The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-14

see the Japanese and European ladies going about unveiled and observe how
 they are treated by their husbands as
 result and they allow their wives to
 copy these foreign examples I attend
 ed @ court garden party the other day
 at which many of the royal family
 were present. There Were several
 princes, relatives of the emperor, all of
 his imperial ma ajesty's cabinet minis
 ters, the high Japanese officials and others. The foreigners brought their
 wives and they wore, of course, Eu- ropean costumes. The Japanese ladies were dressed in beautiful kimonos.
 There were in addition about a half dozen Corean ladies some of whom wore
 European dress and the others Corean
 gowns. Such women belong to the ad- vance guard of the new movement.
 They go out on the streets with helr husbands, and even ride in carriages or jinrikishas always creating sen
 sation among the natives when they
 do so. The older men cannot realize
 that a good woman who has been
 raised Corean would do such thing,
 and many of them consider the moral
 ity of the new woman questionable, to
 say the least.
 Girls With Diaphonous Skirts.
 As to the clothes the new woman
  stange to an extreme. The Coreans have no idea of what the. proper for eign dress is; and they appear in the most outrageous costumes, thinking them correct. For instance, the wife of
 high Corcean official came to an aft ernoon tea at an American house this week dressed in a trailing gown Of
 gauge tissue, the material of which was of about the consistency of fine mos In made, but under 1t there was almost nothing. The woman had petticoats which reached only to her knee, so that her pipe stem legs, clad in black stockings, could be plainly seen. She had on heavy cowhide shoes and hat of the vintage of a dozen years ago. The latter was of dingy straw, trimmed with moth eaten roses, which hung down almost to her shoulders. The com bination was strange that the for eign ladies could hardly keep tn cir faces straight as she moved about among tn em. Nevertheless, she was a woman of wealth, and money had been I no object to her in securing the prop CT dress. I doubt not she considered herself more fashionably attired than any other lady present.
 Such things occur from ignorance as | to what the foreign costume is, and the shopkeepers here are taking advantage | of the fact that the women do not know. They have for sale a miscel laneous outfit of bygone clothing brought from Shanghai and other parts
 of the east The hats are of all shapes and styles and the dress goods are of every outrageous description. These
 things are bought by Corean parents for their little children who are going to school, quite a number of whom are now wearing foreign dress and almost | all of whom have foreign hats. I att tended an athletic exhibition of the | girls of the public sch ools the other day. It was held in the grounds of the | Mulberry palace and about 500 girls with heir teachers were present. They were all dressed in school uniforms, Corean In cut, but they wore foreign | hats, which looked as though they had been fished out of the ash barrels of | the Bowery. They had fiat crowns and | broad brims and were indescribably ugly.
 The Girls Schools.
 The schools which have been estab- l lished for girls are perhaps the most | striking evidence of the new woman I movement. There are many of these, some run by the missionaries, some | by the government under the direction | of the Japanese, and in addition many
 
 hibition the girls ranged in age from
 6 to 16, and they went through tn cir | exercises in sight of an invited crowd | of Coreans of both sexes. Many of | them came from well-to-do families | and their sisters, cousins and aunts were present to see them. The most | of these had cloaks veils of some kind or other over their faces, but the girls themselves had no such coverings a aY wi 1a In the past the women of Corea have been almost entigely uneducated, and today those of the higher class are just | beginning to send their children to school. The lower and middle class women have sent their children to the mission schools for a number of years and for this reason many of the teach CTS in the girls schools, which contain the children of the nobility as well as other girls, are of the lower classes. | This is not so of the higher school, l founded by Lady Om for girls of the upper crust. It is composed of daugh- | ters of the yangban or nobles. There is also a school for girls established by | this same consort of the retired em- peror which has only the daughters of the middle class. Both schools are giv- l ing a foreign education to their pupils ] and are doing great good.
 About Lady Om.
 Just here l wish to say few words about Lady Om. Until the abdication of the Emperor in 1907 she was the lead ing lady of this land, and as such did much for her sex. While not the Elm l press by an actual marriage, she was | practically so to all intents and pur- | poses. She Is the old Emperor's favorite 1 concCtine, or consort as she is called | by the Japanese. I understand his
 majesty is true to her, and that she al- I lows no others of the lades-in- waiting is the mother of the Crown Prince, who is now being educated in Japan, and as such she will probably maintain her in l fuence even after that of the old Elm 1 peror has become less than it is now. 1 Lady Om came into the palace when she was girl as one of the court women. | One story states that she started in as a | hair dresser, but this Is denied She is I not pretty, but very clever, and the Queen | of Corea, who was assassinated by the | Japanese, took her up and made huch of ! her She liked her cleverness, and she | also liked her homely appearance as i she thought that would be an obstacle to
 any love for her on the part of the King, 1 who afterward became Emperor
 | As the story goes, the King appreciated l cleverness as well as beauty He cast | sheeps eyes at Lady Om, notwithstanding | the presence of her majesty, and, as a i result, Lady Om had to flee for her life l She left the palace and remained away | until after the Queen was assassinated and then came back to be the cOnsOrt of