변경의 동학 상주동학 이야기 2. 교주 김주희의 최후의 그날 The Last Day of the Leader Kim, Joo-hee

변경의 동학 상주동학 이야기 2. 교주 김주희의 최후의 그날 The Last Day of the Leader Kim, Joo-hee

It was a white, frosty morning. Chilly winds were permeating through everyone's sleeves. Since the early morning, around 40 or 50 followers began arriving at the Hall. The date was October 28, the birthday of the late Founder Choi, Jae-woo or Choi, Soo-woon in alias. There was a reason they got together so early in the morning?to avoid the Japanese Police.

They were going to finish the sacrificial service before having some food. In the kitchen, Kim’s daughter-in-law, Gwak, Ah-gi, while preparing offerings for the service, happened to look out the kitchen door and catch a quick glance of a stranger peering into the house. She says she still remembers the sharp stare of the man, even after 70 years.

While feeling strange about the man, she hurriedly continued her work. All through the night from the evening the day before, she alone had been busy preparing all the offerings and food for the dozens of guests. Two rows of some twenty small dining tables were set on the floor of the long rectangular kitchen. In the next room, Leader Kim and the Elders sat around a fire pit discussing how to tide over the critical situation. The other followers took their seats on the spread straw mats in the yard waiting for an early breakfast to be served. Daybreak had yet to arrive.

When Mrs. Gwak was about to serve out the boiled rice, dozens of the Japanese police with sabers on their waists made a surprise attack, turning the scene into a chaos. Some escaped, while others were captured. Several young men tried to hide in the kitchen, where a hand-to-hand fight broke out between the youngsters and the seekers. The chasers ransacked every room of Donghak Hall for the escapees, breaking the doors, furniture, and fixtures. The white-haired leader exclaimed, “You immoral bunch! What are you doing here?”

He was knelt down with his followers in the yard, bound up with a rope. Beside them were scattered mounds of papers and books together with their symbolic flags and books of songs. Several Japanese police took out pairs of scissors and began to cut their top hair knots. Traditionally, the hair knot was the symbol of a man. Koreans thought that cutting off the hair knot was just like losing one’s life. The ‘beheading’ was finished in almost no time. Those who lost their hair knots reached with their tied hands and picked up the hair bundles in tears, as if they were the most precious valuables in the world.

When the roundup concluded, the head of the arrest squad ordered Mrs. Gwak to make rice balls. When the terrified woman refused to do it, a village woman was brought in to make the portable food. Those prisoners did nothing but cry with rice balls in their hands.

Kim, Joo-hee, the eighty-three-year-old Leader, kept his dignity all through the commotion. After eating the food in tears, all of them were taken to Sangju Police Station. It was November 25, 1943.

That was not the last roundup of the Donghak followers. With the list of followers in hand, the Japanese systematically tracked down and arrested the believers. Soon the cells at the police station were full of Donghak followers. According to Mrs. Gwak, around 300 people were taken to the police station. Some of them were released after signing a letter of secession from Donghak, but the majority of the detainees stuck to their faith until the end.

Kim, Joo-hee was released on sick bail the next spring. In December of that year, he passed way after observing a fast for some time. His abstaining from food began when he heard Kim, Nak-sae (1869-1944), Deputy Leader of Sangju Donghak, was tortured to death in prison.

The Leader Kim, Joo-hee died a martyr of his faith at the age of 84 in the room next to the Alter Shrine where he used to preform rituals. The hour of his death was around six p.m. on December 28, 1944.

Having lived a life full of ups and downs, the Leader left his final words, “Don’t worry. Everything will be accomplished in due course of time.”

Kim, Joo-hee (1860-1944), the leader of Sangju Donghak, was a strapping person of great stature, standing more than six feet two inches, and carrying a two-meter-long bamboo cane. He had a brash and rather fussy temperament. According to Gwak, Ah-gi, his daughter-in-law, his hurling words of thunder while beating the wooden floor with the bamboo cane seemed to send the roof into trembling.

