Scylla and Picture bride: Difference between pages

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{{For|the 1995 film|Picture Bride (film)}}

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The term '''picture bride''' refers to the practice in the early [[20th Century]] of [[immigrant]] workers (chiefly [[Japan]]ese and [[Korea]]n) in [[Hawaii]] and the [[West Coast of the United States|West Coast]] of the [[United States]] selecting brides from their native countries via a [[matchmaker]], who paired bride and groom using only photographs and family recommendations of the possible candidates. This is an abbreviated form of the traditional matchmaking process, and is similar in a number of ways to the concept of the [[mail-order bride]].

[[Image:Johann Heinrich Füssli 054.jpg|thumb|350px|[[Johann Heinrich Füssli|Fussli's]] Romance painting of [[Odysseus]] facing the choice ''between [[Scylla and Charybdis]]''.]]

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==Korean Picture Brides: Historical Context==

In [[1903]], the first Korean immigrants to United States territories arrived in [[Hawaii]] aboard the SS Gaelic. The [[SS Gaelic]] departed from [[Nagasaki]], Japan, on [[December 29]], [[1902]] and arrived in port at [[Honolulu]] on [[January 13]], [[1903]]. The SS Gaelic carried 102 Korean [[laborer]]s. A letter by American passenger aboard the SS Gaelic David Deschler to the secretary of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association notes that there are "2 Interpreters... 54 Male Laborers... 21 Women (wives of above)... 12 Children (half fares)... 1 Child (quarter fare)... 12 Babies (free)... Total 102 persons." {{Fact|date=February 2007}} The [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]]'s ''Statistical Review of Immigration 1820-1910'' reports an estimated 7,291 Koreans coming to the U.S., the overwhelming majority of whom were male, in their mid-30's or significantly younger, and thus were mostly single men of working age. Many of the jobs these laborers took were in agriculture-- working on plantations and the like, particularly with sugar cane.

[[Image:Denarius Sextus Pompeius-Scilla.jpg|thumb|350px|[[Sextus Pompeius]] [[denarius]], depicting the Pharus of [[Messina]] and Scylla.]]

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:''For Scylla, daughter of Nisus, see [[Scylla (princess)]]''

By [[1916]], the reports were that about 5,000 Koreans remained in Hawaii, about 4/5 of whom were male. Only about 300 were professionals or students.

'''Scylla''', or '''Skylla''' ([[Greek language|Greek]]: Σκύλλα) was one of the many monsters in [[Greek mythology]] (one other being [[Charybdis]]) that live on either side of a narrow channel of water. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other, so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis will pass too close to Scylla and vice versa. The phrase ''between [[Scylla and Charybdis]]'' has come to mean being in a state where one is between two dangers and moving away from one will cause you to be in danger from the other. Traditionally the aforementioned strait has been associated with the [[Strait of Messina]] between [[Italy]] and [[Sicily]], but more recently this theory has been challenged, and the alternative ___location of [[Cape Skilla]] in northwest Greece has been suggested. Scylla is a horribly grotesque sea monster, with six long necks equipped with grisly heads, each of which contained three rows of sharp teeth. Her body consisted of twelve canine legs and a fish's tail. She was one of the children of [[Phorcys]] and either [[Hecate]], [[Crataeis]], [[Lamia]] or [[Ceto]] (where Scylla would also be known as one of the [[Phorcydes]]). Some sources cite her parents as [[Triton (mythology)|Triton]] and [[Lamia (mythology)|Lamia]].

With a disproportionately single, male, and aging Korean immigrant community, demand rose sharply for Korean wives in Hawaii. A cursory examination of Hawaiian passports issued to Koreans from [[1910]]-[[1924]] immediately reveals that the newest immigrants were overwhelmingly in their mid-30's or younger and female. To qualify for a Hawaiian passport, hopefuls needed to list their relation to someone already living in Hawaii. The majority of applicants claimed their relationship as "wife" to a Hawaiian resident. Some 1,300 passports for Koreans wishing to travel to Hawaii during this time period were distributed, but only an estimated 859 arrived at the islands.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

In classical art she was depicted as a fish-tailed mermaid with four to six dog-heads ringing her waist.

