Namdaemun circa 1911

By Robert Neff

For the past several days, the air quality in Korea has been horrible -- filled with dust and pollution. Many blame desertification in China due to its rapid industrialization but this phenomenon is not new -- it is one that has plagued the Korean Peninsula for hundreds of years.

Historical records from the Three Kingdoms period indicate dust storms occurred at least as far back as 174 A.D. One powerful dust storm in the early sixth century left the capital of Baekje shrouded in darkness as if it were night and a couple of decades later, Silla suffered one that lasted for five days. Perhaps the strangest of these weather phenomena took place in 644 when a red-tinged snow fell in Pyongyang.

The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty provide even more examples.

In November 1412, a horrendous dust storm mixed with fog blanketed the land. The visibility was so bad that people could not even see the person standing in front of them and the sudden spring-like weather melted the ice on the rivers.

In the spring of 1419, another storm struck but this time the dust was black and the people described it as a black ink rain.

In March 1550, a three-day dust storm struck the peninsula with "thick fog that looked like smoke after the rain." Everything was covered with yellowish brown or white dust.

Some people felt that the gods were behind these storms. Chinese emperor Yang Guang (r. 604-618) was said to have been punished by the storms for his imprudent construction projects that caused great hardships for his people. After several storms struck Korea in the 1470s, one of King Seongjeong's fortune tellers suggested the monarch's own construction projects -- including repairing the South Gate in Seoul -- might be the cause. The king dismissed his insinuations and the construction continued.

There is also anecdotal history from Westerners living in Korea. An American, who grew up at the American gold mining concession (OCMC) in northern Korea during the early 20th century, recalled:

"With the spring came the dust storms and many people have probably heard of the term yellow sky and I can remember seeing the yellow sky as a child. Every spring the winds would bring the dust from the Gobi Desert in Manchuria down over where we lived and for days at a time the sun would be obscured and at times it was just a faint glow in the sky and the fine dust permeated everything."

The annual event played such a major role in the gold miners' lives that it inspired one of them to write a novel, "Yellow Dust." His fictional account of a robbery of a gold shipment was colored by descriptions of real events surrounding the gold mine and the lives of the miners. It is somewhat strange to note that he never mentioned the dust storms in his book -- perhaps the yellow dust he was referring to was gold dust.

While most dust storms are said to originate in China, there was one, if we are to believe the legends, that originated in Korea and deeply worried the emperor of China. It seems that in the mid-16th century, the Chinese emperor looked out his window and witnessed a strange yellow cloud in the distance coming from the Korean Peninsula. The emperor, fearing trouble had erupted in Joseon, sent one of his trusted officials to Seoul to determine the cause of this strange event.

The official made haste and soon arrived in the Korean capital. He was somewhat surprised to see the country was not under attack and no natural calamity had occurred that would explain the strange phenomenon that his emperor had witnessed. After doing some investigation he discovered it was the Korean cavalry.

The Korean cavalry, consisting of 700 men mounted on the fierce little Korean ponies, often practiced near what is now known as the Independence Gate. "[So] fierce were the mock battles and skirmishes fought there [by the Korean cavalry] that a great cloud of dust would rise into the sky and quite obscure the setting sun." It was this cloud of dust that the emperor had witnessed.

The Chinese official promptly returned to China and informed his emperor that the Korean cavalry was the cause of the cloud. In response, the emperor solved his dust storm problem by demanding Korea reduce its cavalry to 600 men.

If only it was that easy to solve the problem now.



Robert Neff is a historian and columnist for The Korea Times. He can be reached at robertneff103@gmail.com.