The leader was born in 1860 as the second son of farmer Kim, Yoon-jip (1823-1881) and his mother, named Woo, from Danyang. He was adopted by a family of his relatives, but he was neglected. His own father, a believer in Donghak, led his son to follow the same teachings. The father had only been known as a regional leader in Chungcheong Province. No other information about him is available, except that he died during the time when the country’s fate was spiraling into a vortex.

As did Jeon, Bong-joon, a village school master in Jeolla Province, Kim Joo-hee thought of it as his fate to dedicate his life to correcting the deranged social order, eliminating the corrupt ruling class and driving out the foreign forces stationed on their soil. His view of life was strongly influenced by the teachings of Donghak that put the people themselves before anything else.

In the history of Korea, the 1894 Donghak Farmers’ Revolution was a very significant but complicated event; it was a materialization of contradictions. The king tried to subdue his own people hand in hand with Japan, a formidable foreign power.

Throughout the 500 years of the Kingdom’s history, the owners of the country had been the kings and their relatives, completely eliminating the ordinary people, especially the lowest class, from the benefits of a country. When the farmers led by Donghak rose up in a grassroots movement, the royal family and the ruling class tried to suppress the revolt by using all kinds of methods. For the farmers, the uprising was the natural process to save the fellow countrymen and the country itself by defeating the vicious and immoral masters and the outsiders.

Some people have said the revolution was triggered by the flagrant acts of Jo, Byong-gap, the Mayor of Gobu County in North Jeolla Province. But in reality, the political situation had been showing signs of ruin by the end of the previous year (1893). The corrupt officials’ tyranny upon the farmers reached its climax, driving the grassroots movement into a wild rage. The enraged underdogs were watching for a chance to unify a revolt.

While a hair-trigger crisis was facing the country domestically, Japan and China (then Qing) were on the lookout for an opportunity to intervene in Korea’s domestic affairs. Those three wheels, the royal court, the farmers and the foreign powers, were on the verge of colliding into one another at any moment. The trigger was pulled by Jeon, Bong-joon, alias General Nokdoo.

Some historians jump to conclusions on the dangling situation of that time. If Jeon, Bong-joon had been in league with Regent Daewon-gun and occupied the Gyeongbok Palace, then the king’s main residence, a new dynasty would have been born. We don’t have to elicit any conclusion based on ‘if,’ or wrench the meaning of what happened. If we are to appraise the truth of a historic event, we must be cool-headed and make an objective conclusion. In the case of the Farmers’ Revolution, the focus should be placed on the revolutionary event itself, considering only the complicated facts involved in it. We know it too well that a baseless hypothesis never brings out any reliable result.

The value of the historical study resides in the clarification of what happened, with focus on the causes and results objectively found. For example, such studies that are valuable revealed that half of the Japanese troops during the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 16th century were Koreans who wanted to topple the class system, or those that persuasively explained that there were lots of turncoats between the two parties in the Donghak Revolution.

Still there are other kinds of valuable works based on the reliable data and sources unveiling that the fence-sitters among the high-ranking officials cashed in on the nation’s unstable situations during the revolutionary period.

Can we criticize his escape from the carnage of the war at Woogeumchi? Or, does his personal retreat devalue the significance of the battle? History tells us the Woogeumchi Battle was a critical event for the destiny of Donghak.

In November, 1894, around the slopy path called, “Woogeumchi,” near Gongju, an estimated 167,000 Donghak farmer militias, mostly carrying bamboo spears, stood against the well-trained and heavily armed 3,000 allied troops of Korea and Japan. Their superiority in numbers over the opposition was completely meaningless. Once the allied forces opened fire, the farmers fell like autumn leaves. The up-to-date machine guns swept the militias from the ground and left mounds of bodies in blood pools. It was later found that only 500 farmers survived the carnage.

