JL's source for his novel 'Star Rover' Jack London

At Star Rover, JL at first tried to use Chong Mong-ju as main character instead of using the name of Yi Yong-ik.

"But I must baseten, for my narrative is not of Adam Strang the shipwreccked sea-cuny on a coral isle, but of Adam Strang, later named Chong Mong-ju (lined) Yi Yong-ik, the Mightty one, who was, one time favorite of the powerful Yunsan, who was lover and husband of the Lady Om of the princely house Min, and ... "

See his JL1194, chapter 15, p. 524.

JL's source for his novel 'Star Rover'

4. Angus Hamilton
Korea. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1904.
mentioned Lady Om, Opert, Yi Yong-ik

5. The Korean Review
Sept 1902, p. 385: The Treasure of Kyong-ju
"From the archaeological standpoint, the city of Kyong-ju in southern Korea is probably the most interesting point in Korea. It is not so old as Pyang-yang but the .... The southern city and its environs are rich in historical remains but it is our purpose to speak here only of ..."

Sept 1902, pp. 384-385
There is a picture of the torture of a prisoner, titled "Torturing a wwitness". 다리 사이에 나무를 집어 넣고 주리를 트는 모습이다.

Jack London Report

Most of JL's newspaper articles, personal letter, and diary on Korea were published in Jack Lodon Report.



Also see following articles;

JL 605. Dr. Moffett, March 13, 1904, 31pp. 4to, Sunan, Korea; see JLR p. 82

JL 606: typewritten, same contents.

JL 1020: March 5, 1904. Ping-Yang, autograph. On the Peking Road; see JLR p. 42

JL 819: The Japanese: [Russo-Japanese War Sketch], MS 2pp. 4to, typewritten; see JLR 122.

Jack Lodnon's Cherry

"Cherry" is an unpublished manuscript by JL.
This book is the sequel of "Jack London and Hawaii," published in 1917.
"Cherry felt enigma of oriental mind....in herself. and also in other Japanese> her peculliar beauty...walk, straight gaze; her carriage superior to white girls about her; modulated voice, inflection, etc."

1. London, Jack. Cherry: [misc, pages from novel]. Carbon copy (MS) 24pp. 4to (typewritten), (JL557)
2. London, Jack. Cherry: [novel]. A.Ms. 269pp. 4to. unfinished. Author's autograph corrections. Nov. 21, 1916. Also: by Charmian London. (JL558)
3. London, Jack. Cherry: [novel]. MS. 78pp. 4to. (typewritten). Incomplete Corrections by Charmian London Nov. 21, 1916. (JL559)
4. London, Jack. Cherry: [novel]. MS. 78pp. (typewritten). Unfinished. Author's autograph corrections. Nov. 21, 1916. Also : Note by Charmian London (JL560)
5. London, Jack. Cherry: [novel]. MS. 78pp. (typewritten). Unfinished. Author's autograph corrections. Nov. 21, 1916. Also : Note by Charmian London (JL562)
6. London, Jack. Cherry: [novel]. MS. 331pp. 4to. (typewritten). Autograph corrections in pensil by Charmian London. Nov. 21, 1916 (JL564)

JL's source for his novel 'Star Rover'

3. Isabella Bird Bishop's Korea (1898 edition)
JL carried Bishop's book in his travel to Korea in 1904. He chose Bbishop's travel route.
Compare JL map book and Bishop's map in her book.

pp.10-11: "General Map of Korea and neighboring countries" Indicated in this map Bishop's travel routes in Korea
pp. 66-67: "Sketch map of central Korea" Indicated in this map Bishop's 1st and 2nd journey in Korean peninsula. "Road to China"
pp. 292-293: travel in Songdo
p. 357: Itinerary

JL's source for his novel 'Star Rover'

2. William Elliot Griffis' Corea

XXXI: (marked) A body-Snaching Expedition
p. 458: Tai-wen-kun
p. 396: A body-Snaching Expedition

