March 2, 2022

China’s Barbaric Treatment of “Homecoming Women”

For the 500 years of the Joseon dynasty, Yeongeunmun Gate stood near what is now the Independence Gate in western Seoul.

The gate was built in front of Mohwagwan, a facility for welcoming envoys from China, the suzerain state. It was the gate at which the king of Joseon personally went to receive envoys from China, the country that bestowed its favor upon Joseon.

In 1896, the Independence Association demolished the gate and built the Independence Gate in front of it.

The two stone bases of the gate’s pillars are designated as Historic Site No. 33.

At the time, China’s tyranny was not uncommon.

The tribute China valued most was women, and it wanted the daughters of officials rather than servants.

In 1408, the eighth year of King Taejong’s reign, at a gathering to select young women to be sent to China, the daughter of Zhao Tiao Bin, described as the King of Pyeongseong, twitched her mouth as though it were paralyzed.

The daughter of Kim Cheon Sik, a Joseon official, shook her head from side to side and pretended to be insane.

The daughter of the military officer Yi Un-ro pretended to have a disability. Angered by this, the Chinese envoy Hwang Jun sent their fathers into exile and forced them from their posts.

Note: The names and titles in this passage are based on the English text and require verification against the original Japanese.

The tomb of Princess Uisun is located in Uijeongbu City, Gyeonggi Province.

Immediately after the Qing invasion of Joseon, the Chinese ordered that tribute women be selected from the royal family and sent to them.

When Hyojong, the 17th king of Joseon, was troubled by this demand, a member of the royal family, Prince Geumrim, offered his own daughter.

The king was deeply grateful, named her Princess Uisun, and adopted her as his daughter.

She became the consort of a member of the Qing royal family, then the concubine of another royal family member’s son, and later the concubine of one of his subordinates.

Note: The names and positions of the men in this passage cannot be established accurately from the English text.

When that subordinate died, she lost what had sustained her. However, her father, Prince Geumrim, who had been dispatched to China as an envoy, begged her to return with him.

When she returned to her homeland, the people around her scorned her as a “homecoming woman” who had suffered sexual violence in China for seven years. She died in August 1662 at the young age of 28.

Every year, the city holds a grand memorial event for her.

However, it is merely an event at which makgeolli is served to the participants.

In the past, women who had been taken to China and sent back when they were no longer needed were called “homecoming women.”

The homeland they had missed so dearly was not a homeland but a hell.

The people in their homeland called them “homecoming women” and despised them.

The women who were forcibly taken away and made to suffer were not comfort women but homecoming women.

Let us think once again about these two kinds of women: the “homecoming women” created by China and the “sacred comfort women” created by the communists.

Japan’s comfort women existed for less than eight years, from 1937 to 1945.

Moon Ok-ju received tips for her services and became popular.

She saved money, bought diamond rings and crocodile-leather bags, and lived a fairly happy life, which she remembered fondly even in her old age.

By contrast, the many tribute women who were taken to China as tribute over a period of 500 years were robbed of their entire lives.