Land of the Morning Calm, Land of the
Rising Sun: The East Asia Travel Writings of
Isabella Bird and George Curzon
JIHANG PARK, Department of Western History
Seoul National University, Korea
Modern Asian Studies 36, 3 (2002), pp. 513–534.
2002 Cambridge University Press
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The developments in East Asia in the late nineteenth century
became a matter of great interest to Britain. The rise of Japan and
the wrangles among the great powers over China and Korea were
some of the issues that put East Asia in the spotlight. In China,
Western powers had been contending fiercely for economic and political hegemony since the Opium War. Japan, after abandoning its
national policy of seclusion in 1854, carried out the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and was driving towards rapid Westernization. Here
modernization took place in a relatively smooth manner and there
was no need to fear external threats, but domestic tensions were
inevitable. Finally Korea, after being forced to open its doors in
1876, suffered from acute dissensions between conservatives and
progressives, and fierce competition between China, Japan and
Russia over hegemony in Korea complicated the situation further.
In such a period, many Englishmen and women visited the region
and wrote of their travels. Among these, this paper attempts to analyze the works by Isabella Bird1 and George N. Curzon—specifically,
their travel writings of Japan and Korea. Bird and Curzon visited
East Asia at about the same period in the early 1890s, Bird having
previously published the account of her trip to Japan in 1880.
2 Bird was one of the most celebrated women travelers and explorers along
with Mary Kingsley, renowned for her African expedition. As for
1 Bird was married to Dr John Bishop in 1881 and called Mrs Bishop afterwards.
I will use, in this paper, her maiden name for the sake of convenience. 2 Curzon’s writings were published as a single book encompassing the three East
Asian nations while Bird’s travel writings of Japan and Korea comprised two books
respectively. George Curzon, Problems of the Far East (Longmans, Green, 1894); Isabella Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan 2 vols (John Murray, 1880); Isabella Bird Bishop,
Curzon, he was an eminent politician who had served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for India just before his visit to East Asia, and
was later to be appointed the Viceroy of India and the Foreign Secretary. If we agree with Mary Louise Pratt who prescribes travel
writings as materials which show how Europe ‘produced the rest of
the world’ for European readerships at particular points in Europe’s
expansionist trajectory, we may learn through Bird’s and Curzon’s
texts how the British perceived and represented East Asia when the
British empire reached its zenith.3
The essential goal of travelers is experiencing the exotic. They
seek out the picturesque and the unusual and plan their trip to enjoy
the sense of freedom away from home and the mundane. Bird and
Curzon are no exception in exhibiting this tendency, and yet their
journeys intend more than simply getting away. Curzon’s trip is a
kind of political reconnaissance. Having entered Parliament in 1886
from a Tory constituency at the age of 28, Curzon was chided by his
colleague Arthur Balfour for ‘inveterate restlessness’ and described
as an ‘explorer of wilderness and a student of effete civilizations.’4
He had been appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for India in
1891 but when the Liberals won the general election the following
year, he resigned his office and arranged his trip to East Asia. Curzon’s excursions to the Orient, including East Asia, were all part of
his scheme of studying the problems facing Asia and their implications for India. Curzon made it clear that he was more interested in
discussing ‘important and profound matters’ than in describing
details of the sights, and his text pays overwhelming attention to the
political situation and power relations in East Asia and the prospects
for the British empire in that area.
Curzon arrived in Japan in September 1892, a month after his
departure from England. During his trip in Japan, Curzon was aided
by Spring-Rice, an alumnus from Oxford who accompanied him to
Korea in October. After visiting his next destination, China, he
passed through Japan once more on his way to Vietnam and Cambodia. Needless to say, his main interest in Indochina was French
imperialism. Curzon returned to England in March 1893 and published Problems of the Far East in the summer of the following year.
The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War contributed to the book’s
being a bigger success than expected, as Japan’s victory over China
proved that his estimate of the warring powers had been accurate.5
Probably because Japan was already a relatively familiar country to
British readers, his book deals almost exclusively with the consolidation of the modern state in Japan. By contrast, he illustrates the
scenery of Korea and aspects of people’s lives at great length, probably induced by a sense of duty as one of the ‘less than half-a-dozen
Europeans’ who had visited the interior of Korea (Curzon: 102).
Bird, on the other hand, was driven to East Asia by the more
genuine interest of a traveler. As a person traveling through Japan
immediately after the Meiji Restoration and Korea at a time when
its fate was hanging by a thread, Bird could not remain apathetic
toward the political situation and yet her main concerns were travel
and exploration. Bird was the first woman to travel in the Yangtze
Valley and received such recognition that in 1893 she was one of the
very first female members accepted by the Royal Geographic Society.
In 1897 she became the first woman to give a speech in that society.
All her books achieved popularity and her Korea and her Neighbours
remained the standard reference long after its publication in 1898.
6
While most travelers refrained from going beyond the well-known
areas, Bird explored as far as Hokkaido, which was just beginning to
be colonized and was still regarded to be barbarian. Bird left England
in 1878 and arrived at San Francisco where she boarded a steamship
bound for Japan. She entered the port of Yokohama, and after several weeks’ preparations for the trip, which included hiring a
Japanese interpreter-servant, she passed through the northeastern
region on her way to Hokkaido. She then returned to Honshu to visit
the Western regions including Kyoto. Arriving in Korea in 1894, she
entered the country through Jemulpo, port city of Seoul, and after
an unsuccessful search for an interpreter, she hired a sampan and a
boatman and found her way into the interior along the Han River.
She then surveyed the northern parts of Korea, even showing the
zeal of exploring the Korean settlements near Vladivostok.
The first object of this paper is to understand the ways in which
Japan and Korea are represented in the texts of Bird and Curzon.
This implies the task of tracing the subtle boundary between mod
ernity and premodernity defined by the Victorians. In their travels
in Japan and Korea, Bird and Curzon confronted the problem of
defining modernity and premodernity and placing the two countries
in an evolutionary hierarchy. While the epithet, the ‘Land of the
Morning Calm’ designating Korea at the time, denoted an image of
stagnation, Japan’s image as the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ suggested
progress. If Korea was typical of staid and unchanging Asia and
hence was simply defined as ‘premodern,’ Japan’s position was more
ambiguous. By analyzing their texts we can ascertain how Victorian
travelers understood the complex co-presence of modernity and premodernity in non-European societies.