JL's source for his novel 'Star Rover'

1. Passing of Korea
There were plenty of side marks in "passing of Korea" stocked in JL library.
These marks are indicated mainly before p. 150.

p. 17: "As rice is the national dish,... Kimchi... minari.... part among the side dishes."
p. 18: (marked) "Korea is celebrated... ginseng, of course takes the leading place."
p. 21: (marked) "tiger"
p. 24: "the wicked ruler prince Yunsan(1495-1506)"
p. 41: "kisang(dancing-girl)"
p. 42: (marked) "after the vocabulary of abuse has been exhausted the two constestants clinch with with each other, each attempting to grasp the other by the top-knot, which forms a most convenient handle."
pp.62-3: included a photo of prinsoners with kals
p. 63: (marked) "The commonest method of purnishing officials has always been banishment."
p. 65: (marked) "Beating seems to be an essential feature in almost all punishment."
p. 66: (marked) description of torture. "He was bound about the ankles and the knees, and then two sticks were crowded down between his two calves and pried apart like levers so that the bones of the lower leg were slowly bent without breaking."
p. 86 (marked) "In 1361 occurred another of those periodical invasions to the Hong-du, or "Red heads," - a wild robber tribe."
p. 87: (marked) "One was a monk named Sindon"
p. 106: (marked) "Sparwehr sailed from Holland, with Hendrik Hamel as supercarge."
pp. 116-7: "The Late Regent, Prince Tai-wun"
p. 186: Yi Yong-ik
pp. 282-283: included a photo of playing Jang-gi
Estra: water-carrier, ba-duk, Kangwwondo mine,

Jack London's Itinery in Korea (to be continued)

JL stayed the Chinese Hotel in Chemulpo, and Mr. Emberly's Hotel in Seoul.
Mr. Emberly introduced London Manyoungi, who was hired as house boy for JL. After He came to the States, Manyoungi lived with London for threee years and then he left alone.
JL first purchased from the British Brown a horse which was blinded, then again bought a new horse from Russian minister Pavoff. He have never before experienced horse back riding.

Yokohama-Kobe-Nagasaki-Moji-Busan-Mokpo-Kunsan-Chemulpo-Seoul-Sunan-Pyong Yang
3 Feb. 1904: Simonoseki
13 March 1904: Sunan
21 April 1904: Wiju
22 April 1904: Castle in Wiju

4. Broadside collection

The London collection contains sixty-four broadsides(JLB1-64). Included in this category are the newspaper articles London write from Korea.

JLB 4: "Here are the first pictures from the Seat of war in Korea" (taken by JL) SFE, April 4, 1904
JLB 25: "How Jack London got in and out of jail in Japan" SFE, Feb. 27, 1904
JLB 26: "Story of Typoon off the coast of Japan" San Francisco Call, October 9, 1920; The Morning Call, sunday edition, nov. 12, 1893. written by JL, aged 17.
JLB 45: "Japan Officers consider everything a military secret" SFE, June 26, 1904
JLB 46: "Troubles of War Correspondent in Starting for the Front" SFE, April 4, 1904
JLB 47: "Interpreters and jow they cause trouble" SFE, April 26, 1904
JLB 48: "Japanese supplies rushed to the Front by Man & Beast" SFE, June 19, 1904
JLB 49: "Advancing Russians Nearing Japan's Army" SFE, March 3, 1904
JLB 50: "Examiner Writer sent back to Seoul" SFE, April 25, 1904
JLB 51: "Japs driving Russians across the Yalu river" SFE, June 4, 1904
JLB 52: "Cossacks Fight then Retreat" SFE, April 19, 1904
JLB 54: "How Jack London got in and out of Jail in Japan" SFE, Feb. 27, 1904
JLB 55: "How the Hermit Kingdom Behaves in time of War" SFE, April, 17, 1904
JLB 56: "Russian Warships patrol Pe-Chili gulf" SFE, April 7, 1904
JLB 57: "Japan's Invasion of Korea" SFE, March 4, 1904
JLB 58: "Japanese Army's equipment excites great admiration" April 3, 1904
JLB 59: "Japanese swim cold river under fire" SFE, June 9, 1904
JLB 60: "Footsore, Dazed and Frozen, the Japanese Truge through Korea" SFE, April 18, 1904
JLB 61: "Savage Victory" SFE, March 30, 1904
JLB 63: "Fightiong at Long Range" SFE, June 5, 1904

