The "Top-knot" - The Korean Hegira
THE year 1896 opened for Korea in a gloom as profound as that in which the previous year had closed. There were small insurrections in all quarters, various officials were killed, and some of the rebels threatened to march on the capital. Japanese influence declined, Japanese troops were gradually withdrawn from the posts they had occupied, the engagements of many of the Japnese advisers and controllers in departments expired and were not renewed, some of the reforms instituted by Japan during the period of her ascendency died a natural death, there was a distinctly retrograde movement, and government was disintegrating all over the land.
The general agitation in the country and several of the more serious of the outbreaks had a cause which, while to our thinking it is ludicrous, shows as much as anything else the intense conservatism of pung-kok or custom which prevails among the Koreans. The cause was an attack on the "Top-Knot" by a Royal Edict on 30th December 1895! This set the country afla! The Koreans, who had borne on the whole quietly the ascendency of a hated power, the murder of their Queen, and the practical imprisonment of their King, found the attack on their hair more than they could stand. The top-knot is more to a Korean than the queue is to a Chinese. The queue to the latter may be a sign of subjugation or of loyalty to the Government and that is all, and the small Chinese boy wears it as soon as his hair is long enough to plait.
To the Korean the Top-Knot means nationality, antiquity (some say of five centuries, others of 2000 years), sanctity derived from antiquity, entrance on manhood socially and legally, even though he may be a child in years, the assumption of two names by which in addition to his family name he is afterwards known, and by which he is designated on the ancestral tablets, marriage is intimately bound up with it, as is ancestral worship, and as has been mentioned in the chapter on marriage, a Korean without a Top-Knot, even if in middle life, can only be treated as a nameless and irresponsible boy. In a few cases a Korean, to escape from this stage of disrespect, scrapes together enough to pay for the Top-Knot ceremonies and the mang-kun, hat, and long coat, which are their sequence, though he is too poor to support a family, but the Top-Knot in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is only assumed on marriage, without which the wearer has the title of "a half-man" bestowed on him!
The ceremonies at the "investiture of the Top-Knot" deserve a brief notice as among the most important of the singularities of the nation. When the father and family have decided that a boy shall be "invested," which in nearly all cases is on the verge of his marriage, men's clothes, the hat, mang-kun, etc., are provided to the limits of the family purse, and the astrologers are consulted, who choose a propitious day and hour for the ceremony, as well as the point of the compass which the chief actor is to face during its progress. The fees of the regular astrologer are very high, and in the case of the poor, the blind sorcerer is usually called in to decide on these important points.
When the auspicious day and hour arrive the family assembles, but as it is a family matter only, friends are not invited. Luck and prosperity and a number of sons are essential for the Master of the Ceremonies. If the father has been so blessed he acts as such, if not, an old friend who has been more lucky acts for him. The candidate for the distinction and privileges of manhood is placed in the middle of the room, seated on the floor, great care being taken that he faces the point of the compass which has been designated, otherwise he would have bad luck from that day forward. With much ceremony and due deliberation the Master of the Ceremonies proceeds to unwind the boy's massive plait, shaves a circular spot three inches in diameter on the crown of his head, brings the whole hair up to this point, and arranges it with strings into a firm twist from two and a half to four inches in length, which stands up from the head slightly forwards like a horn. The mang-kun, fillet, or trownless skull-cap of horse-hair gauze, coming well down over the brow, is then tied on, and so tightly as to produce a permanent groove in the skin, and headaches for some time. The hat, secured by its strings, is then put on, and the long wide coat, and the boy rises up a man. The new man bows to each of his relations in regular order, beginning with his grandfather, kneeling and placing his hands, palms downward, on the floor, and resting his forehead for a moment upon them.
He then offers sacrifices to his deceased ancestors before the ancestral tablets, lighted candles in high brass candlesticks being placed on each side of the bowls of sacrificial food or fruit, and, bowing profoundly, acquants them with the important fact that he has assumed the Top-Knot. Afterwards he calls on the adult male friends of his family, who for the first time receive him as an equal, and at night there is a feast in his honour in his father's house, to which all the family friends who have attained to the dignity of Top-Knots are invited.
The hat is made of fine "crinoline" so that the Top-Knot may be seen very plainly through it, and weighs only an ounce and a half. It is a source of ceaseless anxiety to the Korean. If it gets wet it is ruined, so that he seldom ventures to stir abroad without a waterproof cover for it in his capacious sleeve, and it is so easily broken and crushed, that when not in use it must be kept or carried in a wooden box, usually much decorated, as obnoxious in transit as a lady's band-box. The keeping on the hat is a mark of respect. Court officials appear in the sovereign's presence with their hats on, and the Korean only takes it off in the company of his most intimate friends. The mang-kun is a fixture. The Top-Kot is often decorated with a bead of jade, amber, or turquoise, and some of the young swells wear expensive tortoise-shell combs as its ornaments. There is no other single article of male equipment that I am aware of which plays so important a part, or is regarded with such reverence, or is clung to so netaciously, as the Korean Top-Knot.
