Where are the strongest, bravest, most manly men in Korea?

“Where do we find the strongest, bravest, most manly Koreans?” According to an old editorial: ”It is in the north where they eat millet, potatoes, and wheat.”

This editorial took issue with Korea’s, and for that matter, much of Asia’s, dependency on rice.  According to the editorial, wheat was “perhaps the most wholesome article of food to be found in the world” whereas rice was one of the chief causes of indigestion, and the cultivation of it contributed to poor roads, as well as Korea’s failure to achieve enlightenment. Here is a quote:
“When we take into account these facts and also the inroads made upon the health of the people by the proximity to noisome paddy fields and by the almost invariable contamination of wells, we are constrained to believe that the exclusive user of rice is the most serious bar to what we may call the enlightenment of these people.”

I have copied the article in full below. However, before everyone starts screaming about how the whiteman, i.e., foreigner, had no knowledge of the true Korean situation and the special relationship of rice and Korea’s society, I wish to remind you who the most likely author of the article was — you can view the history of the paper here.

The article follows below:

 
Editorial: The westerner can scarcely consider it other than unfortunate that these eastern people use as the staple article of food a grain which requires so favorable conditions of climate for its growth as does rice. This grain forms the main article of food of much more than half the human race, and yet of all the cereals it requires the greatest care in the cultivation and suffers most from too much or too little rain. Not only must there be enough rain but it must come at a particular time or it is useless; then from the very position of the rice fields they are the first to suffer from freshets. When one takes into account the amount of time and care that are necessary in keeping the rice fields in the frequent manipulation of the growing grain, first in sowing, second in transplanting and third in cultivating, in the reaping which must be done by hand as the grain frequently stands ankle deep in water or at least mud which must for ever render the use of machinery impossible. When we take into account these facts and also the inroads made upon the health of the people by the proximity to noisome paddy fields and by the almost invariable contamination of wells, we are constrained to believe that the exclusive user of rice is the most serious bar to what we may call the enlightenment of these people. This may seem to be an extreme statement, but let us examine it a little more closely. We cannot be going far astray when we say that a third of the people of Korea are engaged in the cultivation of rice. Of course they cultivate other things too, but rice is the main object of their care. Now if we look at enlightened countries we will see that as fast as general culture and enlightenment have advanced the condition of the peasant has been ameliorated. Machinery has come in to supplement his labor and lighten him of some of his heaviest loads, consequently fewer people are required to carry on these lower forms of labor, produce has been cheaper and larger numbers of people have thus been given leisure to engage in pursuits of a higher order, but notice from the conditions above enumerated rice always has had and always will have to be raised by hand without the aid of machinery except perhaps in the process of threshing. There seems to be no hope of anything better for one third of the Korean people than to wade in paddy fields and breathe the miasmatic vapors which they exhale. Compare rice with wheat. The inner kernel is almost identically the same in each, pure starch; but while in the case of rice the husk is of such a nature that it can scarcely be eaten the inner husk of the wheat, when ground up with the kernel, makes perhaps the most wholesome article of food to be found in the world; for besides the starchy matter we find certain other ingredients, nitrogenous, mineral and other which make it by far more useful as a food stuff than rice. Then again see the contrast in the amount of labor. A farmer can plow a certain field in a day, he can spend one day in bringing fertilizer and day in sowing the wheat and then his work is all done until the time for reaping comes. To cultivate the same area in rice will require the labor of four men for at least fifteen times as many days, and in addition the hardier wheat is not anywhere nearly so dependent upon rain at stated times. In the time thus saved the farmer could busy himself in cattle or sheep raising, in silk culture, fruit culture, or in any one of a thousand other lucrative employments.
Let us next inquire as to the relation of the cost of rice to the rate of wages in Korea. A measure of rice today is worth fourteen cents silver, and will last one person two days. The average monthly wage in Korea is difficult to estimate but it cannot be far from five dollars for the great mass of the people. It appears then that $2.10, out of $5.00, goes for rice alone, or over two-fifths. That sum will buy forty pounds of American flour laid down in Seoul. This would give one and a third pounds for each Korean measure of flour, which is about what it would weigh, so we see that so far as quantity is concerned a Korean could live on American wheat as cheaply as on Korean rice. This becomes still more evident when we consider that a measure of rice when ground into flour will not till the measure. As to the nutriment to be gotten from the two grains there is probably little difference. It should be noted that indigestion is the most common of Korean complaints and it probably arises from the fact that rice if bolted rapidly is not readily digested unless it be cooked much more than Koreans are accustomed to cook it. It should be thoroughly masticated, but no one can watch a Korean eat rice and then aver that he masticates it all. If, then, a Korean could live on American wheat flour as cheaply as on his native rice, he should be able to live on his native wheat for half the sum at most. Notice again that he would have a more wholesome food than the bolted flour for he would have what we call graham flour which is confessedly more wholesome than the pure wheat flour.
We learn from a man who has traveled widely in Korea that in many places in Ham Kyung province in the north, wheat is raised instead of rice and that one man will easily raise thirty, forty, or fifty bags, and that these farmers are thoroughly well-to-do compared with the rice farmers.
It is a curious fact too that the provinces of Chulla and Kyung Sang are called the garden of Korea because of the great qualities of rice raised there and yet in truth they are the most poverty-stricken provinces in the land. Other causes are doubtless at work but we do not believe that the raising of rice will produce as much or as good food as wheat, nor as much revenue for the government.
Where do we find the strongest, bravest, most manly Koreans? It is in the north where they eat millet, potatoes and wheat. How is it in China? The best physiques are found in the north where one out of five can afford to eat rice.
One more consideration. Korea will never have good cart roads so long as they have to pass through rice growing districts. Japan may be cited as an argument to the contrary but even there one does not have to go far from the main lines of road before he finds himself in the mud. Rice fields are an enemy to drainage. It is a continual fight to keep the water from flowing away, and without good drainage good roads are impossible except at fabulous expense. We are not so rash as to think that any such revolution could be accomplished in this generation nor perhaps in the next but the time will certainly come sooner or later when nature will have to be wooed less arduously than she is when rice is the suit.