Alien Visitors upon Chosun's Shores

The 'Alien Visitors upon Chosun's Shores' series:

Alien Visitors upon Chosun's Shores Part I
Alien Visitors upon Chosun's Shores Part II
An Account of the Arrival of the Audacious
Thoughts on the Observations of Conquest-Enabling Explorers

Korean Fishing Boat, May, 1871, by Felice Beato
Likely the first photo taken in Korea

Throughout the Chosun dynasty, as European sailors explored more and more of Asia, a number of descriptions of the Korean coastline began to appear, and on maps the Korean penninsula began to morph from a vague Island to the west of Japan into the geographically correct penninsula that adorns the 'one nation' flag used at joint North and South Korean sporting events today. It was very rare for westerners to make contact with Korean people, however, though a number of accounts do exist. The reason for this post is that a good many of them exist online. I found the full account (from 1875) which lies at the bottom of this post (or this post's 2nd part, rather) first, and through references made in that account, managed to find all of the others.

Henny Savenije points out that the first foreigner to land on Korean shores "was a man to which Korean sources refer to as "Pingni" or "Mari," who landed together with some Chinese on Cheju-do in spring of 1582. He was immediately deported to China."

As noted in The Imjin War, by Samuel Hawley, the first European commonly thought to visit Korea was Father Gregorio de Cespedes, a Spanish Jesuit who had spent 16 years in Japan, on December 27, 1593. His visit, during the Imjin War, came at the request of Konishi Yukinaga, one of several Christian daimyo, and one of Hideyoshi's most trusted commanders. At the time, the Japanese troops were holed up in a series of forts near Pusan awaiting the outcome of peace negotiations; Cespedes, whose only contact with Koreans was with those being sent back to Japan as slaves, wrote:

The cold in Korea is very severe and without any comparison with that of Japan. All day long my limbs are half benumbed, and in the morning I can hardly move to say mass, but... I am cheerful and don't mind my work and the cold.

He left Korea in April of 1594, perhaps having aided in coverting hundreds of Korean prisoners.


The most famous account of Korea during this time period is of course by Hendrick Hamel, the Dutch sailor shipwrecked with his fellow crewmembers on the coast of Quelpaert Island (Jeju-do) on August 16, 1653, and who escaped and made his way to Nagasaki in September of 1666. For an full translation of his account of his experiences there, along with maps and a great deal more, you need only look at Henny Savenije's website. As much has been written about him, and as his experience was different in that he was not a momentary visitor, but instead lived there for many years, I'll move on to other accounts. It is worth mentioning, however, that Hamel was simply the first European to escape from Korea and tell his tale. Soon after arriving in Korea he met another westerner:

Our people asked him for his name, from what country he came and how he had come there. He answered thus: "My name is Jan Janse Weltevree from De Rijp. I came in 1626 with the ship Hollandia from the fatherland and in 1626, while going to Iapan with the jaght Ouwerkerck, due to the unfavorable wind, we stranded at the coast of Coree. We needed water and we went with the boat ashore, where three of us we captured by the inhabitants. [...] He told us further that he had asked the king and other high administrators to be sent to Iapan. This, however was him forbidden all the time.

He said that if we were birds, we could fly to there. They don't send foreigners from this country. They will provide you with a living and for clothes and in this way you will have to end your life in this country. He tried to comfort us in this way. Even if we came in front of the king, we couldn't expect anything else, so that our joy of having found an interpreter, almost changed into sadness. It was remarkable that this man, of 57 or 58 years old, almost had forgotten his mother tongue, so that we hardly could understand him and had learned it again within a month.

Worth mentioning quickly is that when two of Hamel’s shipmates tried to steal a boat and escape to Japan soon after the shipwreck, they were soon punished:

He had them untied and had each given 25 blows on the bare buttocks with a stick which is about one fathom long and a finger thick at the bottom and round on the top. As a result they had to stay in bed for about a month, additionally we were not allowed to go out and were strictly guarded day and night.

Also interesting is the fact that their requests to be allowed to return home were "always refused with the argument that Korea never let foreigners leave, because one doesn't want Korea to be known to foreign countries." Of course, Hamel's account became well known to people (especially naval officers) throughout Europe, being published in English in 1704, and in French in 1715).

The next brief account of Korea comes from Jean-François de Galoup, Comte de La Pérouse, who commanded a French expedition to the Pacific between 1785 and 1788 (which ended when his ships disappeared near Australia). Sailing north from the Philippines, towards Hokkaido and Sakhalin [map here], he saw Quelpaert Island (Jeju-do) on May 21, 1787, and drew this map. He wrote

Unfortunately the island belongs to a people to whom all intercourse with strangers is prohibited, and who retain in slavery all who have the misfortune to be wrecked on their shores. Some of the Dutch sailors of the 'Sparrow-hawk,' after a captivity of eighteen years, during which they had received severe bastinadoes [punishment or beatings], found means to steal away a bark [boat] and get to Japan, whence they reached Batavia, and at length Amsterdam.[...] This story, of which we had an account before us was not of a nature to encourage us to send a boat ashore.[...]It is probable we occasioned some alarm on the coast of Korea, for in the afternoon we perceived fires lighted on all the points.

On May 27 the astronomer Dagelet sighted Ulleung-do, after whom the island was named (a map can be found here). As the inhabitants ran away at the sight of the foreign ships, La Pérouse wrote:

I endeavored to approach it but it was exactly in the wind's eye; fortunately it changed during the night and at daybreak I sailed to examine this island, I was very desirous of finding an anchorage to persuade these people by means of gifts that we were not their enemies, but fairly strong currents were bearing us away from the land.

Ten years later, between October 14 and 21, 1797, William Robert Broughton, captain of the Providence, anchored at a

harbour... called Tshosan, or Chosan, by the inhabitants. It is situated in the S. E. part of the coast of Corea, in the latitude of 35° 2' N., and 129° 7' E. longitude.

Despite him likely mistaking the name of the kingdom for the name of the harbour, the precise location he gives makes it clear he was in Pusan's harbour. Broughton had helped George Vancouver explore the west coast of North America, and in 1796 he set out to explore the area around Japan. After a second visit to Japan in the summer of 1797, he set out to explore the coast of Korea. Henny Savenije's site provides an account of his stay in Pusan from the log book Broughton published in 1804, titled "A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean". As can be seen from this map, Broughton had the strait between Pusan and Tsushima, as well as the bay north of Wonsan, named after him:

From Isabella Bishop's Korea and Her Neighbours, 1898

Anchoring a half mile from shore, near Pusan, they were soon "surrounded by boats full of men, women, and children, whose curiosity had brought them off to see the strange vessel." They were visited by officials wearing robes and "hats, serving as umbrellas, [which] were three feet in diameter."

We had no boats off till after breakfast, when two came full of visitors, dressed in a superior style to any we had yet seen. In each were some soldiers carrying small spears, that were as staffs to their colours, which were a blue sattin field, with their arms in yellow characters. The hats of the Soldiers were decorated with peacock's feathers. They made me a present of salt fish, rice, and sea-weed (fucus Sacharinus).

After many inquiries respecting us, we plainly saw they were extremely anxious for our departure, which I explained to them was impossible, as we were much in want of wood, water, and refreshments. They immediately offered to send us any quantity of the former, but I could not persuade them to send any of the cattle we pointed out to them, grazing on the shore. As money appeared of no value, and we had no other means to induce them, we were under the necessity of bearing with the disappointment, of seeing daily what we could not procure.

On our return on board in the evening we found the vessel crowded with visitors, nor could we get rid of them till dark, and even with great difficulty, using almost violence to induce them to go into their boats. At last they went on shore... [T]he assemblage of people [on shore] was so great as to materially affect our operations, notwithstanding the military were so stationed as to keep off the crowd, which they did at times most effectually, by exercising upon their persons large bamboo sticks.