Who can say they were stupid or senseless? Who can blame those who were forced to resort to a life-or-death resistance? Kim, Joo-hee ran away from the battlefield, which was strewn with corpses and drenched in blood.

Carrying a small back bundle, he first hid himself at Gapsa Temple not far from Gongju. He then traveled in disguise through the towns of Goesan, Mooju, Yeongdong and Boeun, and finally sneaked into Mt. Sokri.

In his view, the reckless battle at Woogeumchi was no more than a suicidal act, making the innocent people die a dog’s death. “If we continue this way of battle against these brutal enemies, the dream of the people’s world will not be realized but rather will end up bursting like a bubble,” he thought. Everything looked dire and gloomy. The Japanese, supported by the king and his court, intensified their search for the Donghak followers, urging them to ‘snap the sprouts’ of revolts in the bud.

Meanwhile, an even more serious problem was developing: the ruler of the country seemed to be changing at any time. The Japanese were expanding their influence in the country and pressing the king, already a nominal ruler, to give up his throne. The incidence of the Royal Flight to the Russian Legation attested to this fact. Gojong was the king who lived through the toughest and most dishonorable 50 years of throne in the 500 years of the kingdom’s history. But, he couldn’t be exempted for any reason from the royal responsibilities to rule the country in the right way. In the end, the king failed to keep his people and country from merging inti Japan in 1910.

The Japanese were not successful in their contemptible plots to destroy Donghak. The grassroots movement grew and began to fight for the sovereignty of the country based on their faith. At the head of the movement stood the Leader Sohn, Byeong-hee, who represented the 33 signers of the Declaration of National Independence.

He was of the legitimate lineage of Donghak from Suwoon, the Founder of Donghak (the Eastern Study) and endeavored to practice the teachings of Donghak through organized activities. Sohn, Byeong-hee’s front will be referred to here as ‘the Activists.’

But, were there only the Activists in Donghak School in the turbulent times? And was it only the means of fighting just and proper? Kim, Joo-hee gave an answer to these questions by taking a different line in the practice of the Donghak teachings. This unique group of Donghak followers gathered around Kim who was leading a secluded life in Mt. Sokri.

Here at this point we have to clarify one important turning point in the history of Donghak. In 1905, the religious fraternity of Donghak (the Eastern Study) retitled itself “Chundogyo,” or the “Heavenly Truth.” It was significant in that the fraternity by that time was reshaped into a religion like Catholicism or Buddhism. Since then the title of Chundogyo has officially been used; The 120th Anniversary of the Donghak Farmers’ Revolution this year was organized by Chundogyo which led all the programs of the events under its name.

Sohn, Byeong-hee, who led the revolutionary change, inherited the legitimate title of the Leader in the third generation, after the second generation Leader Choi, Shi-hyong. By the way, what was the momentum to the change of the title? According to the creed experts of Chundogyo, the change was meant to unfold the heavenly secret that the past period of estrangement was being replaced with the new times of active participation. They explained that their living in retirement for a time to avoid the allied (Japan and Korea) suppression after the Revolution marking a new beginning. Armed with this doctrine, Chundogyo followers once again began solving the grave issues. In a word, with the change of the religious name, they proclaimed ‘the practical actions in the reality.’

Still there were certain circumstances behind the efforts of reshaping the order including the renaming. They needed to strengthen the power to stand up against the outward oppression, to settle the conflicts among the followers, and to eliminate the renegades from the order who sympathized with the Japanese. The third of these three was especially the personal problem of Sohn, who returned to Korea from his hiding in Japan, after declaring the Independence. These were the immediate reasons that prompted Sohn and his devotees to promulgate Chundogyo (the Heavenly Truth). It was December 1, 1905.

