The spotter standing at the back of the vehicle signalled something like ‘don’t follow’ to us, but we decided if they can, we can and followed. They went straight for the mud-river crossing. After a few minutes another safari vehicle came through the Sand River gate. ![]() We thus reversed and turned around looking for an alternative route. There also wasn’t enough evidence that a vehicle recently passed through it (no clear tracks or mud on the grass). We quickly packed up and drove in that direction, but got to a muddy water crossing with a steep incline on the other side. At first we though they were just looking at the large herd of wildebeest, but after closer inspection with binoculars Hugo saw a lion tearing into a wildebeest carcass right next to the vehicle. While eating breakfast we saw the vehicle standing still on the opposite hill. We quickly packed up and saw a safari vehicle passing us. We forgot to set an alarm and only got up at 08:00. A strong wind was however blowing all night dampening most other sounds. On the left bank grew the millet and other grains, and farther over, against the opposite mountain, were to be found the deer, the hawks, the tiger cats and fabulous Dragons.We didn’t hear any lions during the night, only hippopotamus. On the right bank of the river, bordered and interspersed by pine and weeping willow trees, was the village, and behind it, somewhat lower, the rice fields. The people had been happy in the same costumes, dwellings, food, and manners for over a thousand years, and were like the ideal state of Lao-Tze, where "though there be a neighboring state within sight, and the voices of the cocks and dogs thereof be within hearing, yet the people might grow old and die before they ever visit one another." My native village was the kind which all the great Oriental sages have thought Utopia in itself. Except for the marketplace, the people were rural and isolated, and this mysterious water, constantly tumbling in, was the only far wanderer among them. A few miles farther on, this river passed through the marketplace where the people of my village went every five days for barter, and there it rushed into the sea. There were streams running down from each mountain hollow, joining the big river which murmured eternity's chant through the centre of the valley. Our village was situated in a huge valley, partly poor sandy rock, and partly fertile soil, between high mountains, covered with pine and oak trees, and many high tall grasses. Our community had long been looked up to by others for its famous scholars and its olden-time clannish spirit, in a country for immemorial years under the iron thumb of tradition and ancestor worship, a country of which Napoleon said: "A giant is asleep. This village where I was born-Song-Dune-Chi, or The Village of the Pine Trees-was made up entirely of my own relatives, a clan by the name of Han, who were ruled by national ideals which had been handed down from father to son for innumerable generations. Besides the political anxiety which recalled my father from China, it had been a hard year for the crops at home, and the whole village was starving. ![]() I never remember my mother, for she died a few months after I was born, but I fear she must have eaten only grass roots, and suffered every hardship, for the people were very poor just at this time. They said that I was born on the tenth day of May, by the Korean calendar (which is about a month later than by the American), just as the sun came up and the cock crew: also that according to the Four Pillars of Destiny (the hour, day, month, and year of birth) I was born to be a wanderer all my life, with no home but the wide world. It was about that time when Japan was to declare war on Russia, and requested from the Korean government permission to use the roads into Manchuria, a request that was really a command, and was followed soon by military occupation. Everybody was worrying and talking about the coming war, prophesying that the Japanese would soon be over to kill all the Koreans. I know now that I was born in the year when the minds of the people were greatly perplexed. Since I cannot verify my birth place accurately, it is safe to say that I was born in that village where I was brought up, not far from Asiatic Russia and Manchuria, in a handmade house fashioned of stone, wood and clay, and covered with a grass roof that turned up slightly at the eaves like Korean women's shoes. I was told by one of my aunts that I was born somewhere in northern Korea, while my mother was on a trip to China with my father. The Valley of Utopia Younghill Kang from The Grass Roof ![]() In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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