The second object of this paper is to find common features of
colonial discourse as well as differences in the travel writings of Bird
and Curzon. Their texts reflect colonial discourse that circulated at
a time when the supremacy of Western civilization was unchallengeable. But if Curzon belonged to the mainstream within an ‘imperial
race,’ Bird as a woman was in a marginalized position within that
group, and therefore her discourse is not identical to Curzon’s. We
can detect in their discourses shared elements as well as differences
and even contradictions which might be attributed to various parameters, one, of course, being gender. Curzon’s text, written by a man
who professed to be a ‘convinced and unconquerable Imperialist,’7 is
a classic model of colonial discourse. Bird’s texts contain aspects
quite different from Curzon’s, and yet her firm sense of cultural
and racial superiority deters her from overcoming the framework of
colonial discourse.
The final object of this paper is to investigate whether, and if so
how, the elements of gender and race influenced native reactions to
Bird and Curzon. Japan, avidly absorbing Western civilization, found
England its highest exemplar and a worthy object of admiration. It
appears that the gender element was not a significant factor in
Japan’s perception of Europeans. For the Koreans, however, a European woman such as Bird was a perplexing challenge and their attitudes were far more complex than those of the Japanese. Differentiating the varying attitudes toward Bird and Curzon displayed in the
two nations may offer us an insight into the conflicting discourse of
civilization and barbarity in the East and the West.
Colonial Discourse: Civilization and Barbarity
The discussion of colonial discourse that has proceeded from Edward
Said primarily emphasizes that the West has discriminated and distanced the Orient as the Other so as to clarify the hierarchy between
the two.8 The most distinct feature of the differentiation practiced
by Europeans is representation of the East as stagnant or dilapidated
in contrast to the constantly progressing West. Such plain Orientalism is revealed in the texts under our analysis. Both Bird and Curzon
basically adhere to the Victorian perspective that Asia is stagnant
and unchanging. Japan, however, does not fit into this stereotype,
and the perplexity arising from this leaves Bird and Curzon in a
predicament where they need to explain the difference between
Japan and Korea, while acknowledging them as Europe’s Other.
Travelers are bound to nurse an established image of their destination even before leaving home. Curzon’s image of the East
sprouted from the Old Testament and the Arabian Nights that he had
read as a child, and he has his own opinions of Asia’s characteristics.
To him ‘unappeasable warfare against hurry’ on the part of the
Asians is the representative symbol of a stagnant Oriental Society.
Another Englishman who visited Korea in the early twentieth century also observed that Koreans ‘never hurry.’9 In the East, even
the landscape seems stagnant. Here is Bird’s first impression upon
entering Yokohama.
The air and water were alike motionless, the mist was still and pale . . .
grey clouds lay restfully on a bluish sky, the reflection of the white sails of
the fishing boats scarcely quivered; it was all so pale, wan, and ghastly, that
the turbulence of crumpled foam which we left behind us, and our noisy,
throbbing progress, seemed a boisterous intrusion upon sleeping Asia.
(Japan I: 14)
The houses are characterized by similar monotony. Curzon cannot
discern any beauty in the dull Korean houses built of mud, paper and
wood. Japan is no exception. Japan is beyond the limits of ‘Oriental
magnificence,’ palaces and cottages being alike of grey wood (Japan
I: 7). The Koreans dress themselves entirely in white while the
Japanese were ‘dull blues, browns, and greys,’ and a monotony of
meanness characterizes the towns (Japan I: 7). Bird’s first impression
of Korea later evolves into recognition of a ‘strange beauty’ and she
comes to discover signs of vitality existing even in the staid Korean
society: that is, she witnesses a shaman ritual for the sick, a funeral,
and a wedding in procession at one village. However, the overall
impression of Korea remains the absence of vitality, dullness in
which nothing occurs and an immutable state of stagnation. Another
British traveler visiting Korea in the beginning of the twentieth century characterizes Korea as ‘a nation of sturdy apathetic sheep’ with
‘silent indifference beneath the driving lash of the world.’10
The Others constructed by Westerners tend to be homogenized
into a collective ‘they’ and described as an indistinguishable mass,
void of individual details. Individuals are nonexistent in the accounts
of our authors, Bird’s as well as Curzon’s. Curzon does not even
reveal the last name of the Korean foreign minister whom he interviews, while Bird’s texts merely mention the last name of the interpreter or boatman who accompanies her, although it is true that she
shows far more interest in natives than Curzon. Bird omits people
in her description of the impression of Jemulpo, her first destination
in Korea. Likewise, Seoul is full of throngs of people but they are
‘purposeless crowds.’ Bird perceives the movement of people in the
streets of Seoul as ‘medieval processions’ (Korea I: 33). By thus
qualifying Korea as ‘medieval’, she relegates the nation to the European Middle Ages, another way of maneuvering employed by the
Europeans to distance the Other.11
According to Bird and Curzon, Korea is a decaying and dying country and obstinately resists reform from the palace to the lowest
slums. They use the term ‘conservatism’ to represent Korea. Bird
views it as the hotbed of ‘the antique Oriental conservatism’ (Korea
II: 287), and Curzon concludes that a ‘conservatism of a hide-bound
stolidity is instinctive’ in the Korean people (Curzon: 187). Koreans
cannot even comprehend the concept of constitutional monarchy.
Bird writes that when she had an audience with the King, it was
impossible to explain to him through an interpreter, to whom the
ideas were unfamiliar, the constitutional checks on the English
crown. However, things are different in Japan. Yokohama’s image of
‘sleeping Asia’ vanishes upon stepping on shore. Not only Yokohama
but Japanese cities in general appear to be ebullient and energetic.
Bird therefore diagnoses Japan to be a ‘much governed’ country
(Japan I: 24) while Curzon finds its Westernization remarkable.
Japan is being Europeanized rapidly, taking on the features of a
modern state and progressing toward social democratization.