Soon after arriving, Broughton described the harbour:

The harbour, we perceived, extended some distance to the westward of the rocks we had noticed in coming in, and also to the N. E. and S. W. of them, terminating in small bays that afforded shelter from all winds. Many villages were scattered round the harbour; and in the N. W. part we observed a large town, encircled with stone walls, and battlements upon them. Several junks were laying in a bason near it, protected by a pier. Another mole or bason appeared to the S. W. of the other, near some white houses of a superior construction, enclosed by a thick wood.

After a brief 'cruise' to explore a little of the surrounding area

They talked about our excursion in the boat yesterday, which they disapproved of, and explained that if we landed at the white houses up the harbour we should be very ill treated, if not put to death; and begged us not to go away in the boat any more. Soon after they landed; and, as if they still suspected our intentions, they immediately sent off four boats, having a soldier with their colours in each. I would not suffer them to come along-side, and they remained at anchor as guard-boats upon our bows and quarter. Towards the evening they left us to ourselves.

The next day, after secretly taking a boat out to sketch the harbour, Broughton notes that "our absence had thrown the village into great confusion: boats were dispatched in every direction after us, but we had escaped them all."

Beyond the accounts of the Korean authorities doing everything they could to keep an eye on the British and stop them from landing, it's also interesting that Broughton notes the existence of "white houses of a superior construction" to the southwest of the main town, and that the Korean authorities told them that "if we landed at the white houses up the harbour we should be very ill treated, if not put to death." One wonders if the houses he's describing are these ones:

1783 drawing of the Choryang waegwan

This was the Choryang waegwan, the walled-off Japanese trading and diplomatic post built in 1678 (replacing an earlier station). Jan Boonstra's site provides lots of information about it (like the photo above), including information about the harsh penalties that awaited Koreans who climbed the walls or made unauthorized contact with the Japanese. The 1872 map below shows it's location; the circular town near the center is Dongnae, below it is Pusan, and to the left of Yeong-do (the island) is the waegwan.


Back to Broughton's story:

Soon after, we received a visit from one of our principal friends, who seemed particularly pleased at our preparations for sailing. I presented him with a telescope and a pistol, the only articles he seemed desirous of possessing; and we parted with mutual satisfaction. We soon after got under way, and made sail out of the harbour, to the great joy of our Corean friends, who were assembled in great numbers on the adjacent hills observing our departure. We felt ourselves much obliged by their supplies of wood and water, without expecting any thing in return.

It appears by their behaviour they are by no means desirous of cultivating any intercourse whatever with strangers. They seemed to look upon us with great indifference, which I suppose was owing to the insignificancy of our vessel; or perhaps, their not comprehending what nation we belonged to, or what our pursuits were, made them solicitous for our departure, probably from a suspicion of our being pirates; or some other reason we could not divine.

Savenije's site also provides a translation of the Korean account of this encounter (the first between British and Koreans), which has some fascinating information about the communication (or lack thereof) between the two parties:

They neither knew nor understood any Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian. We provided them with brushes to write and their writing resembled like mountains covered with clouds. Though pictures were drawn, we still could not understand.[...] We could not understand their language and pronunciation at all, but we could realise only a four syllabled word Nang-ga-sa-gee which referred to the island of Nagasaki in Japan.

"[L]ike mountains covered with clouds" - I love that. I'd love to see their reaction to my handwriting. At any rate, it would be almost twenty years before a British ship visited Korea again, this time a year after Napoleon's defeat. On February 9, 1816 the forty-six gun frigate Alceste, captained by Murray Maxwell, and the small gun brig Lyra, captained by Basil Hall, departed England for the East, having on board Lord Amherst, Ambassador Extraordinary from the British King to the Emperor of China, and a diplomatic entourage including secretaries, naturalists, surgeons, Marines, and an artist. Amherst's mission was intended to improve British relations with China (which didn't go so well). After their arrival on the coast near Beijing that summer, they decided to explore the Yellow Sea and its environs, leading them to explore and chart the west coast of Korea, 'Sulphur Island' (Iwo Jima), and the Loo-choo Islands (Ryukyu Islands, and Okinawa).

Frontspiece to Basil Hall's book.

This voyage, besides leading to a shipwreck off Borneo on the return home, and a visit with Napoleon on St. Helena, also led to the publication of two books:

Basil Hall's A Voyage of Discovery to the Western Coast of Corea and the Great Loo-Choo Island in the Japan Sea, 1818, which can be viewed here (download the plug-in); and

John M'Leod (a surgeon, on the Alceste)'s Voyage of His Majesty's Ship Alceste, along the Coast of Corea, to the Island of Lewchew; with an Account of Her Subsequent Shipwreck, 1818, which can be viewed here (as a pdf or html).

Basil Hall's book spends 57 pages on the trip to Korea, while M'Leods book spends only 20 pages on Korea (as well, Hall spends 28 pages describing his meetings with a Korean 'chief', while M'Leod spends only 9 pages on the same topic). Needless to say, I think Hall is the more engaging writer, which is why everything below is from Hall's book unless otherwise stated.

The voyage's encounter with Korea took place between September 1 and 10, 1816, and was both intriguing and somewhat dangerous for those undertaking it:

Of this coast we had no charts possessing the slightest pretensions of accuracy, … Only a few islands are noticed on any map… These inaccuracies in the charts naturally gave a very high degree of interest to this part of the voyage; yet the navigation being at all times uncertain, and often dangerous, considerable anxiety necessarily mingled itself with the satisfaction produced by so new and splendid a scene.

Arriving at the first islands they see along Korea’s coast, they have their first encounter with the inhabitants:

At first they expressed some surprise on examining our clothes, but afterwards took very little interest in any thing belonging to us. Their chief anxiety was to get rid of us as soon as possible. This they expressed in a manner to obvious to be mistaken; for, on our wishing to enter the village, they first made motions for us to go the other way; and when we persevered, they took us rudely by the arms and pushed us off.

They refused dollars when offered as a present, and, indeed, appeared to set no value upon anything we shewed them, except wine glasses; but even these they were unwilling to receive. One of the head men appeared particularly pleased with a glass, which, after a good deal of persuasion, he accepted, but in about five minutes after, he, and another man to whom a tumbler had been given, came back and insisted upon returning the presents; […] leaving us with only one man, who, as soon as all the rest were out of sight, accepted one of the glasses with much eagerness.

Islanders of the Sir James Hall Group (from M'Leod's book)

One man expressed the general wish for our departure, by holding up a piece of paper like a sail, and then blowing on it in the direction of the wind, at the same time pointing to the ships, thereby denoting that the wind was fair, and that we had only to set sail and leave the island.

Captain Maxwell named these islands Sir James Hall’s Group, in compliment to the President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. They lie in longitude 124 46’E. and latitude 37 50’ N.

These islands are in fact Baengnyeongdo, the most western point of South Korea (and just off the coast of the Ongjin penninsula in North Korea); they're marked as Sir James Hall’s Group on the 1898 map above. Also, Hall is being a little coy when he fails to mention that Sir James Hall is also his father!

On another island further south, they meet more islanders unwilling to let them land:

They drew their fans across their own throats, and sometimes across ours, as if to signify that our going on would lead to heads being cut off; but whether they or we were to be the sufferers was not apparent. It was suggested by one of our party that they dreaded being called to account by their own chiefs for permitting us to land.

On a watch being shewn, they disregarded everything else, and entreated to be allowed to examine it closely. It was evidently the first they had seen, and some of them while watching the second hand, looked as if they thought it alive.

[…] We walked back to the boats, to the great joy of the natives, who encouraged us by all means to hasten our departure. They took our hands and helped us over the slippery stones on the beach; and, on perceiving one of the boats aground, several of them stript and jumped into the water to push her off.

It may well be that their desire to see the foreigners leave may have led them to act with enough passion for Hall to declare, "They have a singular custom of speaking with a loud tone, amounting almost to a shout."

At one point, upon approaching a large bay on the mainland, they are approached by a local “chief” surrounded by several boats full of people, who then board one of the British ships for a meeting, where they find they are unable to communicate. The official eventually leaves, but the British realize he then wishes them to come onto his boat. When it is realized he has nothing to serve them, they give him a bottle of their own wine.

