The absence, or apparent absence, of Manchus in what would seem to be their native land, Manchuria, is explained by the fact that, although they were at one time conquerors of China, China’s superior civilization has conquered her conquerors; the Manchus adopted in a great measure Chinas language and customs, and have become—except in a few remote regions—almost indistinguishable from Chinese. In their own land, Manchuria, they have been swamped by the flood of immigrants from China proper. In this note and in the story, then, the word Chinese includes Manchus.
The Japanese, being now the overlords of Korea, are near neighbors of Kanto. Hence Japanese consulates, hospitals, and schools, with their appropriate staffs, are to be found in the towns of Kanto, and there are also Japanese mining and railway concessionaires, and considerable numbers of Japanese traders. The fact of Japanese police functioning in this district is more difficult to explain, but the following points may be noted as having a bearing on this anomaly. Japan has fought two life-and-death wars in Manchuria, and expended enormous sums of money on railway and other development there; in addition to the extraterritorial rights which her nationals—in common with the British, French, Americans, etc.—still enjoy in China, she claims special privileges in Manchuria and Kanto (which are in some cases contested by the Chinese), arising partly out of her succession to the privileged position which the Russians held in Manchuria before the Russo-Japanese war, and partly out of subsequent Sino-Japanese conventions and agreements; Korean “independence” movements have originated in Kanto in the past, and it is known that the communistic doctrines which the Japanese view with such suspicion have made some headway among Kanto Koreans. Finally, the nationality—Chinese or Japanese—of Korean residents in Kanto is not infrequently in dispute.
There have always been a certain number of Russians in Manchuria. Imperialist Russia long cherished designs on this rich and handy country, and even after these hopes were overthrown by the Russian defeat at the hands of the Japanese, Russian official establishments were maintained in many centers in Manchuria and Kanto. The Russian revolution of 1917 cut off all officials of the Imperial regime from their sources of authority, and these families, for lack of anywhere else to go to, continued to live in Manchuria, as in other parts of China, living as best they might on their savings. These exiles were joined, little by little, by the more timid or foreseeing among White Russians already in Siberia. Among such early refugees I assume my Malinins and Ostapenkos to be numbered. These isolated exiles were presently swamped by a flood of White Russian fugitives—the remnants of a defeated army accompanied by thousands of nonmilitary refugees—which poured into Kanto after the collapse of the short-lived Far Eastern White Republic in Siberia. The greater part of these latest refugees eventually passed on to other parts of China, but some settled in Kanto and other districts of Manchuria, establishing small businesses, investing what remained of their savings, taking humble employment or living from hand to mouth. The lives of Russian refugees in China—men and women frequently of a class not brought up to manual work—are often terribly hard, and their stories heartrending. Suitable work is very difficult to find. Wages which will keep a Chinese or Korean workingman in what seems to him comfort, will not support the large frame or supply the more varied and aspiring wants of a Russian. The disorganization of life caused by the period of revolution, rootlessness, anarchy, bloodshed, and despair through which all these exiles have lived, has of course affected them psychologically—especially the younger generation. Many Russian young men, therefore, at the time of this story, were following the line of least resistance by joining the Chinese army and taking part in Chinese civil wars—often, poor souls, to lose their lives recklessly in causes that meant nothing to them.
The part of Kanto in which my Malinins settled is very inaccessible, now that the U.S.S.R. have closed the Siberian border, though in actual distance not far from Vladivostok. The nearest railway is near the Korean border, several days’ walk south over trails often infested by brigands—and even when the railway is reached, it does not—or did not, at the time of this story—run direct into southern Korea, or connect with the South Manchurian Railway. A traveler in possession of money and a passport would travel for two days by train across the northwestern corner of Korea to the Korean port of Seishin; whence he would take ship to another Korean port—Gensan—and from thence travel by train to Seoul. My Russian traveler would elect to walk all the way, partly because he could afford no better, and partly because in this way he could better escape the notice of the Japanese police, who, though present all along the border and in every considerable town of Kanto, concentrate particularly on the railways and harbors and are, perhaps naturally, very suspicious of Russians. It should