The disparity between Japan and Korea is also detected in the
level of competence of their politicians. Curzon finds Ito Hirobumi’s
cabinet surely a ‘Ministry of All the Talents’ (Curzon: 23). After
exchanging conversation with Ito and his colleagues on several occasions, Curzon expresses respect toward the country that has produced such public men. But his impression of the Korean foreign
minister is completely different. Being aware that Curzon served in
the British government, the minister assumes that he is a close relative of the English royal family. When Curzon replies that he is not,
the minister shows his disgust. This is exemplary of the gap existing
between modern and premodern states. Curzon recognizes that
Western pragmatists sacrificed Koreans by ‘seeping into their weak
structure with modern institutions’ such as leaseholds, banks, and
factories, but he justifies these pains caused by imperialist invasions
as the price Korea must pay to encounter civilization (Curzon: 165–
6).
‘Civilization’ as defined and used in nineteenth-century England
implied such values as manners, cleanliness, diligence, freedom, and
above all, progress towards increased wealth and power through
social co-operation.12 Civility was considered the most distinctive
hallmark of a civilized society and in this, Japan and Korea could be
differentiated. In one Korean village, Bird is virtually abducted by
the female servants of a certain wealthy household and taken to the
women’s quarters where no one, regardless of their status, shows any
trace of civility. In fact Bird prefers natives who remain untainted
by the West to the Europeanized ones. Yet when they fail to observe
Western proprieties, she finds it intolerable. Bird’s distrust of
Korean proprieties is apparent in her emphasis on the rudeness of
‘yangbans,’ Korea’s elite class. She is aware that yangbans are the
‘cultured class’ of Korea. Even so, Bird considers them to be rude.
By contrast, Bird notices in Japan that the people are courteous and
polite in the mountain villages, in the trains, virtually everywhere.
During Bird’s stay in a hinterland village, some villagers call on her
out of curiosity. They express their gratification at seeing so ‘honourable’ a traveler, to whom Bird replies that she is thankful to see so
much of their ‘honourable’ country, and everyone bows ‘profoundly’
(Japan I: 316). The grace, dignity, and courtesy of their manners are
impressive and altogether perfect in their way, yet ‘not in the slightest particular formed upon our models’ (Japan II: 205, 226). This is
the decisive factor in evaluating the Japanese as civilized. However,
Curzon does not trust the Japanese civility as Bird does. He points
out that the Japanese act like scoundrels in Korea though observing
propriety in their homeland, and criticizes Japan for repeating the
same arrogance towards Korea as the Westerners while denouncing
the unequal treaties imposed on Japan by the Western powers.
Contrary to travelers who admired the courtesy of the Japanese,
those Englishmen who resided longer in Japan and came to know
the country better saw through its hypocrisy. They generally disliked
and disdained the duplicity of the Japanese, especially the way they
made polite evasions when rejecting. Some missionaries who disliked
the hollow insincerity beneath Japanese courtesy taught their students to refrain from it. Robert Young, the editor of the Japan Chronicle, an English newspaper published in Japan, deemed that Japanese
hospitality and courtesy were ‘the product of the feudal system’ and
that their courage and loyalty were nothing but ‘ignorance and
superstition.’ He concluded that the people of Japan simply lacked
spirit.13 Japanese courtesy that Bird regarded as the ‘symbol of modernity’ was rather the evidence of a ‘lack of modernity’ in others’
eyes.
Another hallmark of civilization that was universally recognized
by the Victorians was cleanliness. In the accounts of travelers who
visited Africa and Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, cleanliness was the most frequent denominator of racial
differences.14 Bird also views filth as a distinct aspect of the Orient.
The passages in which she describes Korea are embellished with such
adjectives as ‘dirty,’ ‘filthy’ and ‘squalid’ and she confesses that she
‘shrinks from describing’ intra-mural Seoul. She thought it ‘the foulest city on earth before I saw Peking’ (Korea I: 32–3, 36). Curzon
also describes Seoul as ‘disagreeable to the nostril as it is bewildering
to the eyes’ (Curzon: 125). Japan, on the other hand, is clean in all
places. Nikko is ‘so painfully clean’ (Japan I: 102), and filth or poverty is nowhere to be seen in Tokyo. Three decades later when the
Webbs visited an elementary school in Tokyo on inspection, they
could not detect any unpleasant odors in the assembly of 60–70 children.15 To the British travelers cleanliness is surely an important
mark of Japan’s modernity. Hence one Westerner summarizes the
difference in cleanliness among the East Asians as the following:
‘The Japanese as a race place great importance upon cleanliness of
body and clothing as well. The Korean insist upon clean clothing but
pay little attention to cleanliness of person. The Chinese are
extremely dirty both as regards clothing and body.’16 The Japanese,
however, had been clean regardless of the impact of the West and
modernization. Cleanliness might not be necessarily a trait of modernity as the Victorians assumed.
Industry is another significant value that the Victorians applied in
their ‘Othering’ process. In Liberalism industry served as an important index for classifying civilization and non-civilization, and its leading thinkers, including John Locke, held that only a diligent life with
a rational and practical goal was worthwhile. Viewed from this perspective, Korea, where people are ‘sauntering along in their dress
hats, not apparently doing anything’ (Korea I: 29), is barbaric,
whereas Japan, where everyone diligently moves about, is civilized.17
Bird’s particularly scathing indictment against Korea’s ruling class
seems to be partially based on the measure of industry. The intellectual class of yangbans is proscribed from physical labor, but it is not
considered a disgrace to be supported by their relatives or by the
earnings from ‘the clandestine industry of their wives in sewing and
laundry work’ (Korea I: 113). The existence of such a class verifies
Korea’s barbarity. The numerous Buddhist priests who depend on
donations for their living are another evidence of the non-existence
of the value of labor in Korean culture. Curzon also views ‘the
incurable laziness of the Korean people’ as the reason so many
people embrace Buddhism despite popular skepticism and official
neglect (Curzon: 103). On the other hand, Japanese people are all
industrious. Upon arriving at Yokohama, Bird is first struck by the
fact that there are no idle people: ‘All the small, ugly, kindly-looking,
shrivelled, bandy-legged, round-shouldered, concave-chested, poorlooking beings in the streets had some affairs of their own to mind’
(Japan I: 17). Tokyo shows such dynamic commercial activity that
no street in Liverpool or New York could compare. ‘No time is lost
and ‘‘presto’’ is the motto’ (Japan II: 177).
Civility, cleanliness and diligence, however, do not qualify the
Japanese for modernity. Admitting that Japan is decisively more civilized than Korea, Bird and Curzon do not fully acknowledge its modernity. It is not that Korea alone is ‘medieval.’ Curzon finds ‘feudal’
elements in Japan as well, which are particularly evident in politics.