He was nowise discomposed at being obliged to entertain his company at their own expense; on the contrary, he carried off the whole affair with so much cheerfulness and ease, as to make us suspect sometimes that he saw and enjoyed the oddity of the scene and circumstances as fully as we did ourselves.[…]We left the chief in good humour, and returned on board… we had no sooner left him than he …call[ed] the other boats around him, gave orders for inflicting the discipline of the bamboo upon the unfortunate culprit, who had been ordered into confinement during the conference.[…] During the infliction of this punishment, a profound silence was observed by all the party, except five or six persons immediately about the delinquent, whose cries they accompanied by a sort of song or yell at each blow of the bamboo. This speedy execution of justice was, no doubt, intended to impress us with high notions of Corean discipline.

A Korean chief (from M'Leod's book)

Interesting in Hall’s account is of the formality necessary in meetings with Korean officials, and of the guessing that went on, on both sides, to discern what should be done. Speaking of “The surprise of these people on discovering our inability to read their papers”, Hall notes that

The case, we may imagine, had never occurred to them before … At first they appeared to doubt the fact of our ignorance, and shewed some symptoms of impatience; but this opinion did not last long, and they remained completely puzzled, looking at each other with an odd expression of surprise.

He also notes that the translated paper read: “Persons, of what land-of what nation (are you)? On account of what business do you come hither? In the ship are there any literary men who thoroughly understand, and can explain what is written?” This is slightly different than the translation given in M’Leod’s book: “I don’t know who ye are ; what business have ye here?" (I'm a little lost as to what evoking a Scottish dialect is supposed to mean regarding his opinion of the chief, especially when both captains, and likely he himself, are Scottish).

As they are able to try to adapt themselves to the wishes of their hosts, their hosts are also capable of doing the same, as Hall comments after watching the chief refuse chopsticks and eat a British breakfast with a knife and fork:

The politeness and ease with which he accommodated himself to the habits if people so different from himself were truly admirable; and when it is considered, that hitherto, in all probability, he was ignorant even of our existence, his propriety of manners should seem to point, not only to high rank in society, but to imply also a degree of civilization in that society, not confirmed by other circumstances.

His opinion changes somewhat when he sees the chief's reaction to an attempt by the captains and officers to land on shore:

[A]s we approached the shore, his anxiety increased, and he frequently drew his hand across his neck, as if to sew that he would lose his head if we persisted.[…] we had no notion of ant such apprehension being well grounded; and, in short time, landed at the distance of half a mile from the village.

The Chief [upon landing] began crying violently, and turning towards the village walked away, leaning his head on the shoulder of one of his people. As he went along, he not only sobbed and wept, but every now and then bellowed aloud. We had been nowise prepared for such a scene, and were extremely sorry for having pushed matters to this extremity. […] We could not satisfy ourselves whether he was sincere, or merely acting in order to prevail on us to retire.

Corean chief and his secretary,
Drawn by William Havell (official artist to Lord Amherst's

expedition to China), from a sketch by Captain Hall

After returning to the ship and leaving, Hall wrote

We quitted this bay without much regret. The old Chief, indeed, with his flowing beard, and pompous array, and engaging manners, had made a strong impression upon us all; but his pitiable and childish distress, whatever might have been the cause, took away from the respect with which we were otherwise disposed to regard him.

Speaking of how the ‘treatment of strangers is regulated’, he wrote

The promptitude with which we were met at this place, where, perhaps, no ship ever was before, seem to imply an extraordinary degree of vigilance and jealousy on the part of the government.

M’leod reflects on the encounter with the chief:

It was pretty evident, however, that he was acting from orders which he dared not trifle with, rather than from any inhospitable feeling in his own nature; for in this respect there was a manly frankness in the behaviour of all the Coreans we saw, and not what could be considered an inclination to be rude.

We saw enough however, to convince us that the sovereign of this country governs with most absolute sway; and that, occasionally, he makes very free with the heads of his subjects. The allusion to this danger could not have been so constant and uniform, in places so remote from each other, without some strong reason.

One has to admit, compared to later visitors, Hall doesn't really threaten violence in order to get his way. When the chief starts crying, they eventually leave. The only time weapons are fired are as a display for Koreans (which is usually asked for). One instance where the British started to lose their cool was when, upon reaching an island where all the women and children had fled at their approach, they explored the island with some local men accompanying them. As they approached the likely hiding spot of the women and children, the men tried to stop them, which led to a confrontation which had the most unlikely of resolutions:

I turned round and exclaimed “Patience Sir!” he drew back… and a moment after called out himself, “Patience Sir!” The others hearing this caught the words too, and nothing was heard for some time amongst them but “Patience Sir,” pronounced in every instance with perfect propriety. They seemed surprised themselves on discovering powers of imitation hitherto in all probability unexercised. This incident brought us better acquainted, and we remained on the top of the hill teaching them English words till it was dark.

Thus we have Hall describing, on September 8, 1816, what was likely the first English lesson to take place in Korea. It was likely partly out of that conversation that the page below, which translates several Korean words into English, was written:

And now for an intermission; we'll return to the voyages of the Lord Amherst, in 1832, and the Samarang, in 1845, shortly (as well as perhaps summarizing the 1875 visit to Port Hamilton by the Audacious found in my last post).

An Account of the Arrival of the Audacious

The 'Alien Visitors upon Chosun's Shores' series:

Alien Visitors upon Chosun's Shores Part I
Alien Visitors upon Chosun's Shores Part II
An Account of the Arrival of the Audacious
Thoughts on the Observations of Conquest-Enabling Explorers


I came to the realization last week that you could do a search for 'Korea' (or 'Corea') here and find dozens of articles from late 19th or early 20th century periodicals like Harpers or Atlantic Monthly. I came upon this well written account of an encounter with Korea and decided to use the OCR text function (with a bit of editing) to post it. An attempt to find more information led to another online account, and then others, and before I knew it I had a very, very long post in the works, with excerpts from several different expeditions, making a full account of this one a bit much; I've decided to post it here separately.

Map from Isabella Bird Bishop's Korea and Her Neighbours, 1898

The following article is an account of a visit to Port Hamilton (or Geomundo; it's in the center of the above map) by the British battleship HMS Audacious in August, 1875. It was written by Cyprian A. Bridge, who served for two and a half years on the Audacious, which was then the flagship of Admiral Alfred Ryder in China. It was published in Littell's Living Age, Volume 129, Issue 1662 on April 15, 1876 (scans of which can be found here).

HMS Audacious

From The Fortnightly Review.
A GLIMPSE OF THE KOREA.

A COOL breeze from the north-west rose in the early morning, and fanned the heated waters of the Korean Channel, raised yesterday almost to a glow by the scorching blaze of the August sun. The atmosphere is still clear of vapour; the sky above, the sea beneath, both serenely blue; a gentle ripple just ruffles the surface of the water, tossed into spray only by the cleaving prow of the huge ship steaming onward towards the land; light fleecy clouds, snowy or even silvery white in the early sunshine, fleck the bright azure of the sky, and float across the newly-risen sun. Far away on the port-bow a long line of misty cloud-masses hangs over the lofty summits of the Korean island of Quelpart, itself still out of view. On the starboard hand rise above the horizon, indistinct in the far distance, the blue ridges of the mainland, with an archipelago of fantastic rocks and cone-shaped islets for foreground. Ahead show out the bold cliffs and steep inclines of the curious double island known to western navigators as Port Hamilton, for which the ship is bound. A deep cleft in the lofty side soon widens to an opening; the opening becomes a “narrow;” and close to the island promontory on the left — for the shore is bold and deep water flows beside it — the ship glides into the placid bay between the two curving islands which, like arms, embrace and form it. A few small fishing-craft were standing into the bay, their white or pale-blue pennons fluttering in the gentle breeze from slender staves erected in their high-pitched sterns.


