Falling in Love with Yun Chi-Ho

Yun Chi Ho was truly a fascinating character! I really love his writing! It is all the more fascinating for me as he wrote his diary (at least most parts of it) in English.

He was funny, reflective, eloquent, yet acerbic, soulful, passionate and uplifting. In other words, he was full of contradictions.

I love his acerbity, particularly his descriptions of Chinese, whom he held an absolute disdain for. He described them as "filthy" and "abominable", and "dreadfully lacking in any hygiene standards".

His description of a Chinese waiter made me laughed out loud.

"I would thank him very much if he did not stick his dirty and long fingernails into the soup, rice and vegetables. Oh my!"

Yun also had a low opinion of Confucianism, which he castigated as the "opium" which had turned Korea into hell.

Even though he held the Chinese in absolute contempt, it was with wicked amusement that when denigrating China, he also took a swipe at Korea.

"The language of China is as full of dirty and filthy expressions as her government is of bribery and corruption. Not a little child girl or boy opens his or her mouth without flinging out a mouthful of dirty words for which the Japanese or English language is too decent. I do not suppose any language can translate them literally but Corean. Shame to Corea!"

One would have thought that he knew the Chinese language well enough to admonish the Chinese for their use of "dirty and filthy expressions". But apparently not.

"My ignorance of the language hinders me from understanding the better qualities of the people."

Certainly, that minor linguistic handicap served as no barrier to his opinionated and judgmental worldview, particularly on China.

His writing was also as witty and humorous as it was humane. At the core, they were also deeply poignant and reflected the throbbing heartbeat of a misguided(?) Korean patriot who later turned out to be a Japanese collaborator.

"The government of Corea has been for the 502 years past an oligarchy. The whole history is the record of the implacable hatred, shameful intrigues and wholesale butcheries that have disgraced the petty factions in the government. This infamous system has proved fatal to talents and virtues by rendering the one unsafe and the other unprofitable".

Ouch.

Yun also wrote with a scathing insight the state of international relations which existed during his time.

"The misery is that Japanese and Chinese get maltreated by Americans and Europeans and then go and do likewise to the wretched and slavish Coreans".

Yet somehow, I wonder if his deep and profound admiration and adoration of Japan and all things Japanese was also not exceedingly "slavish" to some extent.

But yet, he was oh so lyrical when he wrote:

"I can not help loving him as a friend any more than I could breathing".

And..

"When the band ceased and the vocal part alone repeated the chorus softly, every word seemed to whisper itself into the soul".

He also seemed to possess the heart of a poet and wrote with such profound and breathtaking beauty, particularly when he wrote:

"When the mist cleared away, the sun kissed the yellow leaves into gold, the green into emerald, the white cloud into silver balls and the whole slope into a smile as sweet as that of a bride".

And he seemed like a sensitive soul when he wrote:

"One of the waiting maids, Anna, whom I liked cordially for her sweet and lady-like face and manners, was absent. That gave me much pain".

And his depths of emotions were so rich and so vivid that they practically jumped out and touched me in a most peculiar way.

"The sight of the islands, boats and other Japanese scenes awoke in me a bewildering variety of emotions. Five years have passed since I last beheld them on my way to America. The varied experience of American life - its friends, places and associations tender and dear to my heart - passed before my mental eyes like a panorama of the scenes of some strange country seen in a dream. I felt inexpressibly sad, too, when I thought of the friends whom I may never see again".

I think if Yun is still alive, I would have fallen in love with him! Never mind that he was a Japanese collaborator.

But having said that, there are passages which reminded his readers that he was as mortal as the man next door.

"In a bathhouse I saw a pretty young woman in all her alluring nudity. The indifference with which a Japanese can look upon such sight is due to his vice rather than his virtue. He is indifferent not because he can easily control his passion but because he can easily gratify it. For any desire that we have power to gratify anywhere and anytime never gets violent. But the nudity of pretty women which we witness in bathhouses and elsewhere in Japan is certainly a trying temptation to one upon whose passion a social or especially religious check is laid. All honor to the young Japanese Christians who can go through these fiery traits unhurt".

Oh well. No man is perfect anyway. Or woman, for that matter.