He has indeed no faith in Japan’s modernization. Although Japan
is a ‘country intoxicated with the modern spirit’ (Curzon: 395), its
modernization is after all an imitation and all its valuable assets
have been acquired from abroad. What he finds impertinent is that
such a nation is critical of Europe. Curzon cannot stand the fact that
‘the more she has assimilated European excellences, the more critical she has become of European defects’ (Curzon: 45).
Curzon, convinced that the Orient could never catch up with
Europe, does not in the least suspect that Japan might become a
threat in the future and merely predicts that it would become a
commercial power at the most. Concerning the Japanese victory in
the Sino-Japanese war, he retorts: ‘In the victory of a young and
energetic and well-knit Asiatic power over the notorious invalid of
the Far-Eastern world, why should Europe read her own deathsentence in that continent?’ (Curzon: 387). What draws our attention is the fact that his judgment is based primarily on racism. The
Japanese do not possess the ‘hereditary instinct’ for expansion and
do not demonstrate any evidence of an ability to govern or educate
a subject race of another blood (Curzon: 412).18 Bird, who understands race as a moral force, finds Japan’s limitations in the fact that
they are not Christians. Holding Christianity to be the source of
Western civilization, Bird views Japan’s modernization as an attempt
to secure the fruit of Christianity ‘without transplanting the tree
from which they spring.’ Feudalism, which is the ‘millstone of
Orientalism,’ hangs around her neck and Japan’s modernity seems
to be a ‘failure’ (Japan II: 347).
Japanese patriotism, so admired by Japan’s adorers, is also nothing
but the deficiency of modernity from the colonial perspective. To be
sure, Bird marvels at the patriotism of Ito, her interpreter-servant,
and remarks: ‘I never met with such a boastful display of it, except
in a Scotchman or an American’ (Japan I: 312). At the same time
she detects antipathy towards foreigners among the Japanese.
Curzon also warns against the ‘extravagant or ridiculous assertion
of the national spirit,’ and claims that such impetuous chauvinism is
found in nations such as Japan advancing toward greatness and those
like France, that is ‘smarting under the memory of a great national
humiliation.’ In this respect, the Japanese are the ‘Frenchmen of the
Far East’ (Curzon: 47–8). Witnessing some Japanese who applaud
childish and impudent behaviour, Curzon mocks that ‘one trembles
to think what will be the fate reserved for a genuine Japanese hero,’
should such a one ever appear (Curzon 47–8). Bird and Curzon thus,
while acknowledging Japan’s progress in contrast with the stagnancy
of Korea, nevertheless find it limited in many ways. Japan may be
advancing toward modernity but its racial and religious defects
should make this impossible in the end.
Femininity and Masculinity of Colonial Discourse
The above discussion has shown that Bird and Curzon shared the
dominant perspective of the Victorians regarding the non-European
world. However, we become aware that unlike Curzon who adheres
absolutely to colonial discourse, Bird rejects it in some ways. We
can discern some distinctive differences in their texts that might be
attributed to gender. Curzon’s text stands for masculinity. He never
mentions personal contacts with the natives, and concentrating his
attention mainly on political situations, he elaborates on ‘great’
issues such as the military, commerce, taxation and the political
future. By contrast Bird is fundamentally concerned with more personal and domestic matters such as weddings and marital relationships, although she occasionally comments on trade or commerce.
Topics such as the military or combat power are not found in Bird’s
texts. To be sure, Bird tries to take on the role of a scientific investigator, presenting the detailed longitude and latitude of each location,
noting geographic facts, measuring the temperature, altitude, atmospheric pressure and so forth, and introducing the plants with a list
of their long scientific names. She also acquaints the reader with
her busy daily routine of collecting and drying plants, taking and
developing pictures in spite of the difficulties of making a darkroom
and discusses commerce and the political situation of East Asia in
detail. However, Bird’s lengthy explanation of the political situation
of Japan and Korea reveals her misunderstanding of the situation.
She commits the grave mistake of overlooking Japan’s imperialist
ambitions and draws the conclusion that though Japan ‘lacked
experience and was ofttimes rough and tactless and aroused hostile
feeling needlessly,’ it has no intention to subjugate Korea, only desiring to play the role of the ‘protector for Korea and the guarantor of
her independence’ (Korea II: 287). By contrast, Curzon’s assessment
of Japan’s ambitions is accurate despite his overconfidence of Britain’s role in East Asia.
The concept ‘going native’ is a helpful index for understanding
Bird’s attempt to overcome colonial discourse. Here Bird and Curzon
demonstrate clear differences. Bird incessantly yearns for contact
with the natives. Everywhere she enjoys meeting with the natives,
serves tea and exchanges conversation, and the natives seek her as
well. Bird abhors ‘the denationalization of nations’ and criticizes missionaries for inducing their students to renounce Japanese courtesy
(Japan II: 220–1). When travelers received by the Korean King ridicule the audience and the palace, Bird speaks in defense of Korea.
She thus censures the inflexibility of the Westerners who laugh at
national customs and proprieties different from their own. And yet,
her inability to tolerate the impoliteness of Koreans reveals the
limits of flexibility on her part. Bird is critical of the English
employed by the Japanese government who isolate themselves from
the natives and do not devote any attention to Japanese affairs. Bird
also displays an impatience to get out of large cities as the metropolises are so similar to ‘home.’ It is unlikely that scenery identical
to home would be of much interest for a traveler who has escaped
from the mundane. After her return from Hokkaido, she ‘regretted
the loss of afternoon’ at the reception held by the Japanese foreign
secretary to congratulate her ‘unprecedented tour.’ It was a mere
imitation of an English reception with nothing distinctively Japanese
about it. By contrast, she is very grateful to Satow, the British Minister in Tokyo, who held a dinner party for her ‘in his beautiful
Japanese house’ (Japan II: 204). This does not mean that Bird relinquishes all English modes of life. Even while traveling in a small,
miserable boat, ‘afternoon tea of Burrough’s and Wellcome’s tabloids
was never omitted’ (Korea I: 91). Contrary to Bird, Curzon deems
it positive that the English abroad follow the English way of life. He
is pleased to find that the places frequented by Englishmen in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore have magnificent club-houses furnished with English newspapers and periodicals as any of the places
of Pall Mall. The Englishman in Asia also enjoys various sports
including cricket, golf, football, and horse-races, and stays the
healthiest while ‘the German easily grows fat, and the Frenchman
withers’ (Curzon: 420).
