Part 2 (1/2)
The people in Korea nearly all dress in white no matter what their work may be. Men and women dress much alike. A curious custom among married women is the wearing of waists that expose the entire naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
This is all but beautiful and as some one says, gives the appearance of a shocking show window. The theory is, so they say, that to cover the b.r.e.a.s.t.s is to poison the milk. No man really amounts to much in Korea until after he is married, but that is largely true in our country.
There, however, silence is the wife's first duty. Marriage customs are much like those in j.a.pan where parents make the matches. It is said that often the husband never hears the voice of his wife until after marriage and even then she keeps silent for as long as a month.
The Korean people have some happy times together in spite of some of these strange customs. One of their national festival days is called ”Swing day.” Swings are prepared nearly everywhere and people drop their work and swing. The Koreans are different from any other people in the far east and when they play they play with all their might. Men and boys love to hunt the swimming holes along the streams and they seem to enjoy this sport as do our own men and boys in America.
While Korea has been a battleground for ages yet it was opened up to modern civilization by j.a.pan something like America, through Commodore Perry, opened up j.a.pan. Later on Korea paid tribute to China. The great crisis came in 1894 when the battle royal was waged between j.a.pan and China for this land. On September 15th of that year a great battle occurred on land and two days later, in the mouth of the Yala River occurred what is said to be the first great naval battle of history in which modern wars.h.i.+ps were used. In this battle the Chinese fleet went to the bottom of the sea and soon Port Arthur was besieged and taken and the j.a.panese army started across the country with the cry, ”On to Peking.” This opened the eyes of the Chinese and Korea was surrendered and was practically annexed by j.a.pan and its name changed to Chosen.
Since that time Korean civilization has gone forward by leaps and bounds and is fast becoming a country that has to be reckoned with. The story of j.a.pan's dealings with Korea during these years contains some mighty dark spots. These things have aroused the indignation of the whole civilized world and the end is not yet.
To plant the seed of Christianity on Korean soil has required a great effort and the story of the transformation of this nation that has occurred within the past forty years is as thrilling as can be found in the history of modern missions. It was the pleasure of the writer to travel to the far east with one who has been on the field in Korea for twenty-five years. Thirteen of these years were spent in the city of Pyeng Yang which became the scene of one of the greatest revivals in all the history of the Christian church.
At the time that Mr. and Mrs. Swallen, who were sent as missionaries by the Presbyterian church (Mrs. Swallen was my traveling companion), to Pyeng Yang, it was said to be the most wicked city in Korea. So frightful were the conditions that boys in their play would often drag the corpse of a person who had died during the night through the streets the next day, unmolested. It is almost impossible to believe the story of things that occurred almost daily in this city.
The first building of the mission was but eight feet square, not much larger than a storebox. As at that time men and women were always separate in public gatherings, the men met at one hour and the women at another. Soon the building was doubled in size. When the Swallen's took charge the mission was called the Central church. Then came the great revival wave and the church grew to a great congregation. A new building seating between five and six hundred was erected and before it was finished it was too small. About one hundred members then withdrew to form another congregation in another part of the city. A little later another hundred started still another congregation.
As the Central church building was even yet far too small they erected a great building that will seat two thousand. The interest was so great that other congregations had to be formed and at the time Mrs. Swallen told me this wonderful story, out from this little store-box mission seven great congregations had been formed in different parts of the city. Besides this the movement spread to the country and nearly thirty congregations had grown from this central mission.
Then came the great revival of 1910 which attracted so much attention.
These people started the cry, ”A million converts in one year.” The work was systematized. Bible cla.s.ses were formed and every Christian became a real missionary. Volunteers were called for, who could give one or more days to the work. Nearly everyone volunteered and during the first three months it was estimated that seventy-five thousand days of personal work was promised. Great earnestness and enthusiasm were manifest everywhere.
The pastor of this Central church and one of his elders formed the habit of going to the church every morning at dawn for prayer. This soon became known and others wished to join them. One Sunday morning the pastor announced that all who wished to do so might join them the following morning and the bell would be rung at four thirty. At one a.
m. the people began gathering and at two o'clock more than one hundred were present. For four mornings these meetings were kept up and between six and seven hundred were present each morning. On the fourth morning the pastor asked how many would give one or more days of service and every hand went up, more than three thousand days work being promised.