Ephemera Box 519 also has same SFE articles written by JL

JLE72: SFE, 25 April 1904
JLE74: SFE, 5 June 1904
JLE76: SFE, 18 April 1904
JLE85: SFE, 27 Feb. 1904
JLE86: SFE, 17 April 1904
JLE87: SFE, 7 April 1904
JLE89: SFE, 4 April 1904
JLE90: SFE, 26 April 1904
JLE94: SFE, 26 June 1904
JLE96: SFE, 9 June 1904
JLE97: SFE, 3 April 1904
JLE98: SFE, 4 March 1904
JLE99: SFE, 4 June 1904

3. Jack London Scrapbooks

The Jack London Scrapbooks were assembled first by JL and then by CL. Included are most of London's clippings, reviews of his books, and newspaper accounts of his activities. The scrapbooks from the single most important printed source of London's life and literary work, and give an excellent overview of how London was seen in his own time.

Scarpbook 4: 1903-1904
Scrapbook 5: 1904-1905
Scarpbook 6: 1905

All in Box 517

In this scrapbook, we can find JL's articles on Dr. Moffett and the Russo-Japanese War. Included San Francisco Examiner articles on the war.

2. Photographs: Photos taken or bought by Jack Lodon during his stay in Korea

1. "Korea I, II, III, 1904" (JLP 421-423)
315 photos taken by JL during the Russo-Japanese War; The photos feature Japanese and Russian solddiers and artillery, Korean scenes and religious building, villages, some fishing scenes, his arrival of Kunsan, Pusan, Chemulpo, Pyong Yang, Manyongi, and a few photos of JL himeslf.
2. Photo Album 1-13 (JLP446-451)
Most of the photoss, Jack and Charmian London took in their travels and at home were pasted into ninty-three small and thirty large photo albums. Contact prints of these photos have been assembled and are available for reference in Boxes 486-510. Each box contains five albums JPL 439-451(album no.1 -13). Title of album is "Korea" and dated in "1904".

However, some photos in the albums were taken not by JL but others, and JL might bought them in Seoul , and should be careful that some captions were wrongly described.

Interesting photos:
no. 247: no. 1 mapu escorted London during his stay in Korea
no. 220: no.2 mapu
nos. 221, 223, 224, 225, 30480, 40480: Manyongi
nos. 11, 1321, 1325; JL took many pictures of the wrestling scenes of Japanese soldiers and Korean play of Chang Gi. And utilized this wrestling(sumo) and Korean game of Chnag Gi in his novel of Star-rover.
Some photos of the head of Kim ok-kyun, Si-hyung Choi, and Ki Sang. and one shocking photo almost all naked.

1. The Korean contents of Huntington Library Jack London Collection

The Korean contents of Huntington Library Jack London Collection can be divided into four parts;

1) Correspondence : Most of his letters already published by Stanford university press.
2) Manuscript collection: Mainly his novels of Star-Rover, Cherry(unpublished), and his stories about the Russo-Japanese war and Manyoungi
3) Photographs: Photos taken or bought by Jack Lodon during his stay in Korea
4) Broadside collection: Included in this category are the newspaper articles London write from Korea.