On an "institution" so venerated and time-honoured, and so bound up with Korean nationality (for the Koren, though remarkably destitute of true patriotism, has a strongly national instinct), the decree of the 30th of December 1895, practically abolishing the Top-Knot, fell like a thunderbolt. The measure had been advocated before, chiefly by Koreans who had been in America, and was known to have Japanese support, and had been discussed by the Cabinet, but the change was regarded with such disgust by the nation at large that the Government was afraid to enforce it. Only a short time before the decree was issued, three chief officers of the Kun-ren-tai entered the Council Chamber with drawn swords, demanding the instantaneous issue of an edict making it compulsory on every man in Government employment to have his hair cropped, and the Ministers, terrified for their lives, all yielded but one, and he succeeded for the time in getting the issue of it delayed till after the Queen's funeral. Very shortly afterwards, however, the King, practically a prisoner, was compelled to endorse it, and he, the Crown Prince, the Tai-Won-Kun, and the Cabinet were divested of their Top-Knots, the soldiers and police following suit.
The following day the Official Gazette promulgated a degree, endorsed by the King, announcing that he had cut his hair short, and calling on all his subjects, officials and commn people alik, to follow his example and identify themselves with the spirit of progress which had induced His Majesty to take this step, and thus place his country on a footing of equality with the other nations of the world!
translation
- The present cropping of the hair being a measure both advantageous to the preservation of health and convenient for the transaction of business, our sacred Lord the King, having in view both administrative reform and nationas aggrandisement, has, by taking the lead in his own person, set us an example. All the subjects of Great Korea should respectfully conform to His Maesty's purpose, and the fashion of their clothing should be as set forth below:--
- During national mourning the hat and clothing should, until the expiration of the term of mourning, be white in colour as before.
- The fillet (mang-kun) should be abandoned.
- There is no objection to the adoption of foreign clothing.
- (Signed) YU-KIL CHUN,
- Acting Home Minister.
- 11th moon, 15th day.
No. 2
- In the Proclamation which His Majesty graciously issued to-day (11th moon, 15th day) are words, "We, in cutting Our hair, are setting an example to Our subjects. Do you, the multitude, identify yourselves with Our design, and cause to be accomplished the great work of establishing equality with the nations of the earth."
- At the time of reform such as this, when we humbly peruse so spirited a proclamation, among all of us subjects of Great Korea who does not weep for gratitude, and strive his utmost? Earnestly united in heart and mind, we earnestly expect a humble conformite with His Majesty's purposos of reformation.
- (Signed) YU-KIL CHUN
- Acting Home Minister
- 504th year since the founding of the Dynasty, 11th moon, 15th day.
Among the reasons which rendered the Top-Knot decree detestable to the people were, that priests and monks, who, instead of being held in esteem, are regarded generally as a nuisance to be tolerated, wear their hair closely cropped, and the Edict was believed to be an attempt instigated by Japan to compel Koreans to look like Japanese, and adopt Japanese customs. So strong was the popular belief that it was to Japan that Korea owed the denationalising order, that in the many places where there were Top-Knot Riots it was evidenced by overt acts of hostility to the Japanese, frequently resulting in murder.
The rural districts were convulsed. Officials even of the highest rank found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. If they cut their hair, they were driven from their lucrative posts by an infuriated populace, and in several instances lost their lives, while if they retained the Top-Knot they were dismissed by the Cabinet. In one province, on the arrival from Seoul of a newly-appointed mandarin with cropped hair, he was met by a great concourse of people ready for the worst, who informed him that they had hitherto been ruled by a Korean man, and would not endure a "Monk Magistrate," on which he prudently retired to the capital.
All through the land there were Top-Knot complexities and difficulties. Countrymen, merchants, Christian catechists, and others, who had come to Seoul on business, and had been shorn, dared not risk their lives by returning to their homes. Wood and country produce did not come in, and the price of the necessaries of life rose seriously. Many men who prized the honour of entering the Palace gates at the New Year feigned illness, but were sent for and denuded of their hair. The click of the shear was heard at every gate in Seoul, at the Palace, and at the official residences; even servants were not exempted, and some of the Foreign Representatives were unable to present themselves at the Palace on New Year's Day, because their chairmen were unwilling to meet the shears. A father poisoned himself from grief and humiliation because his two sons had submitted to the decree. The foundations of social order were threatened when the Top-Knot fell!