The slow progress towards the anchoring-ground gave time for a good look round on the shores of the quiet bay. On either hand hills rose, here abruptly, there with gentle slope; to a height of at least five hundred feet; whilst above the general line of heights sharp-pointed peaks sprang to an elevation half as great again. The slopes were richly green: green with fields of waving millet yet unripe. Cultivation reigned on every available spot. From beach to summit, save where excessive steepness forbids labour, the whole hillside was divided into cultivated fields, separated from each other by green hedgerows as in some far western lands. Every scrap of ground was in crop, not a single plot was even fallow. Above, or on steep promontories, or edging the narrow strip of soil between the rocky beach and the cliffs that here and there vary the outline of the shore, grow clumps of evergreen oaks, or copses of fir and pine. The fields were small, and the thick foliage of the dividing hedges looked at a distance like a bank of green. The contour of the land, the size and fashion of the fields, the moist verdure of the slopes, recalled to more than one of us, by whom the place was now visited for the first time, the green landscapes of southern Ireland.

In a fold of the hillside between two gentle ascents, half-way toward the summit of the ridge of Sodo, the westernmost island of the two, peered out from amidst fields and hedgerows the scattered roofs of a small hamlet. Elsewhere the population is gathered into four large villages or towns — two on the western, and two on the eastern island. The chief town lies toward the north on the western shore of the bay, where the island dips to a long promontory crowned at the point with such a headland as Misenum. Across the dip between the central ridge and this elevated headland lie the blue mountains of the distant main. Beyond the cape, and between it and the western shore, runs a narrow strait, shallow, and with sunken rocks which make the little sound between the islands almost land-locked. The town is compactly built; hip-roofs of poles and mat, with sloping ends, lie close together. In the distance they called to mind the likeness of a testudo of besieging shields. The town abuts upon the stony beach. Each house and its dependent buildings are surrounded by a rude stone wall. Above the coping shoot branches of green shrubs, and here and there stems of the universal millet. Between the house-walls run rudely paved lands as steep and stony as at Brixhani or Clovelly. A few boats were hauled upon the beach, and a coasting craft of some thirty tons rode at anchor hard by. The town itself contains close on two hundred and fifty houses, and possibly a thousand souls.

Photo taken during the UK occupation of Port Hamilton, 1885-87

On the other island, also on the beach, but where the water makes almost an inlet in the shore, are two other towns. Both seemed large — as large at least as the one just noticed on Sodo. In front of the southernmost lay many junks at anchor. From both — but not from a single house of either town on the other island — wreaths of blue smoke rose. The more northern climbs somewhat high up the hill, and yet higher throws out a scanty suburb. The fourth town was passed and soon hidden behind a jutting headland: it is perhaps the smallest of the four.

In front of each stands a stately tree; beneath its shade, on a platform rudely faced with loose stones, the elders and the commons of the little communities assemble. At first, as we entered the bay, scarce a soul was stirring. A few men and boys were seen moving about in front of some of the houses, or perhaps along a lane between the hedgerows. But as the morning advanced, many peeped out from their doors, till before long a crowd was gathered before each little town to look at the ship moving slowly up the bay. The anchor was cast opposite the town first mentioned. Within a short time of anchoring, a boat put off from the ship for the shore, to make some inquiries of the head-man, or governor of the island. The emissary was received at the water’s edge, and courteously conducted to the great tree, the shade cast by which was supplemented by that of a canvas awning spread for the purpose. The officer was received by the chief men of the place, each distinguished — besides the stature and bearing of a higher class — by an official head-dress. This head-gear is black, made of some light fibrous substance, as finely woven as a horsehair sieve, and in shape much resembling that of the peasant women of south Wales, the heroines of Fishguard. The cavity to receive the head is cup-shaped, and beneath the brim. The common robe of all is white long and flowing like the Japanese kimono, and girt in at the waist. Loose broad trousers of the same are tied in below the knee; white socks or buskins, and pointed, turned-up shoes complete the costume. The hair is long, and is gathered up into a small knot upon the crown. The children wear a long plaited tail behind; perhaps a remnant of the Manchu tyranny which tried, and failed in the attempt, to put upon the Koreans the same head-mark as that submitted to by the more pliable Chinese.

In the little embassy from the ship there was no one who could speak the Korean tongue. Communication was held by the aid of a Chinese servant, who wrote the few questions asked in the characters of his language. Question and answer were written upon paper, and readily interpreted by both Korean and Chinese, though neither could speak one word of the other’s tongue. The head-men would not allow the baser sort, of whom a small crowd had already collected, to approach too near. Those who did were waved back, and when signs and orders failed, were beaten backwards with bamboos. The village senate — for such seemed the group of elders who surrounded the venerable head-man — were unarmed, and no member bore even a staff of office.

The not important information asked for being courteously imparted, the boat the returned on board. Soon as the bell struck of eight the colours were hoisted in accordance with ancient naval custom, and the band played “God save the Queen!” The notes of the music floated across the bay, and the crowd of gazers at the different villages quickly increased. An hour afterwards a boat again pulled in towards the beach, this time carrying a goodly load of visitors. On landing, as before, two grave inhabitants, adorned with the official head-dress, met the visitors and conducted them to the meeting-place beneath the tree. The senate was assembled to receive them. Again the general public was kept at a respectful distance, and by the same argument as before. The aged headman was courteous, and hospitable withal. An attendant brought forth some liquor, which was poured into a mouthed, shallow cup of metal, first tasted by the venerable host — such is the Korean mode — and then handed to the visitors. The liquor, whitish in colour and sour in taste, is possibly akin to the kournis of the Tartar tribes. The visit of strangers was evidently not much liked. Still the elders showed a certain grave courtesy, and a somewhat, pleasing and even well-bred manner. As the officers from the ship divided into small parties of three and four to explore the island, some slight show of opposition was made. This was overcome, or purposely let pass unnoticed; so two of the little senate accompanied it in each party. The strangers being young, and eager for exercise after their confinement on board, pushed out quickly for the hills. Inspection of the town was firmly resisted, and with almost complete success; so roads had to be taken to the right and left. Hurrying after the eager visitors could be seen, from the deck of the ship, the two attendant villagers in their high-crowned hats and flowing robes; now lagging half tired out behind, now trotting courageously to regain the party in front, now eagerly waving the fan which all carry, now fluttering it rapidly to cool themselves, for the sun was already high, and the thermometer, even afloat, showed 87 degrees in the shade. When signs had no effect, the visitors were hailed “Chin-chin,” the universal salutation on the China coast, believed by the English to be Chinese, and by the Chinese to be English; though in reality it belongs to neither speech. Probably, however, the use of the phrase now is a remnant of former intercourse with Chinese.

Some did actually succeed in traversing the village, and even in seeing the inside a Korean house. Not a woman was visible; all had been carefully hidden away. The houses are built of wood, with sliding doors and windows, like those of the Japanese. In the front, about the centre, is a recess or open-sided chamber, for reposing in during the summer heats. At one end is a low balcony or verandah, formed by the protruding eaves. A light railing runs round it, and a cool resting-place is thus made. The house floor is a raised platform, as in Japan, a small portion of which is cut away just within the door, to form a cavity in which, on entering, the shoes or sandals are deposited. The only domestic animals seen were pigs - probably of the Chinese breed — and dogs. In the fields, singly, and in some native places in twos and threes, were numerous broad-rounded cones, with a sharp-pointed thatch upon the roof, which look like huts, but were found to be small granaries for the millet when harvested. At the northern end of the chief village these stood so thick as to bear the semblance of an Indian town.

Two of the island senators who had accompanied one of the parties of officers who had landed, expressed a wish by signs to pay a visit to the ship. No persuasion could get them to go alone. The officers signified their assent to repeated requests to accompany them, and a native boat was launched to take them on board. This frail bark was worked by a man and two boys, who propelled it by a single scull, with the bent handle and straw lashing at the inner end, common in northern China and Japan. The boat itself was of the rudest construction. The sides were fashioned of wide and roughly trimmed planks hewn from some tree of great size. The ends protruded far beyond the stern, and across them, above the water, were laid rows of slender poles offering a fragile deck on which to stand. The passengers, as in the sampans of Amoy and the Straits, sit at the bow.