1) Manuscript collection
1. London, Jack. Cherry: [notes for novel]. A.Ms. 63pp. 8vo. 1916. (JL 21313)
2. London, Jack. Cherry: [notes for novel]. A.Ms. 10pp. 8vo. & 12mo. (written in pensil). [pre 1917]. Also: note by Charmian London (1piece). (JL555)
3. London, Jack. Cherry: [notes for novel]. Ms. 17pp. 4to, & 8vo. (typewritten), 1916. Also: 4magazine clippings (11 pieces). (JL556)
4. Dr. Moffett: [article]. A.Ms. 31pp. 4to. Sunan, [Korea]. March 13, 1904. (JL605)
5. Dr. Moffett: [article]. MS. 2pp. 4to. (typewritten) Sunan, [Korea]. March 13, 1904. (JL606)
6. Dr. Moffett: [article]. MS. 2pp. 4to. (typewritten) Sunan, [Korea]. March 13, 1904. (JL20713)
7. The Jap: [Plot for Short Story]. A.Ms. 2pp. 8vo. (written in pensil]. [pre 1917]. (JL 818)
8. The Japanese: [Russo-Japanese War Sketch]. Ms. 2pp. 4to (typewritten). [c. 1904]. (JL819)
9. In Yeddo Bay: [Short Story]. Carbon copy (Ms) 12pp. 4to. (typewritten). (JL21317)
10. manyoungi: [note to write a study] Ms. 1p. 4to. (typewritten). [pre 1917]. (JL920)
11. On the Peking Road: [Russo-Japanese War Article] A.Ms.S. 39pp. 4to. Author's autograph corrections. (Incomplete). Ping-Yang, Korea. 5 March 1904. (JL1020)
12. Russo-Japanese War Commentary. Ms. 1p. 4to (typeWritten). [1904]. (JL1139)
13. The Star-Rover: [note for novel]. A.Ms. 2pp. 8vo. (written in pensil). [pre 1914]. Also: 20 newspaper clippings (24 pieces) and 1 envelope. (JL1192)
14. The Star-Rover: [notes]. Ms. 1p. 4to. (typewritten). [pre 1914]. Also: 8 magazine clippings (27 pieces). (JL1193)
15. The Star-Rover: [novel]. A.Ms.S. 1,054pp. 4to. Author's autograph corrections. Glen Ellen, California. 22 march 1914. (JL1194)
16. Travel in Korea: [Essay]. A.Ms. 16pp. 4to. (incomplete), Sunan, Korea. 10 March 1904. (JL1325)
17. Travel in Korea: [Essay]. Ms. 3pp. 4to. (typewritten), Incomplete. 10 March 1904. (JL1326)
18. The Yellow Peril: ABit of Data on the Japanese Question. A.Ms.S. 16pp. 4to Author's autograph corrections, Melbourne, Australia 12 June 1909 (JL1445)
19. Book Purchased: [notes]. A.Ms. 1p. obl. 8vo. Piedmont, California, [c. 1904]. (JL484)

Anatomy of Star Rover Korean Chapter

In 1915, Jack London published Star Rover. In it is there a short story on Korea. London based his Korean story upon several historical facts recorded by Hamel and Griffis. As he himself acknowledges, his story of Korea in Star Rober includes in fact Korean history and custom. So we can safely say that his Korean chapter is actually a combination of historical facts and fiction.

Time: 1550-1650

Main Characters
Adam Strang(Yi Yong-ik), Lady Om, Yunsan(Buddhist priest), Kwan Yung-jin, Kim, Pak, Johannes Maartens, Vandervoot, Herman Tromp, Hans Amden, Hendrik Hamel, Jacob Brinker, Emperor, the house of Min, Taiwun(Emperor's brother), Chong Mong-ju, Yi Sun-sin(the local magistrate).

Key locations
Cho-sen, Keijio, Chong-ho, Songdo, Fusan, Chenampo, Chemulpo, Pyen-yang, Kyong-ju, Wiju, Pyonhan, Kang-wun, Chiksan, Padok, Whang-hai, Masanpo, Yalu

Important words
Sparwehr, Minari, kimchi, Silla, Koryu

Strang's view on Japan (p.163-4)
But the people would have no dealings with us and two-sworded officials, in sweeping robes of silk that made Captain Johannes Maarten's mouth water, came abroad of us and politely requested us to begone. Under their suave manners was the iron of a warlike race, and we knew, and went our way.

