw fish), and for the rest, a feast of reason and flow of soul. Next day, a wiser and a thinner man, he sadly told Mr. Underwood that he now understood why Japanese prospered, while Koreans grew poor. “Koreans,” said he, “earn a hundred cash a day and eat a thousand cash worth, while Japanese, on the contrary, earn a thousand cash a day and eat a hundred cash worth.” Never were truer words spoken, with regard to the Japanese at least. If these people have a virtue, which their worst enemies cannot gainsay, it is their industry and thrift.
Just what is the ordinary number of slight earthquakes in Japan per month or year, I do not know, but during the six months of our stay they averaged one every three days. During one twenty-four hours of our experience there were eleven. They were not, of course, severe, but sufficient to swing doors, set chandeliers clattering and rocking chairs in motion,, and to convince me more than once that the house was on the point of tumbling about our ears.
Just before we returned to Korea we were shocked to hear of the sudden death by smallpox of Rev. Mr. Davies, a brother greatly beloved in the Lord, who had arrived early the previous summer and had made phenomenal progress in the language, whose gifts and learning were unusual, but were all excelled by his spirituality and consecration. His zeal never permitted him to spare himself in the least. He seemed to link himself at once, heart to heart, with Mr. Underwood, and together they planned, studied, worked and prayed for the salvation of the people. It was as if death had entered our own family when news came of his loss, and a black pall seemed to lie across our path. We knew God does all things well, and his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts ours, and yet in the weakness of the flesh, which cannot see, with all those unsaved millions dying around us, we felt we could not spare Mr. Davies, and to us, to whom he had been confidant, sympathizer, counselor and friend, the personal loss was bitter. But we have learned that often when we think, or come in any way to feel that his cause depends on a man, God removes him, to teach us that his cause depends on no man, that he can bless the efforts of the weakest and poorest and feed five thousand from the basket of a little boy.