Meanwhile, Kim, Joo-hee, the leader of the group in seclusion, strove for the education of the followers on the teachings of the Founder, Choi, Jae-woo. Kim learned a lesson from the Woogeumchi Battle that the physical resistance was not the only way to achieve the goals; rather, a spiritual armament was more effective and valuable in the long run. He put his idea into practice by educating the followers on the truth in the Donghak Scriptures so that the teachings could be handed down from generation to generation. The core philosophy of Donghak is ‘the principle of equality.’ It can be rephrased in Choi, Jae-woo’s own words as, “abolition of status discrimination between legitimate and illegitimate children.” In fact, Choi was an illegitimate son. He criticized the unreasonable traditional social systems and refused to accept the Western value system. In this respect, he thought a new sense of value needed to be established. Donghak was the result. Donghak is a combined value system of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, as well as folk beliefs. In today’s word, it could be expressed in the terms of ‘fusion’ or ‘integration,’ but it was regarded as a heretical or false teaching.

In fact, Choi, Jae-woo himself was arrested on the charge of ‘disturbing the world by spreading false words.’ He was beheaded on the execution ground at the Gyeongsang Provincial Headquarters on March 10, 1864. Believe it or not, the moment the executioner did his work, a sudden gale blew violently around the ground, and the leaves of a big pagoda tree close by shed voluminous amounts of sap. Belonging to a sort of higher class at that time, Choi took the lead in removing the status discrimination. There is some evidence that he made one of his two female servants his daughter-in-law and adopted the other as his stepdaughter.

Those behaviors of the Founder Choi, Soo-woon may have greatly influenced Kim, Joo-hee in his leadership. While the pragmatist Sohn, Byong-hee and his followers bravely fought for the cause, the moral educators led by Kim struggled to carry out their endowed duty with much difficulty. The latter group had played a dangerous game of hide-and-seek with the Japanese chasers for almost thirty years since they had settled down at Woogi-ri, Euncheok Myon, Sangju City in 1915.

Anyway, the Donghak people equipped with the live-or-die spirit froze the Japanese’s heart with terror, posing as a source of trouble for them throughout their period of occupation. Keeping an eye on the village, the Japanese police often dropped in the village and rummaged through the houses without warning. Records of their barbarous acts are prevalent. Some of the typical cases were: on October 1, 1917, a squad led by the Chief of Sangju Police searched the houses, and on February 28, 1919, Kim, Dal-yong and his assistant rushed in the Meeting Hall and beat Mr. Baek, Soo. They left with the copies of the Scriptures and other documents.

The Japanese surveillance and repression on Donghak hadn’t slackened until 1919 when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed. The movement is believed to have had a moderating influence on the illegal acts. After the serious uprising, the Japanese changed their attitude toward Sangju Donghak. The Japanese Government General in Seoul unofficially recognized the activities of Donghak, including the printing of the Scriptures and the words of Chants. Accordingly, the influence of Sangju Donghak rapidly grew, and by 1920 the total number of followers reached more than 1,500. However, the appeasement years ended in June, 1936, as the Japanese authorities closed down on the meeting halls and the printing shops without prior notice. Again the hide-and-seek games started. They held meetings and services secretly, and printed the Scriptures and other books on the Donghak creeds in secret.

The part we read at the head of the story was on the incident that happened during this period. The Japanese police secured the information on the date of the Founder’s memorial service and carried out their plan to round up the important leaders and followers. Mrs. Gwak, the daughter-in-law of the Leader Kim, recalls the day, “I will never forget that horrible morning.”

When the hell-like commotion was over, there were only three of them left in the big Hall, a ten-year-old brother-in-law, a six-year-old sister-in-law and Gwak herself. The nineteen-year-old newly-wed who came from a faraway town of Youngdong had been married for three years then.

Written by

Sim, Ji-hoon, Editor in Chief of Hangook Contents Institute

The Inscription by

Haejong Yoo, Young-hee.

Translated by Kim, Heedal & Hwang, Yongsoo (Ph.D) at LIKE TEST PREP (www.likestudy.co.kr)