Many of these "wives" coming about a decade after the first Korean immigrants came to Hawaii were "Picture Brides." A great majority were also prostitutes who would be sexually abused and then dismissed.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Immigrant workers sent their photographs to a matchmaker in Korea, who then matched his photo with a photo of a young woman. The woman's family and matchmaker would work together to select a suitable mate, and the bride-to-be would be sent to Hawaii with a legally binding contract to her new husband once she landed on Hawaiian soil. Because many of the immigrant workers hadn't had photos taken of themselves since their immigration to Hawaii, and photographs were quite expensive, many immigrant men sent Korean matchmakers "false" or out-of-date photos, thus making the grooms appear to be much younger than they actually were. The picture brides, upon arriving to Hawaii and discovering this deceit, had no way of backing out of their contracts.

In [[Homer]]'s ''[[Odyssey]]'', [[Odysseus]] is given advice by a ghost from the land of the dead to sail closer to Scylla, for Charybdis could drown his whole ship. Odysseus then successfully sails his ship past Scylla and Charybdis, but Scylla manages to catch six of his men, devouring them alive. When this happens, Odysseus takes the empty spot on the boat and helps the men row the ship out of harms way.

Historians consider the immigration up until [[1924]] to be the "grace period" for Asian immigrants, as it was in this year that the U.S. government passed the [[Immigration Act of 1924]], which essentially made U.S. citizenship and property ownership a difficult if not impossible goal for Asian immigrant-hopefuls. Thus, the picture bride phenomenon's relationship to the early years of Korean immigration may be said to end at roughly this time.

According to [[Ovid]], Scylla was once a beautiful nymph. The fisherman-turned-sea-[[god]] [[Glaucus]] fell madly in love with her, but she fled from him onto the land where he could not follow. Despair filled his heart. He went to the sorceress Circe to ask for a love potion to melt Scylla's heart. As he told his tale of love about Scylla to Circe, she herself fell in love with him. She wooed him with her sweetest words and looks, but the sea-god would have none of her. Circe was furiously angry, but with Scylla and not with Glaucus. She prepared a vial of very powerful poison and poured it in the pool where Scylla bathed. As soon as the nymph entered the water she was transformed into a frightful monster with twelve feet and six heads, each with three rows of [[teeth]]. She stood there in utter misery, unable to move, loathing and destroying everything that came into her reach, a peril to all sailors who passed near her. Whenever a ship passed, each of her heads would seize one of the crew.

(Note that the above numbers and statistics, unless stated otherwise, apply specifically to Koreans and picture brides in Hawaii, and not necessarily the continental United States, where the picture bride practice also existed in immigrant communities of several different nations of origin.)

[[Image:Scylla_1997.png|thumb|300px|Three of Scylla's heads as portrayed in ''The Odyssey (1997)'' TV miniseries; the film depicts each head striking with snake-like speed and accuracy and devouring men whole.]]

==The Picture Bride Topic in Modern Media==

In a late Greek myth it was said that [[Heracles]] encountered Scylla during a journey to Sicily and slew her. Her father, the sea-god Phorcys, then applied flaming torches to her body and restored her to life.

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In [[1987]], a [[novel]] titled ''Picture Bride'' was written by [[Yoshiko Uchida]], and tells the story of a fictional Japanese woman named Hana Omiya, a picture bride sent to live with her new husband in [[Oakland, California|San Francisco]] in [[1917]]. The novel also focuses on her experiences in a Japanese [[Concentration camp|internment camp]] in [[1943]].

In [[1994]], a [[film|movie]] called ''[[Picture Bride (film)]]'' (unrelated to Uchida's novel) was made by Hawaii-born director [[Kayo Hatta]] and starred [[Youki Kudoh]] in the title role. The film tells the story of Riyo, a Japanese woman whose photograph exchange with a plantation worker leads her to Hawaii.

It is said that by the time [[Aeneas]]' fleet came through the strait after the fall of [[Troy]], Scylla had been changed into a dangerous rock outcropping which still stands there to this day.

A [[2003]] Korean language book entitled ''Sajin Sinbu'' (Korean for "Picture Bride"), compiled by [[Park Nam Soo]], provides a thorough Korean/Korean-American cultural approach to the topic, providing a historical overview of the picture bride phenomenon in the Korean context, as well as related poetry, short stories, essays, and critical essays written by various Korean/Korean-American authors. The book was compiled for the [[Korean centennial]], marking the one-hundred year [[anniversary]] of the first known arrival of Korean immigrants to U.S. territory in [[1903]] aboard the [[SS Gaelic]].