While Curzon thoroughly prefers Western civilization, Bird is
opposed to Asians being Europeanized. She criticizes the Japanese
habit of wearing European dress when it only makes them look
smaller. It is rather their traditional costumes that make them
appear larger and hide their physical deficiencies. Western dress
‘exaggerates the miserable physique and the national defects of concave chests and bow legs’ (Japan I: 27). If Western-style furniture,
carriages, and imitations of cheap taste are replacing traditional decorations in Japan, foreign items such as ‘Brussels tapestry carpets,
great mirrors in tawdry gilt frames and French clocks’ are vulgarizing Korean simplicity (Korea I: 98–9). Bird feels a strong revulsion
toward what she regards as Korea’s primitiveness at first but grows
gradually fond of it. Bird appears to have retained the concept of the
‘noble savage’ to a certain extent. For there no longer exist places
in the so-called civilized societies where a woman such as herself
could travel 1,200 miles hardly running into any one. It is the same
case for Seoul. Seoul is a place with ‘unspeakable meanness and
faded splendors,’ and yet it is also a place where tigers and leopards
are shot within the walls and where a European woman can ride
without an escort (Korea I: 33–6).
Description of the body, another recognized mark of femininity in
the discussion of travel writings, is clearly revealed in Bird’s texts.
While Curzon hardly mentions the appearances of the natives and
attaches importance to the national characteristics and temperament, Bird devotes a considerable portion of her books to detailed
references to appearances, employing the adjective ‘ugly’ quite frequently. She adopts the view that Asians are deficient in terms of
a Western norm of beauty and finds the Japanese to be physically
repugnant. She becomes particularly abhorrent of Japanese women.
I saw nothing like even passable good looks. The noses are flat, the lips
thick, and the eyes of the sloping Mongolian type; and the common customs
of shaving off the eyebrows and blackening the teeth, together with an
obvious lack of soul, give nearly all faces an inane, vacant expression. Their
shoulders are round and very falling, their chests and hips narrow, their
hands and feet very small, their stature from four feet eight inches to five
feet one inch. They look as if a girl passed from girlhood to middle age
almost at once when weighted with the cares of maternity. (Japan I: 76–7)
Bird is critical of Japanese dress as well. To Bird, discontented with
the tight corsets and narrow waists in English women’s outfits, the
Japanese outfit seems just as uncomfortable, and what is worse, the
wooden clogs worn with the tight outfits force women to walk in tiny
steps. The narrow, tight clothes make them look even smaller, and
the tiny Japanese woman inside seems almost ‘truly helpless,’ giving
the impression that this race is gradually disappearing (Japan I: 38–
9). Japan is a land of mannequins. It is as if she saw them all before
‘on trays, fans, and tea-pots’ (Japan I: 29). Derisive accounts of small
houses and doll-like women often appear in Bird’s text. A portable
restaurant, though neat and compact, looks as if it were made ‘by
and for dolls, and the mannequin who kept it was not five feet high’
(Japan I: 17). What’s most interesting is that Bird, who makes this
remark, was only 4 feet 11 inches tall herself. Bird ridicules the
small stature of the Japanese as if her privilege as a white race made
up for her own.
Although Bird could not escape her innate concept of European
superiority, her texts indicate the subordination of colonial discourse
in showing sympathy toward the weak. Her harsh judgment of the
yangban class in Korea seems to point to this. Bird’s text, which
describes yangbans as men ‘with a scornful and sinister physiognomy’
(Korea I: 116), reveals much stronger emotions than Curzon’s narrative does. Bird’s criticism of Japan and sympathy with Korea could
be read as another evidence of her femininity. By contrast, Korea
elicits no sympathy from Curzon. To him, Korea is nothing but a
depraved and irremediable country. Yet Bird tries to comprehend its
‘pitiful attempt to retain its manners, customs, and identity’ in the
face of such innumerable destructive influences (Korea I: 33). Bird’s
sympathy with the weak, however, proves to be limited as revealed
in her attitude towards native women. Europeans commonly viewed
the bondage of women as evidence of the barbarity and deficiency
of Eastern society and used it as a justification for the Civilizing
Mission.Bird and Curzon accept this perspective and confirm the
bondage of women in Japan and Korea. For Curzon, the fate of
Korean women is represented by the laundry work continuing into
the night everywhere, the only sound which breaks the stillness of a
Seoul night being the regular beat of laundry sticks. Curzon even
jumps to the conclusion that ‘the white cotton garments of the men
are now maintained by them for the excellent purpose they serve in
keeping women busy’ (Curzon: 128–9). Bird also judges that ‘so long
as her lord wears white,’ women are ‘slaves to the laundry’ (Korea I:
43).
She goes on to explain in detail other bondages of Korean women
such as the custom of strict seclusion. At the time of Bird’s visit to
Korea, the practice of men retreating from the streets after darkness
was reinforced and in the middle of the night, women and servants
holding lanterns were the only ones to be seen in the streets of Seoul.