Strang's First view on Korean coast (p. 164)
We crossed the Straits of Japan and were entering the Yellow Sea on our way to China, when we laid the Sparwehr on the rocks. She was a crazy tub the old Sparwehr, so clumsy and so dirty with whiskered marine-life on her bottom that she could not get out of her own way. Close-hauled, the closest she could come was to six points of the wind; and then she bobbed up and down, without way, like a derelict turnip. Galliots were clippers compared with her. To tack her about was undreamed of; to wear her required all hands and half a watch. So situated, we were caught on a lee shore in an eight-point shift of wind at the height of a hurricane that had beaten

our souls sick for forty-eight hours.

We drifted in upon the land in the chill light of a stormy dawn across a heartless cross-sea mountain high. It was dead of winter, and between smoking snow-squalls we could glimpse the forbidding coast, if coast it might be called, so broken was it. There were grim rock isles and islets beyond counting, dim snow-covered ranges beyond, and everywhere upstanding cliffs too steep for snow, outjuts of headlands, and pinnacles and slivers of rock upthrust from the boiling sea.

There was no name to this country on which we drove, no record of it ever having been visited by navigators. Its coast-line was only hinted at in our chart. From all of which we could argue that the inhabitants were as inhospitable as the little of their land we could see.

We drifted in upon he land in the chill light of a stormy dawn across a heartless cross-sea mountain high. It was dead of winter, and between smoking snow-squalls we could glimpse the forbidding coast, if coast it might be called. so broken was it. There were grim rock isles and islets beyond counting, dim snow-covered ranges beyond, and everywhere upstanding cliffs too steep for snow, outjuts of headlands, and pinnacles and slivers of rock upthrust from the boiling sea.

There was no name to this country on which we drove, no record of it ever having been visited by navigators. It coastline was only hinted at in our chart. From all of which we could argue that the inhabitants were as inhospitable as the little of their land we could see.

Topknot (p. 165-6)
The men were clad entirely in dirt white, with their long hair done up in a curious knot on their pates--the marriage knot,

Food (p. 166)
They were a poor and wretched folk, their food difficult even for the stomach of a sea-cuny to countenance. Their rice was brown as chocolate. Half the husks remained in it, along with bits of chaff, splinters, and unidentifiable dirt which made one pause often in the chewing in order to stick into his mouth thumb and forefinger and pluck out the offending stuff. Also, they ate a sort of millet, and pickles of astounding variety and ungodly hot.

Bread there was none, but we ate white rice (the strength of which resides in one's muscles not long), a meat which we found to be dog (which animal is regularly butchered for food in Cho-Sen), and the pickles ungodly hot but which one learns to like exceeding well. And there was drink, real drink, not milky slush, but white, biting stuff distilled from rice, a pint of which would kill a weakling and make a strong man mad and merry.(p. 171)

What we in extremity have eaten!-- Leavings of dog's flesh, putrid and unsaleable, flung to us by the mocking butchers; MINARI, a water-cress gathered from stagnant pools of slime; spoiled KIMCHI that would revolt the stomachs of peasants and that could be smelled a mile. (p. 193)

House (p. 166)
Their houses were earthen-walled and straw-thatched. Under the floors ran flues through which the kitchen smoke escaped, warming the sleeping-room in its passage. Here we lay and rested for days, soothing ourselves with their mild and tasteless tobacco, which we smoked in tiny bowls at the end of yard-long pipes.

Their houses were earthen-walled and straw-thatched. Under the floors ran flues through which the kitchen smoke escaped, warming the sleeping-room in its passage. Here we lay and rested for days, soothing ourselves with their mild and tasteless tobacco, which we smoked in tiny bowls at the end of yard-long pipes. Also, there was a warm, sourish, milky-looking drink, heady only when taken in enormous doses. After guzzling I swear gallons of it, I got singing drunk, which is the way of sea-cunies the world over.