[[Scylla and Charybdis]] are believed to have been the entities from which the phrase, "[[Between a rock and a hard place]]" (ie: a difficult place) originated.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

It has been suggested that the myth of Scylla may have been inspired by real life encounters with [[giant squid]] (which are normally dying when near the surface), and she has some similar features to the [[kraken]] in [[Norse mythology]] and [[lusca]] in [[Caribbean]] mythology.

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== See also ==

*[[Scylla and Charybdis]]

==References==

*Choe, Yong-Ho; Kim, Ilpyong J.; Han, Moo-Young (2003). [http://www.duke.edu/~myhan/kaf0501.html Annotated Chronology of the Korean Immigration to the United States: 1882 to 1952]. Retrieved Apr. 23, 2005.

*Hanfmann, George M. A., "The Scylla of Corvey and Her Ancestors" ''Dumbarton Oaks Papers'' '''41''' "Studies on Art and Archeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday" (1987), pp. 249-260. Hanfman assembles Classical and Christian literary and visual testimony of Scylla, from Mesopotamian origins to his ostensible subject, a ninth-century wall painting at [[Corvey Abbey]].

*Deschler, David W (1902). [http://koreancentennial.org/earlylife.htm Business Letter: Aboard the SS Gaelic with David Deschler]. From the Files of the Waialua Sugar Company, Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Archives, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Retrieved Apr. 23, 2005.

*Mark, Diane Mei Lin. [http://www.naatanet.org/picturebride/idx_intro.html Introduction to the Making of ''Picture Bride'']. Retrieved Apr. 23, 2005.

*Murabayshi, Duk Hee Lee; Lee, Chan (Ed) (2001). [http://koreancentennial.org/passport.pdf Passports Issued to Koreans in Hawai'i 1910-1924 (as .pdf from koreancentennial.org)]. University of Hawai'i at Manoa: Center for Korean Studies.

*Murabayshi, Duk Hee Lee; Hahn, Jeewon (Ed) (2001). [http://koreancentennial.org/passlist.pdf Korean Passengers Arriving at Honolulu, 1903-1905 (as .pdf from koreancentennial.org)]. University of Hawai'i at Manoa: Center for Korean Studies.

*Paik, Earl K (1916). [http://koreancentennial.org/earlylife4.htm Koreans in the U.S. in 1916]. From the Papers of William E. Griffis, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Retrieved Apr. 23, 2005.

*Park, Nam Soo (2003). ''Sajin Sinbu (Picture Bride)''. Ellicott City, MD: Worin Publishing Co.

* Uchida, Yoshiko (1993). ''Picture Bride''. University of Washington Press (1997 Reprint Ed). ISBN 0-295-97616-0.

==ExternalSee linksalso==

* [[Mail-order bride]]

* [http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Skylla.html Theoi Project, Skylla] references in classical literature and ancient art.

* [[Proxy marriage]]

* [[List of Korea-related topics]]

* [[List of Japan-related topics]]

* [[List of China-related topics]]

==External links==

{{Commonscat|Scylla}}

* [http://koreancentennial.org/bae.htm True Story of a Korean Picture Bride: Esther Kwon Arinaga]

* [http://www.asianamericanbooks.com/books/2403.htm About ''Picture Bride'', novel by Yoshiko Uchida]

* [http://www.naatanet.org/picturebride/index.html Information from the filmmaker about ''Picture Bride'', film by Kayo Hatta]

* {{imdb title|id=0114129|title=Picture Bride}}

* [http://koreancentennial.org/resources.htm Koreancentennial.org's early Korean immigration resources, including passport and immigration lists in downloadable .pdf format]

[[Category:Greek1993 mythologynovels]]

[[Category:Mythological1994 dogsfilms]]

[[Category:GreekHistory legendaryof creaturesHawaii]]

[[Category:MythologicalHistory hybridsof immigration to the United States]]

[[Category:Korean culture]]

[[Category:Korean migration]]

[[Category:Love]]

[[Category:Marriage]]

[[ru:Невеста по фотографии (фильм)]]

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