People who had had their hair cropped did not dare to venture far from Seoul lest they should be exposed to the violence of the rural population. At Chun Chhön, 50 miles from the capital, when the Governor tried to enforce the ordinance, the people rose en masse and murdered him and his whole establishment, afterwards taking possession of the town and surrounding country. As policemen with their shears were at the Seoul gates to enforce the decree on incomers, and peasants who had been cropped on arriving did not dare to return to their homes, prices rose so seriously by the middle of January 1896, that "trouble" in the capital was expected, and another order was issued that "country folk were to be let alone at that time."
Things went from bad to worse, till on the 11th of February 1896 the whole Far East was electrified by a sensational telegram--"The King of Korea has escaped from his Palace, and is at the Russian Legation."
On that morning the King and Crown Prince in the dim daybreak left the Kyeng-pok Palace in closed box chairs, such as are used by the Palace waiting-women, passed through the gates without being suspected by the sentries, and reached the Russian Legation, the King pale and trembling as he entered the spacious suite of apartments which for more than a year afterwards offered him a secure asylum. The Palace ladies who arranged the escape had kept their counsel well, and had caused a number of chairs to go in and out of the gates early and late during the previous week, so that the flight failed to attract any attention. As the King does much of his work at night and retires to rest in the early morning, the ever-vigilant Cabinet, his gaolers, supposed him to be asleep, and it was not until several hours later that his whereabouts became known, when the organisation of a new Cabinet was progressing, and Korean dignitaries began to be summoned into the Royal presence.
The King, on gaining security, at once reassumed his long-lost prerogatives, which have never since been curbed in the slightest degree. The irredeemable Orientalism of the two following proclamations which were posted over the city within a few hours of his escape warrants their insertion in full:--
ROYAL PROCLAMATION
Translation
- Alas! alas! on account of Our unworthiness and mal-administration the wicked advanced and the wise retired. Of the last ten years, none has passed without troubles. Some were brought on by those We had trusted as the members of the body, while others, by those of Our own bone and flesh. Our dynasty of five centuries has thereby been often endangered, and millions of Our subjects have thereby been gradually impoverished. These facts make Us blush and sweat for shame. But these troubles have been brought about through Our partiality and self-will, giving rise to rascality and blunders leading to calamities. All have been Our own fault from the first to the last.
Fortunately, through loyal and faithful subjects rising up in righteous efforts to remove the wicked, there is a hope that the tribulations experienced may invigorate the State, and that calm may return after the storm. This accords with the principle that human nature will have freedom after a long pressure, and that the ways of Heaven bring success after reverses. We shall endeavour to be merciful. No pardon, homever, shall be extended to the principal traitors concerned in the affairs of July 1894 and of October 1895. Capital punishment should be their due, thus venting the indignation of men and gods alike. But to all the rest, officials or soldiers, citizens or coolies, a general amnesty, free and full, is granted, irrespective of the degree of their offences. Reform your hearts; ease your minds; go about your business, public or private, as in times past.
As to the cutting of the Top-Knots--what can We say? Is it such an urgent matter? The traitors, by using force and coercion, brought about the affair. That this measure was taken against Our will is, no doubt, well known to all. Nor is it Our wish that the conservative subjects throughout the country, moved to righteous indignation, should rise up, as they have, circulating false rumours, causing death and injury to one another, until the regular troops had to be sent to suppress the disturbances by force. The traitors indulged their poisonous nature in everything. Fingers and hairs would fail to count their crimes. The soldiers are Our children. So are the insurgents. Cut any of the ten fingers, and one would cause as much pain as another. Fighting long continued would pour out blood and heap up corpses, hindering communications and traffic. Alas! if this continues the people will all die. The mere contemplation of such consequences provokes Our tears and chills Our heart. We desire that as soon as orders arrive the soldiers should return to Seoul and the insurgents to their respective places and occupations.
As to the cutting of Top-Knots, no one shall be forced as to dress and hats. Do as you please. The evils now afflicting the people shall be duly attended to by teh Government. This is Our own word of honour. Let all understand.
- By order of His Majesty,
- (Signed) PAK-CHUNG YANG,
- Acting Home and Prime Minister.
- 11th day, 2nd moon, 1st year of Kon-yang.
PROCLAMATION TO THE SOLDIERS
- On account of the unhappy fate of Our country, traitors have made trouble every year. Now We have a document informing us of another conspiracy. We have therefore come to the Russian Legation. The Representatives of different countries have all assembled.
- Soldiers! come and protect us. You are Our children. The troubles of the past were due to the crimes of chief traitors. You are all pardoned, and shall not be held answerable. Do your duty and be at ease. When you meet the chief traitors, viz. Cho-hui Yen, Wo-pom Sun, Yi-tu Hwong, Yi-pom Nai, Yi-chin Ho, and Kon-yong Chin, cut off their heads at once, and bring them.
- You (soldiers) attend us at the Russian Legation.
- 11th day, 2nd moon, 1st year of Kon-yang.