Bird also describes the discriminatory practice in which the wife
must recognize duties toward her husband though he hardly acknowledges corresponding obligations. Women’s clothing is extremely
dirty while the men wear clean white clothes, and this is interpreted
as due to men’s monopoly of women’s ceaseless laundry work. In a
country where concubinage is a recognized institution, a Korean man
confesses to Bird that they ‘marry our wives, but we love our concubines’ (Korea II: 154). In Japan likewise, the status of women is so
deplorable that husbands are permitted to beat their wives as long
as they do not wound them with cuts, and maternal rights are
unheard of. More than anything, prostitution underscored women’s
bondage in Japan, where every travel guide book referred to the
regions of prostitution. But Bird’s feminine modesty prevents her
from speaking on the subject.19
Bird, however, shows no sympathy toward Asian sisters. She simply
draws the conclusion that they accept their inferior position as their
fate and that they will probably never think of breaking the custom,
judging that they do not long for the freedom enjoyed by European
women. Seclusion has been the custom for several centuries and
surely Korean women believe that they are scrupulously controlled
because they are ‘valuable chattels’ (Korea II: 152). Bird’s attitude
is similar to that of white women who seek to reaffirm their superior
ity and liberated position through the inferior status of non-white
women. Her sense of cultural, racial superiority makes her unable to
empathize with the women of backward countries.20
Gender, Race and the Natives
Bird’s cool-headed attitude changes when she herself experiences
the clash between gender and race. When she could not avoid the
conflict with masculine supremacy in Oriental society, she attempts
to overcome the limitations caused by gender by using the assumed
racial superiority. One element that clearly reveals the relationship
that white women share with native men is their relationship to the
native interpreter. The interpreter is someone who transcends the
master–servant relationship, with the tendency to invade tentatively
the authority of the West. The dissimilitude of Bird and Curzon is
vividly revealed here. Though Curzon must have been accompanied
by an interpreter as well, he does not mention this person at all. A
white man such as Curzon does not have to experience the subtlety
in his relationship with the interpreter that Bird, a white woman,
perceives. Bird’s relationship with her interpreter is the scene of a
meeting between a female member of a ‘masculine race’ and a male
of a ‘feminine race’. Bird was unable to acquire a suitable interpreter
in Korea and did not need to have a direct relationship with an
interpreter. In Japan, however, Bird hires a young man named Ito as
an interpreter-servant, and she is practically ruled by him throughout her travel. She finds herself powerless in his absence. Ito is in
charge of all matters including food, clothing and shelter, and Bird
becomes so reliant on him that she entrusts her passport and half of
her money in his hands. And yet, Bird uses English as a means of
exercising authority over Ito who wishes to learn ‘good English,’ and
tries to maintain her superiority by emphasizing the fact that Ito
tries to hide the dark sides of Japan.
The natives of Korea posed more difficulties for Bird than the
native Japanese and such disparity had a bearing on the difference
in their acceptance of the West. Japan was in the process of discarding its own traditions and embracing Westernization with the
firm belief that a civilization of any worth could only be a Western
one.22 Thus in 1884 we find Fukuzawa Yukichi, a most influential
reformer and thinker, demanding that Japan ‘dissociate from Asia
and join Europe.’ The conviction of the Japanese that their country
shared some common features with England, such as their geographic condition and ‘national character’, is reflected in their use
of the epithet, the ‘England of the Far East,’ and also served to intensify
their desire to follow England’s example. Such calls for unconditioned Westernization were bound to meet challenges in the course
of time, and one of those who converted their view was Tokutomi
Soho. Tokutomi, once having been an enthused admirer of the West,
came to be a spokesman for extreme nationalism in the late 1890s.23
After Japan’s victory over China in 1894, it became quite clear that
Europe refused to acknowledge Japan as an autonomous and civilized
nation, causing much disappointment and hostility in Japan regarding the West.24 However, Europe retained the admiration of most
Japanese at the time of Bird and Curzon’s travels and even Bird
managed to elicit respect from the natives despite her womanhood.
Commoners in Japan feel such trust in Bird that they request her to
practice medicine for them and she does not decline. Western medicine was in fact one of the most effective tools employed by European
expansionism but it was also a symbol of masculinity. Bird’s prescription is nothing more than a few pills of pain-killers, but such treatment clarifies the hierarchy of the East and the West in science and
knowledge and helps Bird overcome limitations as a woman. The fact
that Bird was a woman did not matter to the Japanese as long as she
was an Englishwoman.
In Korea the native reactions to Bird varied depending on social
status. The primary reaction of the common people is extreme curiosity and Bird becomes the object of surveillance and trespass.
Curzon does not mention such a ‘reciprocal gaze’ and hence does not
acknowledge it. Bird experiences it everywhere she goes and becomes
dispirited by it. In Japan, the courtesy of the natives makes it at least
tolerable, but the stifling curiosity of the ‘obstreperous and obnoxious’ Koreans goes beyond her patience. The rumor of a Western
woman brings Koreans from several miles away. Once, while
standing on a rock on the riverbank, Bird is nearly pushed into the
water by the crowd, and a scene like that of a show production is
stirred up at the village inn. The women ‘investigate’ Bird’s clothing,
take off her hat and try it on themselves, twist her hair, pull off her
gloves and try them on with shrieks of laughter.
The simplest way of minimizing such trespass is to avoid it by
taking unbeaten tracks. But when such passive methods fail to be a
solution, Bird relies on genuinely colonial and masculine means.
Bird, following the suggestion of a Chinese servant she brought from
the British Consulate, frees herself from the ‘aggressive and intolerable curiosity’ of the Koreans by pretending to clean her revolver
(Korea I: 144). On another occasion when throngs of people are
following her, a young man plays a prank by kicking her ankles from
behind, backing away and assaulting her again. Miller, a consul who
is accompanying Bird at the time, turns around without a word and
strikes a blow to the young man’s chest. Although Miller regrets
doing so, Bird is satisfied that it has left a ‘salutary impression’ on
the natives by serving ‘summary justice with perfect coolness’ (Korea
I: 116–17).
Far more unbearable to Bird is the way in which the elite class
treats her. Everywhere she goes, Bird is mistreated by high-ranking
officials. When Bird and her company bow low, they do not even
bother to raise their eyes and some yangbans open the curtains of
the partition on the boat Bird is in and thrust their shoulders and
heads inside. Bird’s challenge to such treatment is refusing to recognize the power yangbans are supposed to possess, and seeing in them
only impotence. The yangban is required to be in ‘supreme helplessness,’ carrying nothing for himself, not ‘even his pipe’ (Korea I:
113). Contrary to Bird, Curzon does not view yangbans as impotent
though he considers them to be plunderers. It appears that Curzon
is not mistreated by officials during his trip to Korea. He rather
advises the reader to ‘invoke some sort of official assistance’ for it is
difficult for the stranger to procure lodging or food in this poor country (Curzon 100–1). In Bird’s case, she is received coldly even though
she carries the official introduction (kwan-ja). Other male Westerners who also visited Korea around this period all testified that
Koreans were kind and showed no antagonism toward Westerners.25
The singularity of the scorn and mistreatment that the yangban
class exhibited toward Bird is testimony to women’s status in Korean
culture. By the time Bird and Curzon visited the country in the
1890s, three outlooks on the West and on modernization had been
established in Korea. The traditional viewpoint asserted the centrality of the Chinese civilization and dismissed all the rest as barbarian.