Korean Army (p. 167)
They were armed with three-pronged spears, slicing spears, and chopping spears, with here and there a matchlock of so heroic mould that there were two soldiers to a matchlock, one to carry and set the tripod on which rested the muzzle, the other to carry and fire the gun. As I was to learn, sometimes the gun went off, sometimes it did not, all depending upon the adjustment of the fire- punk and the condition of the powder in the flash-pan

Plank (p. 168)
These planks were about six feet long and two feet wide, and curiously split in half lengthwise. Nearer one end than the other was a round hole larger than a man's neck.... before he knew what was doing, one of the planks, with a scissors-like opening and closing, was about his neck and clamped.

Korean character (p. 168)
To my joy, I quickly learned that the Koreans did not understand a fist-blow and were without the slightest notion of guarding.

I was more an honoured guest than a prisoner, and invariably I rode by Kim's side, my long legs near reaching the ground, and, where the going was deep, my feet scraping the muck. Kim was young. Kim was human. Kim was universal. He was a man anywhere in any country. He and I talked and laughed and joked the day long and half the night. And I verify ate up the language. I had a gift that way anyway. Even Kim marvelled at the way I mastered the idiom. And I learned the Korean points of view, the Korean humour, the Korean soft places, weak places, touchy places. Kim taught me flower songs, love songs, drinking songs. One of the latter was his own, of the end of which I shall give you a crude attempt at translation. Kim and Pak, in their youth, swore a pact to abstain from drinking, which pact was speedily broken.(p. 171)

Woman custom (p. 169)
Of them[ladies] we saw little, for their faces were covered, according to the custom of the country. Only dancing girls, low women, and grandmas ever were seen abroad with exposed faces.

Racial bias (p. 170)
The Asiatic is a cruel beast, and delights in spectacles of human suffering.
he[Kim] was the whitest man I ever encountered in Cho-Sen.

Korean horse(p. 170)
It chanced, at the first off-saddling, that I strolled around to witness the feeding of the dwarf horses. And what I witnessed set me bawling, "What now, Vandervoot?" till all our crew came running. As I am a living man what the horses were feeding on was bean soup, hot bean soup at that, and naught else did they have on all the journey but hot bean soup. It was the custom of the country.

Origin of synopses (p. 172)
I here mention Hendrik Hamel as my adviser, for it has a bearing on much that followed at Keijo in the winning of Yunsan's favour, the Lady Om's heart, and the Emperor's tolerance. I had the will and the fearlessness for the game I played, and some of the wit; but most of the wit I freely admit was supplied me by Hendrik Hamel.

Beacon system (p. 172)
And every evening, at fall of day, beacon fires sprang from peak to peak and ran along the land. Always Kim watched for this nightly display. From all the coasts of Cho-Sen, Kim told me, these chains of fire-speech ran to Keijo to carry their message to the Emperor. One beacon meant the land was in peace. Two beacons meant revolt or invasion. We never saw but one beacon.

Korean cloth (p. 172)
Keijo we found a vast city where all the population, with the exception of the nobles or yang-bans, dressed in the eternal white. This, Kim explained, was an automatic determination and advertisement of caste. Thus, at a glance, could one tell, the status of an individual by the degrees of cleanness or of filthiness of his garments. It stood to reason that a coolie, possessing but the clothes he stood up in, must be extremely dirty. And to reason it stood that the individual in immaculate white must possess many changes and command the labour of laundresses to keep his changes immaculate. As for the yang-bans who wore the pale, vari-coloured silks, they were beyond such common yardstick of place.

Korean court (p. 173)
In the great open space before the palace wall were colossal stone dogs that looked more like tortoises. They crouched on massive stone pedestals of twice the height of a tall man.

