United States or Somalia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His shattered fleet was compelled to take refuge off the islets to the north of Japan, where it attempted to refit, but the Japanese granted no respite, and assailed them both by land and sea. After protracted but unequal fighting the Mongol commander had no choice left but to surrender. The conquerors spared the Chinese and Coreans among their prisoners, but they put every Mongol to the sword.
Corea was then practically a closed country; wherefore a certain amount of curiosity was displayed at Shanghai when three or four Coreans, dressed up in their quaint costumes and transparent horse-hair hats, were seen walking about, and being introduced here and there by a French bishop called Ridel.
Beyond wondering at its antiquity, therefore, and admiring the skilful bas-relief upon it, there is little more for us to do; so, moving out of the courtyard in which this pagoda is situated, we proceed to inspect another monument, equally curious from an archaeological point of view. It cannot but seem strange that the Coreans should be ignorant regarding the little pagoda above mentioned.
It was here at the Pekin Pass, then, that, according to custom, they were received with great honour by the Coreans, and led into Seoul.
The Coreans Their faces and heads Bachelors Married men Head-band Hats Hat-umbrellas Clothes Spectacles. Being now settled for the time being in Seoul, I must introduce you to the Corean, not as a nation, you must understand, but as an individual.
I have seen two forms of it in Cho-sen; in the one case, the skin turns perfectly white, almost shining like satin, while in the other a worse kind, I believe the skin is a mass of brown sores, and the flesh is almost entirely rotted away from the bones. The Coreans have no hospitals or asylums in which evils like these can be properly tended.
The mission never had a chance of success, for the Coreans succeeded in frightening the Mongol envoys with the terrors of the sea, and by withholding their assistance prevented them reaching their destination. The envoys returned without having been able to deliver their letter. Kublai decided that the Japanese were hostile to him, and he resolved to humble them.
Imposing Japanese consulates were built in Seoul, flourishing settlements were laid out, and energetic steps taken to make Japan the paramount power in Corea. As a result, the Coreans became divided into two factions, a progressive one which favored the Japanese, and a conservative one which was more in touch with the backwardness of China and whose members hated the stirring islanders.
When the Coreans eat in their own houses, the men of the family take their meals first, being waited on by their wives and servants; after which the females have their repast in a separate room. The women seldom drink intoxicants, and have to be satisfied with water and rice-wash.
The beautiful red lacquer work is getting scarce, although it has had a long run, for it is more than twelve hundred years since the Japanese learned the secret of making it from the Coreans, who in their turn had it from the Chinese. The secret of producing in China and Japan lacquer which cannot be imitated in other countries lies in the rhus vernificifera which flourishes in those localities.
Word Of The Day