Arrived alongside the ship, the Korean visitors clambered up the side. On reaching the deck each bowed low, and said, “Chin-chin.” One was a fine and even handsome man, six feet high at least, with Caucasian features and a copper-coloured skin. His mouth and chin were fringed with a scanty black beard. On his head was the official hat, but white, not black, like all the others that had been seen. This, it is explained, shows that he is in mourning for his mother, white in the Korea, as in China, being the hue of mourning. The visitors at first showed evident signs of timidity; but, at the same time, were not without a certain amount of swagger, though good manners still held paramount sway. They yielded to invitation, which had to be more than once repeated, and went about the ship looking at the guns, the shot, and the various small arms. Invited to look into the muzzle of a huge twelve-ton piece, they politely and with even graceful gesture, declined. Expression and refusal said plainly, “A thousand thanks; I will assume for your sake that it is wonderful, as you evidently wish that I should.” The taller one explained that he understood what the great gun was; be pointed to it, and shouted loudly, “Boom!” thus mimicking the roar of modern artillery. This was so favourably received that he attempted the same mode of expressing himself when shown the engines, and exclaimed, “Whoosh! Whoosh!”

Invited to descend to the deck on which the seamen mess, they again showed their diffident manner. The sight of Chinese cooks, however, at the cooking-galley seemed to be reassuring; and the strangers proceeded to inspection. As in China, so in the Korea, nil admirari, or at least the repression of outward symptoms of admiration, is regarded as essential to good manners. The two strangers tried hard, and for some time successfully, to restrain their feelings. These at last got the better of them. Shown into the ward-room, a well-lighted, and — for a ship at least — a lofty apartment, hung with brightly coloured pictures, and adorned with gilded mouldings, they expressed their admiration loudly in a spontaneous outburst of delight. The taller visitor forgot his mourning, clapped his hands loudly upon the table, inclined his head towards a gorgeous chromo-lithograph, and broke out into a song of joyous delight. Calling for the interpreting paper and pencil, he wrote in rapid but well-formed characters, the assertion that all was perfect. Then both he and his friend seated themselves and relapsed into placid admiration and well-bred ease. Above their heads hung the portrait of Queen Victoria. It was explained to them who the august personage was; both rose, stood in front of it, and made it low and reverent obeisance. The gestures were the same as those that still linger in Japan, in spite of the hot haste in adopting Western customs.

Hospitality was thrust upon them in the English manner by the offer of the national beverage. They expected their hosts to taste first, and then they themselves took long sips of the ale. The glasses were put down, and no sign of pleasure or of disgust appeared upon the face of either; but, after a decent interval, the tall Korean called again for paper and pencil, and this time wrote a request that the pale-ale — not, it is true, improved by a voyage half round the world — might be given to his low-born countrymen who worked the boat in which he came on board. After this he was tried with a sweet, highly-flavoured liqueur. Of this both he and his companion altogether approved, and no pressure was needed to induce them to accept a second glass. Opposite to where they sat was a large mirror. Catching sight of the reflections of their faces in this, they rose and stood immediately in front of it, rectifying meantime defects in their toilet.

Photo taken during the UK occupation of Port Hamilton, 1885-87

The tall visitor, who took the lead in all matters, asked in writing if the band, the strains of which he had probably heard in the morning, might be ordered to play. His request was complied with, and soon stirring sounds of the march of the Presbrajenski regiment penetrated to the ward-room. The effect was instantaneous and strange. The shorter islander, who seemed older than his companion, and who had a grave and reverent aspect, suddenly brightened up; then, extending his arms horizontally, threw back his head, and began a slow dance in unison with the music. He was evidently sublimely unaware of the strange grotesqueness of his combined levity and solemnity of appearance. The dance was kept up for a minute or two, and reminded one of the strange devotional exercise of the dervishes of Galata. The younger visitor was less moved, but he, too, permitted the effects of the pleasure of the sensation to be distinctly perceived. At length, it was explained to them that they must leave, as the ship was about to sail. They civilly said “farewell,” or what seems to be such, and getting into their crazy-looking boat, were sculled towards the shore.

Few on board her failed to regret that they had not been able to see more of this strange people, which has, more consistently and successfully than either Chinese or Japanese, resisted all attempts at intercourse on the part of foreigners. Four years ago, the Americans, who tried to gain access to the country, with a result different from that which followed Commodore Perry’s mission to Japan, were led into a conflict with the Koreans, and having undertaken an expedition with insufficient force, were repulsed. Since then, no attempt on the part of a Western nation to penetrate the mysterious exclusiveness of the Korea has been made. Less is known of the country and of the people than of the manners and customs of many savage tribes. What their religion is, is doubtful; and even within a few hundred miles of their shores two totally different accounts of their system of government and polity are given. One authority declares them to be citizens of a republic; another, the despotically governed subjects of an autocratic ruler. At Port Hamilton no temple nor sign of worship (save perhaps veneration of ancestors, as in China and Japan) was visible. The village communities are governed evidently by a deliberative body; a senate either chosen by age, or a council of leaders selected as in ancient Germany, ex nobilitate. There are symptoms of the existence of an aristocracy of birth, or a superior class. Education is widely disseminated; most can write and understand the Chinese characters. Unlike their Japanese neighbours and — if the theory of a Korean immigration into Japan in pre-historic times be accepted — probable descendants, they do not on ordinary occasions go armed. About them there hangs the interest inevitably begotten by mystery, and an interest which approaching events may intensify. The restless party in Japan, which has run such a head-long course on the path of Europeanization, is said to purpose an attack upon the Koreans, simply to “keep in wind” the Samurai, the military class which the three or four years that have elapsed since the abolition of feudalism, have been insufficient to absorb. That some intention of the kind passes through the minds of the ruling clique in Japan, is tolerably certain. The native press, in discussing relations with the Korea, treat it as a matter of fact, and the only difference of opinion, is as to the pretext. A prominent Japanese newspaper has very recently attributed the warlike aspirations of the hour to the machinations of the less reputable foreigners, who have, as a class, made so much out of the foibles and the innocent mistakes of the Japanese people. A writer in the journal in question infers that they desire to reap again such a harvest as fell to those Occidentals who, in the golden age of Western commerce with Japan, enriched themselves by rather questionable transactions. “They probably desire,” hints a writer in this Japanese journal, “to buy worn-out vessels for next to nothing, and sell them to us at exorbitant prices.” It will be well if Japan pauses before being led into the dangers of a warlike policy. Going to war “with a light heart” is likely to produce as many ills in the far East as in the West. The imitators of Western manners in Japan know enough of recent history to be aware of the dangers that overtook a dynasty which, to satisfy the desires of a certain class of the population, declared war against a neighbour of unascertained strength with un coeur leger. May they profit by the example. The Korea is the last semi-civilized State which has resisted the attempts of foreigners to open intercourse with it. The days of Cortez and Pizarro are past; it will be a painful burlesque if their career be mimicked by Japan.

CYPRIAN A. G. BRIDGE.


Postscript:

As much as I think "a painful burlesque" would make a great title for an essay about the colonial period in Korea, I couldn't help but notice that Bridge relegates brutal imperialism to the days of Cortez and Pizarro, some 350 years in the past, but makes no mention of British imperialism. But then, I'm sure a heavily armed British battleship (the flagship of the China squadron, no less) was just stopping by Port Hamilton, a sheltered harbor in an excellent location between Korea, Japan, Vladivostok, and Shanghai, just to take in the wonderful view. I'm sure this visit had nothing to do with the seizure of these islands by Britain ten years later (when photos like the ones in this article were taken). Snide remarks about the implications of the visit aside, he is a very good writer, and captures the experience (especially the visit by the officials aboard the ship) very well.

Pluto and the Land of the Morning Calm

Walls of Kyongbok Palace, looking towards Namsan 1883-84

Some of my students mentioned to me the other day that Pluto was no longer considered a planet; I promptly forgot about it until I read this post by the Metropolitician.

