The Face of Manchuria, Korea, & Russian Turkestan

The Face of Manchuria, Korea, & Russian Turkesta

Emily Georgiana Kemp's "The Face of Manchuria, Korea, & Russian Turkestan" recounts a journey undertaken by the author and a companion across the borderlands of the Russian, Chinese, and Japanese empires in the early twentieth century, blending travelogue, ethnography, and missionary reportage illustrated by her own sketches. The narrative opens in Manchuria, where the travelers cross from the Trans-Siberian frontier into Kharbin, then sledge to the Chinese town of Hulan through bitter cold, observing Chinese colonists streaming north from Shantung to farm the fertile plains. Kemp gives a condensed history of the Manchu dynasty's rise from tribal origins under Noorhachu to its conquest of China in 1644, explaining Manchu-Chinese cultural distinctions in dress and custom. In Moukden (Shenyang) she visits the Foo Ling and northern imperial tombs, the old palace with its treasure rooms of jade, porcelain, and bronzes, and profiles the extensive Irish and Scottish Presbyterian medical mission work led by Dr. Christie, detailing hospital operations, a planned union medical college, women's medical outreach, and the devastation and recovery following the Boxer Uprising and Russo-Japanese War. Further travels take her to Liao Yang's orchards and battlefields, the mountain monasteries of Chang Shan, and north again to Ashiho and Hulan, describing railway conditions, Chinese and Japanese travel customs, and mission stations. Crossing the Yalu River into Korea, Kemp shifts focus to Pyöng Yang (Pyongyang), portraying a booming indigenous Protestant Christian movement—crowded churches, women's Bible institutes, native pastors, and the revival associated with the Korean elder Kil Moksa. She surveys denominational approaches (Presbyterian self-support versus Methodist Episcopal patronage), work among the blind, and gives a lengthy historical excursus on Roman Catholic missions in Korea since the eighteenth century, chronicling waves of brutal persecution and martyrdom drawn from Père Dallet's history. In Seoul she tours the decaying imperial palace, recounts court customs and the murder of Empress Min, visits the empress's mausoleum, and offers pointed criticism of high-handed Japanese administrative practices following the protectorate, tempered by acknowledgment of infrastructural improvements. An eight-day pony trek through the Diamond Mountains follows, visiting a Buddhist monastery, Korean village inns, and rural Christian households, with observations on Korean agriculture, customs, and the sharp contrast with Chinese diligence. The Korea section closes at Fusan and Dalny (Dairen), noting Japan's rapid development of the former Russian port. The final section covers the long rail journey westward: the Trans-Manchurian and Trans-Siberian lines, Lake Baikal, Irkutsk (with its convict-exile population and gold trade), the vast underpopulated Siberian provinces, Buriat Shamanist customs including a horse-sacrifice ceremony, and Bible Society colportage efforts. Passing through the Kirghiz steppes and the Aral Sea region, the travelers reach Tashkent in Russian Turkestan, arriving amid fragrant poplar avenues, where the volume's narrative portion draws toward its close with the city's Russian-Central Asian character and pleasant spring climate. Throughout, Kemp interweaves practical travel logistics—trains, tickets, currency exchange, lodging mishaps—with sustained attention to Christian missionary enterprise (medical, educational, and evangelistic) across all three regions, alongside descriptions of temples, funerary customs, dress, local industries, and the geopolitical tensions among Russia, China, and Japan on the eve of and following the Russo-Japanese War.

By Emily Georgiana Kemp · First published 1910 · Genre: Travel Literature, Memoir, Travelogue · 21 chapters · 66,336 words

First lines

There is always a thrill of expectation for the genuine traveller on crossing the frontier into an unknown country, which even the sight of the custom-house fails to dispel. In the case of Manchuria we were fortunate enough to escape the custom-house altogether, as having no registered luggage we only received a perfunctory visit from the politest of officials in our railway carriage at about 11 P. M. While all the rest of the travellers had to turn out and spend an hour or more in an offensive-smelling office, we comfortably went to bed and awoke next morning to find a glorious, dazzling sun shining on the snowy plain between Manchuria (town) and our terminus, Kharbin. The railway station is in the Russian town, which has been built up round it, and still looks painfully new: it lies on the banks of the great Sungari River, at the junction of the Trans-Siberian line with the line to Moukden and Peking. After a night's rest in the Russian hotel we started for Hulan, a Chinese town about sixteen miles to the north of Kharbin.

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travel writing · travelogue · geography · Asia · Manchuria · Korea · Russian Turkestan · Central Asia · East Asia · cultural history · ethnography · exploration narrative

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