Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots; Or, Life in Korea

by Lillias H. Underwood

The most brilliant speaker at the great international conference in Tokio two years ago was unanimously by Japanese newspapers conceded to be a Korean, and an American told the writer that the grandest sermon he had ever listened to—and he had heard John Hall and the great Western divines—was preached in Korea by another Korean. The writer also recalls at this moment still two others who are capable of carrying any audience along enraptured, and whom she would not hesitate to rank with the best, most inspiring public speakers she has ever listened to.

We know many Koreans who have been given opportunity, environment, advantage, who have ability, energy, initiative and resource equal to that of the foremost Americans and Europeans. They are not, perhaps, par excellence, fighters like the Japanese or merchants like the Chinese. They have not the volatility and headlong impulsiveness of the one nor the stolid conservatism of the other, but they are the equals if not the superiors of either. Which of the three evolved an alphabet and a constitutional form of government?

This is the conscientious opinion of one who has known them for twenty years, closely, in every-day contact, through all sorts of circumstances, in city and country, and it is an opinion almost the opposite of that which was formed during the first years of acquaintance with them. It is the result of the developments of character seen in individuals and the nation. That they are friendly, hospitable, long-suffering, patient, any one who studies them without prejudice for a short time will admit, but those of us who know them best know that they have brilliant gifts and a high grade of intellectuality. The old simile of the rough diamond is a good one to apply to Koreans who seem perhaps worthless stones to the ignorant careless observer, but, when polished, they shine as brilliant jewels for the Redeemer’s crown.

Considerable space has been given to this question of Korean ability because much has been made of the other side, as an excuse for what might be thought otherwise inexcusable, and because it is right that the public should know they are not unworthy of its sympathy and interest. Nor should they be called cowardly because taken unaware by the rapid succession of cataclysmic political events which have whirled them along during the last few years. The “Morning Calm” is forever gone.

Korea has for many years been in a diplomatic way a sort of football between Japan, China and Russia, and in 1903 affairs were rapidly culminating toward the Russo-Japanese war. Yi Yong Ik, the Korean prime minister, who had then lately returned from Port Arthur and was zealously pro-Russian, like most of the court and officials, now began a series of attacks on Japanese interests.

Koreans had always regarded their neighbors on the East with the distrust which their not infrequent invasions warranted, and they believed that Russia, while she might invade, would not seek to Russianize; while she might plunder, would not colonize, or interfere at least more than incidentally or occasionally with personal right or private concerns as the others were almost certain to do.

Whenever trouble seemed brewing between Japan and other powers, whatever may have been the reason, the Korean government at least almost invariably went with the other side, and at this time Korea and her royal family counted a long score of injuries and wrongs from Japan.

The murder of their Queen, the cutting of the top-knots, and the hard and burdensome laws enacted at that time, the indignities the Emperor had suffered in practical confinement and the insults heaped upon the dead Queen could not be forgotten. On the other hand Russia had sheltered and protected the King on his escape, had favored his complete freedom of action even while he resided in her Legation, and when patriotic Koreans had complained that Russian influence was becoming too great, had withdrawn all the causes of complaint, removed her bank, and the obnoxious officials, favored the departure of the King to his own palace and left everything in the hands of the Koreans.

Such conduct, whatever its motive, could not but excite gratitude, and add to this the degree of certitude with which nearly the whole East awaited the speedy defeat of the Japanese by mighty, all-powerful Russia, it is not hard to see why the Korean government were so strongly pro-Russian.

This, then, by way of partial explanation of the attitude of Yi Yong Ik and the Korean court and government and in fact of a great many of the Korean people, though just here it may be said that multitudes of the Koreans with all the Americans and Europeans, except perhaps the French, were pro-Japanese, believing that they would prove the saviors of Korea from all-absorbing Russia, that reform and progress, good government and order would follow in their train, and warm were our good wishes and hearty the delight with which we witnessed Japanese successes at the opening of the war.