Synopses (p. 173)
These, Kim told me, were the Tiger Hunters of Pyeng-yang, the fiercest and most terrible fighting men of which Cho-Sen could boast.

Ki sang (p. 173)
painted KI-SANG or dancing girls who rested from entertaining,
The ki-sang invaded us, dragging us about, making prisoners of us, two or three of them to one of us, leading us about like go many dancing boars and putting us through our antics.(p. 174)
Political situation of Korea (p. 175)

In truth, she was the Lady Om, princess of the house of Min. Did I say young? She was fully my own age, thirty, and for all that and her ripeness and beauty a princess still unmarried, as I was to learn.

History of Korea (p. 177)
I am of the blood of the house of Koryu," I told the Emperor, "that ruled at Songdo many a long year agone when my house arose on the ruins of Silla."
Ancient history, all, told me by Kim on the long ride, and he struggled with his face to hear me parrot his teaching.

In my time I heard the echoes of the two invasions, a generation before, driven by Hideyoshi through the heart of Cho-Sen from Fusan in the south to as far north as Pyeng- Yang. It was this Hideyoshi who sent back to Japan a myriad tubs of pickled ears and noses of Koreans slain in battle. I talked with many old men and women who had seen the fighting and escaped the pickling. (p. 185)

Korean Drinking habit (p. 178)
Taiwun, the Emperor's brother, was a sot of sots, and as the night wore on he challenged me to a drinking. The Emperor was delighted, and commanded a dozen of the noblest sots to join in the bout. The women were dismissed, and we went to it, drink for drink, measure for measure. Kim I kept by me, and midway along, despite Hendrik Hamel's warning scowls, dismissed him and the company, first requesting, and obtaining, palace lodgment instead of the inn.

Next day the palace was a-buzz with my feast, for I had put Taiwun and all his champions snoring on the mats and walked unaided to my bed. Never, in the days of vicissitude that came later, did Taiwun doubt my claim of Korean birth. Only a Korean, he averred, could possess so strong a head.

Custom (p. 184)
In Cho-Sen seven is the magic number. To complete this number two of the provinces were taken over from the hands of two more of Chong Mong-ju's adherents.
Korean woman view(p. 180)

The Lady Om was a very flower of woman. Women such as she are born rarely, scarce twice a century the whole world over. She was unhampered by rule or convention. Religion, with her, was a series of abstractions, partly learned from Yunsan, partly worked out for herself. Vulgar religion, the public religion, she held, was a device to keep the toiling millions to their toil. She had a will of her own, and she had a heart all womanly. She was a beauty--yes, a beauty by any set rule of the world. Her large black eyes were neither slitted nor slanted in the Asiatic way. They were long, true, but set squarely, and with just the slightest hint of obliqueness that was all for piquancy.

Hamel Story (p. 185)
Of course it was really Hendrik Hamel at my back, but I was the fine figure-head that carried it off. Through me Hamel taught our soldiers drill and tactics and taught the Red Heads strategy

Capital of Silla (p. 187)
Kyong-ju had no wealth of farms or fisheries. The taxes scarce paid the collecting, and the governorship was little more than an empty honour. The place was in truth a graveyard--a sacred graveyard, for on Tabong Mountain were shrined and sepultured the bones of the ancient kings of Silla.

Isolation policy of Choson (p. 186)
A remarkable thing was the tides of Cho-Sen. On our north-east coast there was scarce a rise and fall of a foot. On our west coast the neap tides ran as high as sixty feet. Cho-Sen had no commerce, no foreign traders. There was no voyaging beyond her coasts, and no voyaging of other peoples to her coasts. This was due to her immemorial policy of isolation. Once in a decade or a score of years Chinese ambassadors arrived, but they came overland, around the Yellow Sea, across the country of the Hong-du, and down the Mandarin Road to Keijo. The round trip was a year-long journey. Their mission was to exact from our Emperor the empty ceremonial of acknowledgment of China's ancient suzerainty.