When Bird and Curzon defined Korea as barbaric, traditionalists did
the same concerning the West, following the Chinese ‘occidentalism.’ Then there were those who, while maintaining that
Korea must preserve its traditional values, conceded that they must
master Western technology in order to build up a stronger and
wealthier nation and thus formulated a concept encapsulated as
‘Eastern Ways, Western Machines.’ Finally, a third view claimed the
superiority of the West in both mental and material aspects and
argued that Korea should accept Western values as well, which was
understood to be represented by Christianity. But adherents of the
third view were extremely few in number, and even those who held
the second opinion were a minority compared to the traditional Confucian literati.
It is noteworthy, however, that a majority had come to acknowledge the material supremacy of Western civilization. Even traditionalists who still regarded Westerners as the equivalent of beasts,
attributed this beastly status to their ethics and values. The progressives, on the other hand, exalted England as the world’s greatest civilized nation. An editorial in the Tongnip Shinmun [The Independent], the
pioneer newspaper in Korea, introducing the sixtieth anniversary of
Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne, stated that ‘the ignorant
person is the greatest rarity’ in England, exhibiting an exaggerated
belief in the English people’s level of enlightenment.26 One admirer
of England even expressed his wish that Korea should be colonized
by Britain if it were doomed to be so by any power.27 When they
came to know of Bird’s book, Korea and her Neighbours, progressives
sought in it a justification of their demand for reform. Expressing
‘both resentment and gladness’ at her observation that Korean emigrants in Russia were diligent and independent while those living
within Korea were inert and lazy, the progressives attributed such
disparity in people’s behavior to oppressive domestic politics and
demanded that corruption and exploitation should be eradicated in
Korea.28
Bird is caught up in the clashing contradictions of discourses on
civilization and barbarity prevalent in Korea at the end of the nineteenth century. The yangban class, whom Bird had regarded to be
so representative of the uncivilized, were educated in Chinese culture and proclaimed that they themselves were the embodiment of
propriety and Korea the ‘country of courteous people in the East.’
They abhorred Christianity especially since the Protestant churches
prohibited the ritual of ancestor worship, which imprinted on the
Koreans the impression that the West was the world of beasts that
recognized neither filial devotion nor loyalty to the king, the two
supreme values in Confucian society. Female subordination was considered an oriental virtue and the most basic of social precepts, and
according to Eastern proprieties, it was unimaginably barbaric for a
woman to wander alone in foreign lands.
All this supports the conclusion that the yangbans’ cold reception
of Bird which formed a stark contrast with that of Curzon and other
travelers was not so much due to the fact that Bird was a Westerner
as to her womanhood. The subordinate status of Korean women
accentuated Bird’s femininity, which in turn overpowered her racial
superiority. The status of Japanese women was certainly also deplorable. But the Japanese adored and adulated the West and therefore
between the two classifiers, gender and race, the latter held much
greater importance and being a Westerner was a far more consequential element than being a woman. However, this was not the
situation in Korea where the blind faith in the superiority of Eastern
values still persisted. While Bird wanted to assert her superiority by
means of her race, the Koreans confronted her by putting forward
the gender element.
***
Despite the differing perspectives and motivations for their journeys,
the common theme found in the travel writings of Isabella Bird and
George Curzon is the reaffirmation of the superiority of Western
civilization and the engagement in a certain degree of colonialist
rhetoric. Their colonial discourse reflects their preoccupation with
the British empire and the maintenance of its influence in East Asia.
They, to be sure, discover certain signs of modernity in Japan but
attempt to trace its limitations. Bird and Curzon show the capacity
to differentiate between Japan and Korea in evolutionary ranking,
but they eventually turn to binary oppositions and consign Japan to
premodernity. Curzon’s text is typical of masculine colonial discourse. His perspective induces him to evaluate Korea as merely the
most uncivilized, enervated and spiritless country in the world, and
Japan as gasping under the treadmill of tradition. Curzon’s pride
leads him to underestimate Japan’s imperialist ambitions at the cost
of painting a rosy future for the British empire in Asia. The section
where Curzon writes about Britain’s future role in East Asia clearly
demonstrates what sort of misleading conclusions could be drawn
when colonial arrogance is excessive.
Bird’s texts display much more complexity than Curzon’s in that
while her writings contain the standard colonial discourse, they are
intermixed with notions that contradict or are inconsistent with it.
As Bird sustains a respect for the weak and the ‘noble savage’ to a
certain extent, she sets restrictions on the Civilizing Mission of the
Europeans. At the same time, she accepts the Victorian concepts of
civilization and race without reservation. When her perception
through personal contact of the Ainus, the aborigines of Hokkaido,
is different from conventional wisdom, she simply ignores the conflict
by confirming the latter. She discovers, for instance, a ‘singular dignity and courtesy of their manners’ in the Ainus and comes to believe
that ‘the expression of their faces is European,’ yet she accepts the
ethnological knowledge of the time and does not hesitate to call
them ‘savages’ (Japan II: 107). As a courageous and independent
explorer of unknown lands, she made a crucial contribution in
breaking the boundaries that confined Victorian women but ultimately she did not reject the dominant masculine discourse of that
society. Bird’s following statement demonstrates this straightfor-wardly: ‘In the reception of Christianity, with its true principles of
manliness (my emphasis) and national greatness, she [Japan] may
become, in the highest sense, ‘‘the Land of the Rising Sun’’ and ‘‘the
Light of Eastern Asia’’’ (Japan II: 347).29
Clearly Bird and Curzon were not free from the dominant discourse of their time concerning civilization and racial hierarchy. If
Curzon strode the world unreservedly as a white man, Bird, a
woman, peeped into the world, fettered with restraints. She nevertheless became one of the few Westerners to explore Hokkaido and
Mt Keumkang of Korea. What guaranteed her that freedom was the
conviction of racial superiority prevailing in Victorian society. For
women travelers, it was not their female body but their white skin
that formed their identity in foreign lands.30 For Koreans, however,
it was not race but gender that determined their attitude towards
European women travelers. It should be remembered that the distinctions Bird and Curzon made between civilization and barbarity
was challenged and rejected in Korea. When civilizations which
define themselves as ‘civilized’ and the Other as ‘barbaric’ clash with
each other, it is the logic of brute force and power that decides which
is superior in the end. But one must bear in mind that for many
Koreans, the superiority of Western civilization was not as selfevident as Bird and Curzon believed them to be during their visits to Korea.