Pluto was discovered on February 18th, 1930 by an astronomer named Clyde Tombaugh, working at Lowell observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The observatory had been built 36 years earlier by Percival Lowell, who had been interested in studying the surface of Mars. In 1895, Lowell published a book titled, simply enough, Mars, which can be found online here. In this book, Lowell, having seen canals such as these, theorized that life might exist on Mars. Three years after Lowell's book was published, H.G. Wells published "War of the Worlds", which seems to have been influenced by Lowell's book (and is also notable for Orson Welles' radio adaptation which caused mass panic in the US on October 30, 1938 (downloadable here), as well as Alan Moore's second volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - which also references an Edgar Rice Burroughs's Princess of Mars - another book perhaps influenced by Lowell's writing). Lowell wrote more books about Mars, but in 1905 began looking for planet X, which he theorized must exist beyond Neptune. He failed to discover it before his death in 1916, but his work would be carried on by relatives a decade after his death, who built a special photographic telescope, and who hired the aforementioned Clyde Tombaugh. Pluto's astronomical symbol became PL, standing not only for 'Pluto', but also for Percival Lowell.

Lowell's past before becoming an astronomer is also rather interesting, as he lived in in Japan for a number of years in the 1880s and 1890s, before returning home for good in 1893. In 1883 he was invited to accompany Korea's first trade mission to the US.

Korea's 1st trade mission to the US. Percival Lowell, 2nd from left

Upon returning to Korea in late 1883, stayed several months in Korea, where he witnessed the 1884 coup d'etat, which he wrote about in the November 1886 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (which can be found here). He also took a number of photos of Korea at that time, which can be found here (click' search').

Children on Namsan, overlooking Seoul and Bugaksan

At a market in Seoul

Lowell also published Choson, Land of the Morning Calm: A Sketch of Korea in 1886, as well as a number of books on Japan, such as The Soul of the Far East and Noto: an Unexplained Corner of Japan (available via the gutenberg project).


Quoting the passage below from Lowell's book about Korea (pictured above), Scott Bug, in Korea Bug, notes "how uncannily it invokes the mood or ambience of science fiction, despite being a travel book about a very real place written in the latter part of the nineteenth century."

Two days out from Pusan found us steaming, like some lost vessel, up the long reaches that were to end at Chemulpo. "The world forgetting, by the world forgot," only a strong faith in human testimony justified the assumption that we were approaching anything. The feeling was heightened by the strange look of both people and land. About me were men clad, as imagination might paint the denizens of another planet, but not such as I had once supposed existed on this; while, on turning to the coast, I seemed to be carried back in geological time as before I had felt changed in space. Around me lay suggestions of the earlier unformed ages of the earth. Huge purpoise-backed mounds, unslightly because deprived of Nature's covering of trees, and vast plains of mud alternated with stretches of sea. The scene had the desolateness of the early geologic ages.

Is he describing Korea? Mars? Pluto? You almost get the feeling the years of being an expat in those heady days when much of the world was left to be "discovered" had left its mark on him, that his decision to take up astronomy when he returned was influenced by the strange things he had seen in Korea and Japan, and that his experiences there may have left him wanting to find even stranger, more remote landscapes on neighbouring planets, or even upon planets (or as of this week, planetoids) that had not even been discovered yet.


(More biographical information on Lowell can be found here).

Girl Saturday

As Lost Nomad has discontinued his popular "Girl Wednesday" posts, I thought I'd pick up the pace with a one-off "Girl Saturday" post, with a slight twist, of course.



Choi Seung-hui was born on Nov. 24, 1911, and died on Aug. 8, 1969. Numerous photos of her can be found here and here. As this article tells us,

Choi was born in 1911 in Seoul when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule. She came to Japan when she was 15 and started her artistic career under the tutelage of avant-garde dancer Baku Ishii. She incorporated traditional Korean dances into her creation of modern dancing and captured the hearts of many people[...]

Her dancing included slow finger movements, symbolic signs, and quiet smiles that hovered around her mouth. She won great admiration for her dance portraying a Buddhist saint standing on a lotus flower. Critics gave her unreserved praise for her dancing form calling it a ''perfect formative sculpture.''

Choi performed before a full house every day during her 20-day wartime appearance at Tokyo's Imperial Theater in 1944, although she had been branded as ''anti-Japanese'' following her successful performance tour of Europe and the United States before the war.

Photos like the one below remind me of ones you mind find while doing a search on naver or daum, of celebrities chillin' with their friends.


And much like the present day photos you might find of celebrities hanging out together, the photo below shows Choi meeting Son Gi-jeong in 1936, the year he won a gold medal for Japan for his victory in the marathon at the 1936 Berlin olympics.


Meeting celebrities of the day, being toasted in Japan and Korea, travelling the world... it might sound like an enviable life. However...

She was forced to dance for Japanese Imperial Army soldiers in Korea during the war, and after the war, when she returned to Seoul, she was boycotted as ''pro-Japanese.'' She crossed the 38th parallel and went to North Korea in 1946. Choi established a dancing research institute in Pyongyang and served as a member of the Supreme People's Assembly.

Above is a photo of her with her husband and daughter in the 1940s. Her high position was not destined to last however...

She lost her seat in disgrace when her husband, a senior government official, fell under suspicion of being a U.S. spy. She was last heard of in 1967 when her family was reported to have been put under house arrest.

The report I'm quoting from exists because in early 2003 Choi Seung-hui was rehabilitated.

Choi's grave was set up in the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery on Feb. 5. Her remains were transferred there from another grave after Kim Jong Il visited the cemetery in January and asked why her grave was not there. Kim ordered a biography on Choi [which is rather silent about her death] to be published and her remains to be transferred to the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery.

A possible reason for her rehabilitation is offered in the first article:

A contingent of more than 200 members of Pyongyang's Mansudae dance troupe arrived in Japan in 1973 and people in Japanese dance circles were attracted by a dancer who performed with a traditional Korean musical instrument. One of them said of her, ''She towered over all others in technique and beauty. It was obvious that Choi had an influence in her graceful movement.'' The dancer's name was Go Yong Ki, who later became the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and bore him a son, Kim Jong Chol. Choi's rehabilitation may not be unconnected with her relationship with Go.

Luckily, since she's now in the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery, her story now has a happy ending.

Right?

1907 and 1928 Seoul (Keijo) Travel Guides

Celebrating 2 years of Japanese Administration
Look at the Improvements!

A you may have noticed in my last post, I quoted several times from the book (provided by Google Books) Times Past in Korea: An Illustrated Collection of Encounters, Customs and Daily Life Recorded by Foreign Visitors. By looking though the table of contents, it's easy to find lots of interesting entries from over the years. I found the two below to be rather fascinating. From the 1907 Welcome Society's A Guide Book for Tourists in Japan, under the heading "From Japan to Korea", comes this entry:

The Sanyo Railway's new steam-ship service between Shimonoseki and Fusan affords considerable convenience to intending travellers to Korea. The new relation which Korea has to Japan, makes it entirely necessary that the time taken in a journey from Tokyo to Seoul must be decreased as much as possible. Before the Russo-Japanese campaign, travellers had to reach Chemulpo by steamer via Nagasaki, and it always took five days even if the connection was accomplished. At the present time, however, the journey can be finished in about fifty hours. From Tokyo to Shimonoseki via Kobe has already been described. From Shimonoseki to Fusan is 122 m., and travellers may be conveyed by means of the commodious and luxurious new steamers of the Sanyo Railway, the passage taking about ten hours (with foreign food: Ist 12.00 ; 2nd 7.00). The scenery is panoramic and charming. Travellers cross the famous Tsushima Straits on the Japan Sea where the greatest naval battle of modern times was fought with the utmost determinaton on the 27th and 28th of May 1905, the whole of our Fleet participating in the engagement, and in which the enemy made use of his entire force. The contest was most severe, quite unprecedented in naval history, and at length resulted in the annihilation of the enemy's fleet practically decided and the termination of the great war.