The secret of this mighty revival seems to have been caused by the study of the Bible and prayer. Everyone carried a New Testament. Bible training cla.s.ses were formed and sometimes two thousand men actually gathered to study the Bible. In the churches in Korea, even yet men and women sit apart from each other. A pet.i.tion divides the building but both men and women can see the minister. Men keep their hats on in church, but all, both men and women, take off their shoes before entering. To see these shoes, or clogs, is quite a sight. They are placed in racks made for that purpose, each having their own particular place in the rack.
As might be expected trouble over shoes is not unheard of. Some of the women who are not over scrupulous sometimes take the best pair of shoes.
In fact this custom became so universal that the women were taught to make and carry with them to church a small muslin bag. On reaching the church the women now take off their shoes, place them in the bag, and take them into the building with them. All, both men and women, sit on the floor. In some of the churches now small mats are piled high at the door and each takes one of these to sit on. One remarkable feature of these Korean churches is that each church is self-supporting from the beginning. Instead of leaning upon others they are taught to depend upon themselves.
The World's Sunday School Convention was recently held in Tokyo. A significant thing about the invitation cabled to this country for this convention was the fact that it was signed by j.a.pan's leading captain of industry and the Mayor of Tokyo as well. A Business Man's Sunday School Party had toured both j.a.pan and Korea before this, however. In almost every one of the forty cities visited this party was met by governors, mayors, chambers of commerce, boards of education, railroad officials, as well as Christian workers and the friendly att.i.tude of j.a.pan toward America was manifest in every possible way, at the very time too when the California legislature was stirring up so much trouble between the two nations.
But the greatest demonstration of all on this entire trip was that made in Seoul, Korea. The day was perfect. The great throng marched to the parade grounds, a Sunday school banner leading the way. Only members of Sunday schools and officials were admitted and fourteen thousand seven hundred Sunday school workers, by actual count, went into the grounds.
It is said that the j.a.panese officials who for the first time witnessed an array of the Sunday school forces of Seoul looked troubled. It was in the month of May and the bushes of the old palace yard were abloom in white and red. As the great mult.i.tude sang the Christian hymns in the Korean language the very buildings almost trembled.
CHAPTER V
A GREAT UNKNOWN LAND--MANCHURIA
Of all the lands in eastern Asia perhaps the least is known about Manchuria of any of them. And yet one of the finest sleeping cars I ever traveled in was on the South Manchurian railway. I had a large roomy compartment to myself. In it was a comfortable bed, or berth, a folding washstand and writing desk, electric fan, and various other conveniences. While this was an eastern model sleeper, an American pullman was also attached to the train for those who preferred it.
For two hundred and seventy years the Manchurians furnished the rulers for the whole Chinese Empire. The Empress Dowager was a Manchu. Born in a humble home, at the age of sixteen she became a concubine of the Emperor. She was so diligent in study and self-improvement that she was elevated to the position of first concubine and later became the mother of the Emperor's son and was raised to the position of wife. When her son was but three years of age the Emperor died and she swept aside all aspirants to the throne, placed her son upon it with herself as regent until he was of age. For forty-seven years, in a country where women had scarcely any power, this marvelous woman ruled one-fourth of the human race.
Manchuria is a little larger than the combined area of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. It is located at the northeast of China and until recently formed a part of the Chinese Empire. While nearly all kinds of grain and vegetables are grown, the one great staple crop of Manchuria is the soybean. Think of growing two million tons of these beans per year! Before the war Manchurian beans were s.h.i.+pped all over the world. In a Manchurian city I asked a business man to tell me the chief sights of the city and he said: ”We have nothing here but bean mills. It is beans, beans, beans.” In the hills and mountains nearly all kinds of wild beasts are found. The Manchurian tiger is perhaps most dreaded of all.
Perhaps the best known place in Manchuria is Port Arthur. Years ago the Chinese had what they believed to be an impregnable fortress in Port Arthur, but the wily j.a.panese battered it down in twenty-four hours.
Later on the Russians got it and worked seven years on the fortifications and gun emplacements and really felt that they had it secure. Although the forts were built on the Belgian plan and Port Arthur was as secure as Antwerp, yet the unconquerable j.a.panese took it with a loss of only a thousand or fifteen hundred men. Nature has been kind to Port Arthur by throwing up the mountains of ”The Chair,” ”The Table,” and the ”Lion's Mane,” but the best defense that nature provides has to give way before the genius of the human brain.