“The greatest mark of favor which I received was in Korea, where the King sent me an elephant. It was an embarrassment of riches. I gave it to a girl and told her to be good to it.”

Before the Japanese turned Chang Kyung Koong into a Dong Mul Won, a zoo, I am curious to where the Chosun king kept exotic animals, or the question of whether or not Korea even had a king’s zoo, sort to speak.

Elephant would not be native to Korea. or Japan or China. It must have come from South Asia.

But how? Via the Qing Emperor or the Japanese?

Seems like the Chosun King gave the flying man something quite valuable but at the same time quite impratical to take with him.