Korea possesses an agreeable and healthy climate. The winter is dry and pleasant and sport for hunters is unrivalled. Besides tiger hunting in the interior one can find an abundance of ducks, geese, pheasant, hare, snipe, and deer about Seoul and its neighborhood.

Twenty one years later, in 1928, Terry's Guide to the Japanese Empire provided this information for those planning on travelling to Seoul:

SEOUL (KEIJO) AND ITS ENVIRONS

Arrival. Hotel runners meet trains. Information Bureau and Lunch Room in the Station.

Taxis ply for hire. The usual charge to the hotel (5 min,) is 50 sen. If there is any question about it, submit the matter to the hotel manager.

Motor-car rates by the hour about 6 yen. Special rates for country trips. The hotel-cars usually are kept in the best condition. Rates the same as others.

Jinrikis ply for hire at from 70 sen to one yen the hour. Consult the hotel manager.

Tramcars run to many parts of the city and suburbs. Cheap and useful.
Hotels. *Chosen Hotel (Tel. add. Choho, Keijo). Best in the city. Reccomended. Modern, fire- and earthquake-proof. Member of the Japan Hotel Association. Many comforts and modern conveniences. Telephones, radio, moving pictures, good food, and service. English spoken. The manager, Mr. J. Sakai, is well known for his ability to please foreign guests. Consult him about sight-seeing plans.

Rates, American plan. Songle room from 8 yen a day and up. With private bath, from 11 yen. Double room from yen 16.50 and up. With private bath from yen 19.50. Special terms for a long stay. Meals only: Breakfast, yen 1.75. Tiffin, yen 2.50. Dinner, yen 3.

Seoul (pron. sowl, or sow-ohl) or Keijo (kay-jo), a one time walled city with a population (Japanese, Koreans, Mongols, etc) of approx. 302,000, stands on the N. side (2 M. distant) of the swift Han River (120 ft. above it and 35 M. from its mouth), in the heart (Kyongkwi Province) of the ancient kingdom of Korea (lat. 37 35' N., and long. 127 0' E. from Greenwich), is one of the most picturesque and romantically situated mediaeval capitals of Eastern Asia. It was founded in (in 1392) by the Emperor Yi Taijo under the name of Han yang ('Fortress on the Han'), but it is generally known as Seoul ('capital'), the Japanese equivalent for which is Keijo. As the political, intellectual, educational, and commercial center of the country, with (so-called) palaces, art, and museums, libraries, botanical and zoological gardens, colleges, banks, electric lights, street cars, and telephones, and many additional adjuncts of a modern and progressive metropolis, it is Korea to most foreigners, since it represents in the large everything Korean; much as Tokyo represents N. Japan. For upward 8 centuries it was home of the concubine- loving Korean sovereigns, and few cities have seen more maladministration, cruelty, rioting, and bloodshed. For almost that length of time it was a sort of cancerous growth that choked the national ambition and sapped the life-blood of the people - a poisonous blight on all progress and civilization. To-day it is the center whence all benefits and reforms radiate. The japanese Governor-general dwells here, and from the Residency the affairs of the nation are administered. The situation of the old capital (2 M. by 2 M.), in a broad valley (5 M. long by 3 broad) surrounded by rugged hills that tower in somber grandeur above it, is very attractive. From the highest of these (N.) hills, the San-kak-san, or Three-peaked Mountain (2,270 ft.), - which foreigners know as Cock's Comb, - one may enjoy a magnificent panorama of the wide city with its mushroom-like houses and the lordly Han flowing broadly to the sea.[...] The tall mountain to the S. of the capital long served as a signal station on which bonfire messages were received from the southern provinces.

One has to wonder in reading these just how much European imperial powers advertised their colonial possessions for the purpose of travelling. While these guides certainly arouse historical curiosity (tiger hunting?!), they actually sound rather contemporary; I guess travellers' needs never really change. Beyond the necessities, they also require souveniers like postcards. Numerous postcards from Korea during the colonial period can be found on these pages (1, 2, 3, 4); it's interesting to see the image of Korea that these postcards attempt to convey. Beyond the travelling aspect of these books, they are also interesting for the way in which they carefully position Korea within the Japanese empire in a very benign manner, even if it may not seem very subtle. They certainly build up Japan's national esteem by embellishing the battle of Tsushima, describing it as "the greatest naval battle of modern times", "quite unprecedented in naval history", which "resulted in the annihilation of the enemy's fleet". The best description of Korea, and of its need for Japanese guidance (nice to see Terry's Guide was so willing to accomodate this) really needs to be quoted in full once again, so beautifully wrought it is:

For upward 8 centuries it was home of the concubine- loving Korean sovereigns, and few cities have seen more maladministration, cruelty, rioting, and bloodshed. For almost that length of time it was a sort of cancerous growth that choked the national ambition and sapped the life-blood of the people - a poisonous blight on all progress and civilization. To-day it is the center whence all benefits and reforms radiate. The japanese Governor-general dwells here, and from the Residency the affairs of the nation are administered.

No subtlety here - my head is still ringing from the sledgehammer blows. It seems rather telling that, even 18 years after Japanese colonial rule in Korea began, they still felt compelled to justify it at every turn. Coercion and the threat of violence for the natives, pretty words for the foreign tourists - my how things have changed.

Or at least, that's how we might first think, as we look at this obvious propaganda (and propaganda techniques of old tend to seem fairly obvious to us now, we like to think). Beyond the obvious justifications for empire, and the boosting of its military esteem through exaggeration, however, it's interesting to see how, three years before Korea was annexed outright, the 1907 travel book is already speaking of the need for speed between the two countries and describing in a mundane manner the ways in which one can travel in comfort between Tokyo and Seoul. I would argue that the bombast of the description of the Battle of Tsushima in fact draws your attention away from the mundane way in which this new, faster connection between the two countries is described: "travellers may be conveyed by means of the commodious and luxurious new steamers of the Sanyo Railway, the passage taking about ten hours (with foreign food: Ist 12.00 ; 2nd 7.00). The scenery is panoramic and charming." Yawn. But it's precisely that description which makes our eyes glaze over and turn the page which is insinuating that Korea should be more closely within Japan's reach, normalizing a "new relation which Korea has to Japan".

And this is the fun I have with two documents. Think of the fun I could have reading these.


A final note: When I read the above paragraph, with its descriptions like "cancerous growth", "poisonous blight", "choked the national ambition", etc., etc., I couldn't help but think of present day justifications for Japanese colonial rule rendered into English, and how they pale in comparison to descriptions like the one above. My advice to those writing in English trying to justify the Japanese colonial project over 60 years after it ended is to stop searching through Japanese language revisionist sites and translating them into English (which in the past has inspired flat, uninteresting, and unconvincing writing such as this), and instead look at what was being written by Japanese or on Japan's behalf in English during the colonial period. The writing at that time was simply much more descriptive and fun to read. They also stand a better chance of convincing people that the stream of words appearing on their webpages actually have depth if they can get their readers to focus on the bright and flowery surface of the language they use, as this may postpone the realization that the stream is, in fact, rather shallow.

Dancing Girls, War, and Missionaries: Pyongyang in 1894

Taedongmun, Pyongyang, circa 1890

James Creelman, in his report on the battle of Pyongyang, which took place on September 15, 1894 during the first Sino-Japanese War, tells us about the actions of the Chinese army in the city before the battle and their effect upon the city's inhabitants:

In forty-two days the Chinese army built more than thirty earthworks outside the walls of Ping Yang. There were miles of new fortifications. [...] As the Japanese army moved forward to the rescue, the Chinese generals made merry with the dancing girls of Ping Yang, renowned throughout Asia for their grace and beauty. All was pomp by day and revelry by night. The Chinese soldiers broke into the houses of timid Coreans, and treated their wives and daughters shamefully. Drunkenness and debauchery ran riot, and while the generals caroused with the dancing girls, the whole city was looted. Hell seemed to be let loose. The frightened inhabitants fled to the fields and forests -- men, women, and children -- and remained there until the Japanese army entered the city, when they crept back, many of them dying from starvation and exposure.