===
Korea and her Neighbours 2 vols (John Murray, 1898). Each book is cited as ‘Curzon,’
‘Japan I,’ ‘Japan II,’ ‘Korea I,’ and ‘Korea II’ henceforth.
0026–749X/02/$7.50+$0.10
513
JIHANG PARK
DOI:10.1017/S0026749X02003013 Printed in the United Kingdom
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514 JIHANG PARK
==
==
3 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (Routledge,
1998). 4 David Gilmour, Curzon (John Murray, 1995), 89.
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 515
5 Ibid., 92–3.
6 The popularity of her books is indicated by the size of her estate at her death—
£33,408. Susan Thurin, Victorian Travelers and the Opening of China, 1842–1907 (Ohio University Press, 1999), 22. See also Evelyn Kaye, Amazing Traveler Isabella Bird (Blue Panda Publications, 1999).
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516 JIHANG PARK
7 George Curzon, ‘The True Imperialism,’ The Nineteenth Century, LXIII (January
1908), 151.
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 517
8 See, for instance, Edward Said, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978);
Francis Barker, Peter Hulme and Margaret Iversen (eds), Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory (Manchester University Press, 1999); James Ducan and D. Gregory (eds),
Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing (Routledge, 1999); Keith Pearson, Benita
Parry and Judith Squires (eds), Cultural Reading of Imperialism: Edward Said and the
Gravity of History (St Martin’s, 1997); Nicholas Thomas, Colonialism’s Culture
(Princeton University Press, 1994); Robert Young, White Mythologies (Routledge,
1995). 9 B. L. Putnam Weale, The Reshaping of the Far East (Macmillan, 1905), 491.
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518 JIHANG PARK
10 R. J. Farrer, ‘Impressions of Korea,’ Nineteenth Century, LIV (December 1903),
925. Similarly Lady Elizabeth Craven, who visited Turkey in the 18th century,
observed that ‘The quiet stupid Turk will sit a whole day by the side of the Canal,
looking at flying kites or children’s boats.’ S. H. Turner, ‘From Classical to Imperial:
Changing Visions of Turkey in the Eighteenth Century,’ in Travel Writing and Empire
ed. Steve Clark (Zed, 1999), 127. 11 Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (Routledge, 1993), 49, 88–9.
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 519
12 For the contemporary concept of civilization, see J. S. Mill, ‘Civilization: Signs
of the Times’ in The Emergence of Victorian Consciousness, ed. George Levine (Free
Press, 1967).
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520 JIHANG PARK
13 Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb, The Webbs in Asia: The 1911–12 Travel Diary
ed. George Feaver (Macmillan, 1992), 32–3.
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 521
14 Thurin, Victorian Travelers, 190. 15 The Webbs in Asia, 44. 16 Frederic Coleman, The Far East Unveiled (Cassell, 1918), 155. 17 F. T. Piggott also contrasts the ‘busy Japanese’ and the ‘contemplating
Korean.’ ‘A Fortnight in Seoul,’ Nineteenth Century, LXVII (June 1910).
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522 JIHANG PARK
18 Curzon was convinced that the British empire was the result of ‘an instinct,
the ineradicable and divinely implanted impulse.’ ‘The True Imperialism,’ 153.
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 523
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524 JIHANG PARK
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 525
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526 JIHANG PARK
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 527
19 Beatrice Webb, by contrast, inspected a prostitution area and interviewed with
the women. The Webbs in Asia, 86.
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528 JIHANG PARK
21
20 For women and imperialism, see Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel
(eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Indiana University
Press, 1992); Clare Midgley (ed.), Gender and Imperialism (Manchester University
Press, 1998). 21 When the Sino-Japanese war erupted during her travels in Korea, Bird was
forced to flee to China where she resumed her explorations. There she sought to
hire an interpreter who had not served a European before, which demonstrates her
obvious intention to secure docility and loyalty. Thurin, Victorian Travelers, 143.
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 529
22 In their visit to Japan in 1911, the Webbs found the Japanese prime minister
holding to the same belief. The Webbs in Asia, 36. 23 Tokutomi, Soho, Taisho no Seinen to Teikoku no Zento [The Youth of the Empire and
the Imperial Future] (Minyusha, 1916); Kenneth Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan
(Stanford University Press, 1969). 24 For the Japanese reception of the West, see Nagao Nishigawa and Hideharu
Matsumiya (eds), Beiokairan Jikki wo Yomu [Reading the Report of the Iwakura Mission]
(Horitsu Bunkasha, 1995); W. Beasley, Japan Encounters the Barbarian (Yale University Press, 1995); Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths (Princeton University Press,
1985); Hiroshi Imai, Nihonjin to Igiris [The Japanese and England] (Chikuma Shobo,
1994); Naoki Sakai, Translation and Subjectivity: On ‘Japan’ and Cultural Nationalism
(University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
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530 JIHANG PARK
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 531
25 See, for instance, William R. Carles, Life in Corea (Macmillan, 1888); R. J.
Farrer, ‘Impressions of Korea’; Walter Hillier, ‘Korea: Its History and Prospects,’
Fortnightly Review, LXXV (May 1904); Frederick Mackenzie, The Tragedy of Korea
(Hodder & Stoughton, 1908); E. H. Parker, ‘Korea,’ Fortnightly Review, LXIII
(February 1898); Savage-Landor, ‘A Visit to Corea,’ Fortnightly Review, LVI (August
1894). 26 Tongnip Sinmun [The Independent], June 22, 1897.
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27 Yun Chi-Ho, Yun Chi-Ho’s Diary, vol. 2 (National History Compilation Committee, Seoul, 1974), 59. 28 Tongnip Sinmun [The Independent], May 21, 1897.
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EAST ASIA TRAVEL WRITINGS 533
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534 JIHANG PARK
29 Mary Kingsley also drifts away from feminist discourse with statements such
as ‘a great woman either mentally or physically will excel an indifferent man, but
no woman ever equals a really great man.’ Mills, Discourses of Difference, 174. 30 Karen Lawrence, Penelope Voyages (Cornell University Press, 1994), 105.
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