Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

From an American or British point of view, there was little trade done between the two countries, but on the strength, of even [[150]]this small amount, Earl Russell, in 1862, tried to get Great Britain included as a co-trader between Japan and Corea. He was not successful. Provision was also made for those who might be cast, by the perils of the sea, upon the shore of either country. At the expense of the Yedo government a Chō-sen Yashiki (Corean House), was built at Nagasaki. From whatever part of the Japanese shores the waifs were picked up, they were sent to Nagasaki, fed and sheltered until a junk could be despatched to Fusan. These unfortunates were mostly fishermen, who, in some cases, had their wives and children with them. It was from such that Siebold obtained the materials for his notes, vocabulary, and sketches in the Corean department of his great Archiv.

The possession of Fusan by the Japanese was, until 1876, a perpetual witness of the humiliating defeat of the Coreans in the war of 1592–1597, and a constant irritation to their national pride. Their popular historians, passing over the facts of the case, substitute pleasing fiction to gratify the popular taste. The subjoined note of explanation, given by Dallet, attached to a map of Corea of home manufacture, thus accounts for the presence of the foreigners. The substance of the note is as follows: During the sixteenth century many of the barbarous inhabitants of Tsushima left that island, and, coming over to Corea, established themselves on the coast of Corea, in three little ports, called Fusan, Yum, and Chisi, and rapidly increased in numbers. About five years after Chung-chong ascended the throne, the barbarians of Fusan and Yum made trouble. They destroyed the walls of the city of Fusan, and killed also the city governor, named Ni Utsa. Being subdued by the royal troops, they could no longer live in these ports, but were driven into the interior. A short time afterward, having asked pardon for their crimes, they obtained it and came and established themselves again at the ports. This was only for a short time, for a few years afterward, a little before the year 1592, they all returned to their country, Tsushima. In the year 1599 the king, Syen-cho, held communication with the Tsushima barbarians. It happened that he invited them to the places which they had quitted on the coast of Corea, built houses for them, treated them with great kindness, established for their benefit a market during five days in each month, beginning on the third day of the month, and when they had a great quantity of merchandise on hand to dispose of he even permitted them to hold it still oftener.

This is a good specimen of Corean varnish-work carried into [[151]]history. The rough facts are smoothed over by that well-applied native lacquer, which is said to resemble gold to the eye. The official gloss has been smeared over more modern events with equal success, and even defeat is turned into golden victory.

Yet, with all the miseries inflicted upon her, the humble nation learned rich lessons and gained many an advantage even from her enemy. The embassies, which were yearly despatched to yield homage to their late invaders, were at the expense of the latter. The Japanese pride purchased, at a dear rate, the empty bubble of homage, by paying all the bills. We may even suspect that a grim joke was practised upon the victors by the vanquished. Year by year they swelled the pomp and numbers of their train until, finally, it reached the absurd number of four hundred persons. With imperturbable effrontery they devastated the treasury of their “Tycoon.” To receive an appointment on the embassy to Yedo was reckoned a rich sinecure. It enabled the possessor to enjoy an expensive picnic of three months, two of which were at the cost of the entertainers. Landing in Chikuzen, or Hizen, they slowly journeyed overland to Yedo, and, after their merrymaking in the capital, leisurely made their jaunt back again. For nearly a century the Yedo government appeared to relish the sensation of having a crowd of people from across the sea come to pay homage and bear witness to the greatness of the Tokugawa family. In 1710 a special gateway was erected in the castle at Yedo to impress the embassy from Seoul, who were to arrive next year, with the serene glory of the shō-gun Iyénobu. From a pavilion near by the embassy’s quarters, the Tycoon himself was a spectator of the feats of archery, on horseback, in which the Coreans excelled. The intolerable expense at last compelled the Yedo rulers to dispense with such costly vassalage, and to spoil what was, to their guests, a pleasant game. Ordering them to come only as far as Tsushima, they were entertained by the So family of daimiōs, who were allowed by the “Tycoon” a stipend in gold kobans for this purpose.

A great social custom, that has become a national habit, was introduced by the Japanese when they brought over the tobacco plant and taught its properties, culture, and use. The copious testimony of all visitors, and the rich vocabulary of terms relating to the culture, curing, and preparation of tobacco show that the crop that is yearly raised from the soil merely for purposes of waste in smoke is very large. In the personal equipment of every [[152]]male Corean, and often in that of women and children, a tobacco pouch and materials for firing forms an indispensable part. The smoker does not feel “dressed” without his well-filled bag. Into the forms of hospitality, the requisites of threshold gossip and social enjoyment, and for all other purposes, real or imaginary, which nicotine can aid or abet, tobacco has entered not merely as a luxury or ornament, but as a necessity.

Another great change for the better, in the improvement of the national garb, dates from the sixteenth century, and very probably from the Japanese invasion. This was the introduction of the cotton plant. Hitherto, silk for the very rich, and hemp and sea grass for the middle and poorer classes, had been the rule. In the north, furs were worn to a large extent, while plaited straw for various parts of the limbs served for clothing, as well as protection against storm and rain. The vegetable fibres were bleached to give whiteness. Cotton now began to be generally cultivated and woven.

It is true that authorities do not agree as to the date of the first use of this plant. Dallet reports that cotton was formerly unknown in Corea, but was grown in China, and that the Chinese, in order to preserve a market for their textile fabrics within the peninsula, rigorously guarded, with all possible precautions, against the exportation of a single one of the precious seeds.

One of the members of the annual embassy to Peking, with great tact, succeeded in procuring a few grains of cotton seed, which he concealed in the quill of his hat feather. Thus, in a manner similar to the traditional account of the bringing of silk-worms’ eggs inside a staff to Constantinople from China, the precious shrub reached Corea about five hundred years ago. It is now cultivated successfully in the peninsula in latitude far above that of the cotton belt in America, and even in Manchuria, the most northern limit of its growth.

It is evident that a country which contains cotton, crocodiles, and tigers, cannot have a very bleak climate. It seems more probable that though the first seeds may have been brought from China, the cultivation of this vegetable wool was not pursued upon a large scale until after the Japanese invasion. Our reasons for questioning the accuracy of the date given in the common tradition is, that it is certain that cotton was not known in Northern China five hundred years ago. It was introduced into Central China from Turkestan in the fourteenth century, though known in the extreme [[153]]south before that time. The Chinese pay divine honors to one Hwang Tao Po, the reputed instructress in the art of spinning and weaving the “tree-wool.” She is said to have come from Hainan Island.

Though cotton was first brought to Japan by a Hindoo, in the year 799, yet the art of its culture seems to have been lost during the long civil wars of the middle ages. The fact that it had become extinct is shown in a verse of poetry composed by a court noble in 1248. “The cotton-seed, that was planted by the foreigner and not by the natives, has died away.” In another Japanese book, written about 1570, it is stated that cotton had again been introduced and planted in the southern provinces.