- Royal Sign.
Following on this, on the same day, and while thousands of people were reading the repeal of the hair-cropping order, those of the Cabinet who could be caught were arrested and beheaded in the street--the Prime Minister, who had kept his place in several Cabinets, and the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. The mob, infuriated, and regarding the Premier as the author of the downfall of the Top-Knot, gave itself up to unmitigated savagery, insulting and mutilating the dead bodies in a manner absolutely fiendish. Another of the Cabinet was rescued by Japanese soldier, and the other traitorous members ran away. A Cabinet, chiefly new, was installed, prison doors were opened, and the inmates, guilty and innocent alike, were released, strict orders were given by the King that the Japanese were to be protected, one having already fallen a victim to the fury of the populace, and before night fell on Seoul much of the work of the previous six months had been undone, and the Top-Knot had triumphed.
How the Korean King, freed from the strong influence of the Queen and the brutal control of his mutinous officers, used his freedom need not be told here. It was supposed just after his escape that be would become "a mere tool in the hands of the Russian Minister," but so far was this from being the case, that before a year had passed it was greatly desired by many that Mr. Waeber would influence him against the bad in statecraft and in favour of the good, and the cause of his determination not to bias the King any way remains a mystery to this day.
The roads which led to the Russian Legation were guarded by Korean soldiers, but eighty Russian marines were quartered in the compound and held the gates, while a small piece of artillery wasvery much en èvidence on the terrace below the King's windows! He had an abundant entourage. For some months the Cabinet occupied the ball-room, and on the terrace and round the King's apartments there were always numbers of Court officials and servants of all grades, eunuchs, Palace women, etc., while the favourites, the ladies Om and Pak, who assisted in his escape, were constantly to be seen in his vicinity.
Revelling in the cheerfulness and security of his surroundings, the King shortly built a Palace (to which he removed in the spring of 1897), surrounding the tablet-house of the Queen, and actually in Chong-dong, the European quarter, its grounds adjoining those of the English and U.S. Legations. To the security of this tablet-house the remains of the Queen, supposed to consist only of the bones of one finger, were removed on a lucky day chose by the astrologers with much pomp.
On this occasion a guard of eighty Russian soldiers occupied a position close to the Royal tent, not far from one in which the Foreign Representatives, with the noteworthy exception of the Japanese Envoy, were assembled. Rolled-up scroll portraits of the five immediate ancestors of the King, each enclosed in a large oblong palanquin of gilded fretwork, and preceded by a crowd of officials in old Court costume, filed past the Royal tent, where the King did obeisance, and the Russian Guard presented arms. This was only the first part of the ceremony.
Later a colossal catafalque, containing the fragmentary remains of the murdered Queen, was dragged through the streets from the Kyeng-pok Palace by 700 men in sackcloth, preceded and followed by a crowd of Court functionaries, also in mourning, and escorted by Korean drilled troops. The King and Crown Prince received the procession at the gate of the new Kyeng-wun Palace, and the hearse, after being hauled up to the end of a long platform outside the Spirit Shrine, was tracked by ropes (for no hand might touch it) to the interior, where it rested under a canopy of white lisk, and for more than a year received the customary rites and sacrifices from the bereaved husband and son. The large crowd in the streets was orderly and silent. The ceremony was remarkable both for the revival of picturesque detail and of practices which it was supposed had become obselete, such as the supporting of officials on their ponies by retainers, or when on foot by having their arms propped up.
In July 1896, Mr. J. McLeavy Brown, LL.D., Chief Commissioner of Customs, received by Royal decree the absolute control of all payments out of the Treasury, and having gained considerable insight into the complexities of financial corruption, addressed himself in earnest to the reform of abuses, and with the most beneficial results.
In September a Council of State of fourteen members was substituted for the Cabinet of Ministers organised under Japanese auspices, a change which was to some extent a return to old methods.
Many of the attempts made by the Japanese during their ascendence to reform abuses were allowed to lapse. The country was unsettled, a "Righteous Army" having replaced the Tong-haks. The Minister of the Household and other Royal favourites resumed the practise of selling provincial and other posts in a most unblushing manner after the slight checks which had been imposed on this most deleterious custom, and the sovereign himself, whose Civil List is ample, appropriated public moneys for his own purposes, whil, finding himself personally safe, and free from Japanese or other control, he reverted in many ways to the traditions of his dynasty, and in spite of attempted checks upon his authority, reigned as an absolute monarch--his edicts law, his will absolute. Meanwhile Japan was gradually effacing herself or being effaced, and whatever influence she lost in Korea, Russia gained, but the advantages of the change were not obvious.
[edit] Note 1
- In chapter ix. p. 129, there is a short notice of what is involved in the transformation.
[edit] Note 2
- When I last saw the King this national adornment seemed to have resumed its former proportions.