Body Seizure Incident and Hamel's Escape to Japan (p. 187, 188)
And while Yunsan nodded, while I devoted myself to sport and to the Lady Om, while Hendrik Hamel perfected plans for the looting of the Imperial treasury, and while Johannes Maartens schemed his own scheme among the tombs of Tabong Mountain, the volcano of Chong Mong-ju's devising gave no warning beneath us.

The people of Cho-Sen are fanatical ancestor-worshippers, and that old pirate of a booty-lusting Dutchman, with his four cunies, in far Kyong-ju, did no less a thing than raid the tombs of the gold-coffined, long-buried kings of ancient Silla. The work was done in the night, and for the rest of the night they travelled for the sea-coast. But the following day a dense fog lay over the land and they lost their way to the waiting junk which Johannes Maartens had privily outfitted. He and the cunies were rounded in by Yi Sun-sin, the local magistrate, one of Chong Mong-ju's adherents. Only Herman Tromp escaped in the fog, and was able, long after, to tell me of the adventure.

Folklore on Pyongyang (p. 190)
In Pyeng-yang I became a water-carrier, for know that that old city, whose walls were ancient even in the time of David, was considered by the people to be a canoe, and that, therefore, to sink a well inside the walls would be to scupper the city. So all day long thousands of coolies, water-jars yoked to their shoulders, tramp out the river gate and back. I became one of these, until Chong Mong-ju sought me out, and I was beaten and planked and set upon the highway.

Various towns in Korea (p. 191)
In far Wiju I became a dog-butcher, killing the brutes publicly before my open stall, cutting and hanging the caresses for sale, tanning the hides under the filth of the feet of the passers-by by spreading the hides, raw-side up, in the muck of the street. But Chong Mong-ju found me out. I was a dyer's helper in Pyonhan, a gold-miner in the placers of Kang-wun, a rope-maker and twine-twister in Chiksan. I plaited straw hats in Padok, gathered grass in Whang-hai, and in Masenpo sold myself to a rice farmer to toil bent double in the flooded paddies for less than a coolie's pay. But there was never a time or place that the long arm of Chong Mong-ju did not reach out and punish and thrust me upon the beggar's way.

Korean ginseng (p. 191)
The Lady Om and I searched two seasons and found a single root of the wild mountain ginseng, which is esteemed so rare and precious a thing by the doctors that the Lady Om and I could have lived a year in comfort from the sale of our one root. But in the selling of it I was apprehended, the root confiscated, and I was better beaten and longer planked than ordinarily.

Peddlers' Guild (p. 191)
Everywhere the wandering members of the great Peddlers' Guild carried word of me, of my comings and goings and doings, to Chong Mong-ju at Keijo.

The Yalu river (p. 194)
Beyond the Yalu, forty miles wide, was the strip of waste that constituted the northern frontier and that ran from sea to sea. It was not really waste land, but land that had been deliberately made waste in carrying out Cho-Sen's policy of isolation. On this forty- mile strip all farms, villages and cities had been destroyed. It was no man's land, infested with wild animals and traversed by companies of mounted Tiger Hunters whose business was to kill any human being they found.

Hamel Story (p. 194)
As the years passed my seven fellow-cunies came more to frequent Fusan. It was on the south-east coast where the climate was milder. But more than climate, it lay nearest of all Cho-Sen to Japan. Across the narrow straits, just farther than the eye can see, was the one hope of escape Japan, where doubtless occasional ships of Europe came. Strong upon me is the vision of those seven ageing men on the cliffs of Fusan yearning with all their souls across the sea they would never sail again.

Frank Norris Novels

The Octopus and Moran of the Lady Letty are representative of a period in the history of white American nationalism in which the health of the national economy appeared to depend on expanded exports to China, while the Chinese immigrant was being defined as a subhuman threat to the national body. This hypocrisy would structure representations of Asia, and Asians in America, throughout the twentieth century.