Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1911 — WOMAN ON A JUNKET [ARTICLE]

WOMAN ON A JUNKET

Korean Party Breaks Ail Records by Crossing Sea.

i Expedition Planned by Japanese Masters as Little Journey of Enlightenment for Fifty-Odd Yangbans— They Believed Everything.

New York.—When a Korean woman 70 years old consents to take her first ride on a railroad train there is opportunity for marveling among her country men and women. But when that Korean grandmother goes all the way to Tokyo, across the sea ahd in the land of the conquerors, the Korean conservatives may well shake his heads and prophesy that soon the stars will begin to fall, says a correspondent of the Sun.

Such a trip was taken recently by such a daring old lady of Chosen, and not only that but there were many Korean ladles of younger years with her. The Japanese looked upon the excursion as a good augury of the breaking down of Korean prejudice and the acceptance by them of the new regime of Japanese suzerainty. The papers of Tokyo were filled with the most intimate details of the doings and sayings of this unusual band of pilgrims. The expedition was planned by the Japanese masters in Seoul as a little journey of enlightenment for fifty-odd Korean yangbans. or scholars of leisure. who had recently been In receipt of new titles in the peerage of Korea and who were supposed to be thoroughly reconciled to the absorption of their land by the conquerors from the eastern Island. The party was headed by the junior Prince O Li, the eldest son of the last shadow emperor of Korea, and the Countess Y 1 Chyong, one of the ladies of the old court, set the fashion for her more shrinking sisters by announcing herself aa one of the party. The expedition set out from Seoul on October 14, so as to be present In Tokyo when the celebration of the birthday of the emperor of Japan should oocur. early in November. For nearly all of the women In the party a railroad Journey and the croseln« of the seas in a steamship wae a

new and somewhat terrifying adventure. The high caste women of Korea have hitherto been subjected to a seclusion even more * rigorous than the women of China. They never ventured in the streets in the daytime unless behind the closed curtains of a palanquin, and to make their appearance in any public place was considered a thing so unseemly as to merit ostracism, even divorce.

But acording to the statements made by several of the women in the Imperial junket and set forth glowingly in the Japanese press, the world beyond the women’s quarter of a house in Seoul was very marvelous. Why, the Korean ladles even heard It said In Tokyo that away off beyond the rim of the eastern ocean men with wings flew above the earth. That, of course, was a Japanese joke.

The Tokyo papers did not neglect to say that among the party was Ming Chhong-sik, reformed “bandit.” A bandit In Korea, according to Japanese understanding, is a man who resents the invasion of his country by taking his old muzzle-loading tiger gun, retiring to the mountains and sniping Japanese whenever the opportunity offers. This Ming had been a leader In the Wlpyon or the righteous army of the Insurrection In 1906, and before he had been caught and condemned to death he had killed many of his country’s enemies. The death sentence had been commuted to banishment, and it was only after the general amnesty had been proclaimed upon the complete overthrow of Korean Independence that Ming had dared go back to his country. Ming Is quoted as having pleaded with the Japanese governor-general of Choaen, the Japanese name of the new province, to be allowed to join the excursion in order that he “might see with hia own eyes the civilisation and progress of the empire of which Chosen has now become a part”