Even allowing Creelman his penchant for slight exaggeration, it should be noted, however, that he never actually stayed to see the city's inhabitants return, or the behaviour of the Japanese army after it triumphantly entered the city. Isabella Bird Bishop, on the other hand, in her book Korea and Her Neighbours, described Pyongyang during her visit there in November 1895, more than a year after the battle, as

a prosperous city of 80,000 inhabitants reduced to decay, and 15,000 - four-fifths of its houses destroyed, streets and alleys choked with ruins[...] Everywhere there were the same scenes, miles of them[...]

Phyongyang was not taken by assault; there was no actual fighting in the city[...] When the Japanese entered and found that the larger part of the population had fled, the soldiers tore out the posts and woodwork, and often used the roofs also for fuel, or lighted fires on house floors, leaving them burning, when the houses took fire and perished. They looted property left by the fugitives during three weeks after the battle... Under these circumstances the prosperity of the most prosperous city in Korea was destroyed.

After reading this, I had wondered if there was a connection between the incredible growth of Pyongyang's Christian population and the destruction the city experienced during the Sino-Japanese war. This description of early missionaries in Pyongyang, from Donald N. Clark's Living Dangerously in Korea: The Western Experience 1900-1950, makes no mention of the war, however:

The story of P'yôngyang as a missionary station began in 1890, when the newly arrived Samuel A. Moffett paid a two-week visit to investigate the possibility of opening evangelistic work there. The following spring, Moffett and his colleague James Scarth Gale visited P'yôngyang again while on a three-month exploratory journey by foot and horseback. They held services in the city but found that people were still "suspicious of foreigners and afraid of Christian books" because of the government's recently lifted prohibition against Christianity. P'yôngyang remained impenetrable for several years, receiving occasional visits from Seoul-based missionaries who invariably found the local authorities inhospitable. The Presbyterian Mission assigned Samuel Moffett to P'yôngyang as a full-time missionary in November 1893, and, after a rocky beginning that included attempts on his life by neighbors intent on killing the "foreign devil," he succeeded in buying property and founding a proper mission station in January 1895.

A somewhat humourous description of the difficulties in starting missionary work can be found in Elizabeth A. McCully's book A Corn of Wheat (quoted from in Times Past in Korea: An Illustrated Collection of Encounters, Customs and Daily Life Recorded by Foreign Visitors), from which this January 17, 1894 entry is taken:

After seven days' journey I reached Phong Yang, and went at once to one of the houses which had been purchased for our use, but which, on account of the opposition of the governor, we were unable to occupy for several months. It had been used as a home for dancing girls, and was still being used for the same purpose. After some difficulty they consented to give up the house. The following two nights the house was vigorously stoned by a band of men who had been accustomed to spend their evenings there, but had now been defeated in their evil purposes.

The aforementioned Samuel Moffett was Isabella Bird Bishop's guide in Pyongyang (she mentions that the Japanese troops looting the city helped themselves to $700 worth of his possessions). She describes the efforts taken to find him during her visit in November 1895:

Taking a most diverting boy as my guide, I went outside the city wall, through some farming country to a Korean house in a very tumble-to-pieces compound, which he insisted was the dwelling of the American missionaries; but I found only a Korean family and their were no traces of foreign occupation[.] Nothing daunted, the boy pulled me through a smaller compound, opened a door, and pushed me into what was manifestly posing as a foreign room[.]

I had reached the right place. It was a very rough Korean room, about the length and width of a N.W. Railway saloon carriage. It had three camp-beds, three chairs, a trunk for a table, and a few books and writing materials, as well as a few articles of male apparel hanging on the mud walls.

William James Hall and Rosetta Sherwood Hall's House where
they carried out their medical and missionary work.

Upon meeting Mr. Moffett, he described the post-battle scene in the Pyongyang area

as one of 'indescribable horror'. [Three weeks after the battle] there were 'mounds' of men and horses stiffened in the death agony, many having tried vainly to extricate themselves from the pile above them. There were blackened corpses in hundreds lying along the Peking road, ditches filled up with bodies of men and animals[...] Even in my walks over the battlefield, though the grain of another year had ripened upon it, I saw human skulls, spines with ribs, spines with the pelvis attached, arms and hands, hats, belts, and scabbards.

Such a description is not surprising, as it echoes James Creelman's report on the immediate aftermath of the battle:

The scene was horrible beyond words to tell, and the streams on either side of the valley road were red with Chinese blood. After the battle, there were counted in a space of two hundred yards the bodies of two hundred and seventy horses and two hundred and sixty men.

This print by Kobayashi Kiyochika, titled "Banzai for Japan! Victory Song of Pyongyang" reflects some of this horror (or it does if you're able to peel away the jingoism just a little):


Two months after the battle, L.H. (Lillias) Underwood, in Fifteen Years among the Top-knots (quoted here), wrote:

According to native superstition that the city is a boat, and to dig wells would sink the boat, there were no walls in Pyeng Yang; but a large number of bodies of men and horses were lying in the river, polluting for weeks the only water supply. In this dreadful situation out brave missionaries remained and worked, and on October 17th Dr. Hall wrote the following cheerful words, 'We have very interesting services, the hymns of praise that less than a year ago brought cursing and stones are now listened to with delight, and carry with them a feeling of security similar to the sound of a policeman's whistle in New York. Comparatively few of the Koreans have returned to their homes, but every day brings fresh additions. Every day numbers of those who have returned and those from the surrounding villages and towns visit us. They buy our books and seem far more interested in the gospel than I have ever seen them before.'

Hall's letter seems to confirm what I had suspected - that Pyongyang's ruin had helped spur the population to look more kindly upon the Missionaries who quickly returned. Before continuing with Underwood's account, it might be worthwhile to look a little more closely at Dr Hall. Most of the photos and biographical information about him in this post come from this blog (there are three pages).

Dr. Hall, with poor children.

William James Hall arrived in Korea in December 1891, a year after his future wife Dr. Rosetta Sherwood, who he married in 1892. Arriving in Pyongyang in 1894, Rosetta Sherwood Hall adapted Braille to the Korean script and began teaching blind girls, the first instance of 'handicapped' education in Korea. After Mrs Alice Moffett (Samuel Moffett's wife?) began a school for blind boys in Pyongyang in 1903, she opened the School for the Blind the next year.

The first educated blind girl, Oh Bok-Rye

In case you're wondering why William James Hall's future accomplishments aren't being noted, perhaps we should let Mrs. Underwood finish her letter:

Very soon after writing these words Dr. Hall returned to Seoul; the boat on which he came was full of sick Japanese soldiers. There were cases of typhus fever and army dysentery, the water was doubtless poisoned, and he reached Seoul, after numerous most trying vicissitudes, fatally ill with typhus fever. Quite early, articulation became very difficult, but every halting sentence spoke of perfect peace and joy, and almost his last words were, 'I'm sweeping through the gates.' Tears dim my eyes while I write, for we all not only loved, but reverenced Dr. Hall, and we felt he possessed a larger share of the Master's spirit than most of us.[...] Euopeans and natives alike testified to the same impressions of him, the same love for him, his sweet spirit drew all hearts to him, so that he was both universally loved and honored. [He died on November 24, 1894.]

While he may have died young, his wife and son would continue to work as missionary doctors in Korea for decades to come.

Going back to the effect the Battle of Pyongyang had upon the efforts of missionaries there, Isabella Bird Bishop returned to Pyongyang in late 1895 or early 1896 after travelling further north, and made the following observations:

Christian missionaries were very unsuccessful in Phyong-yang. It was a very rich and immoral city. More than once it turned out some of the missionaries, and rejected Christianity with much hostility. Strong antagonism prevailed, the city was thronged with gesang [kisaeng], courtesans, and sorcerers, and was notorious for its wealth and infamy. The Methodist Mission was broken up for a time, and in six years the Presbyterians only numbered 28 converts. Then came the war, the destruction of Phyong-yang, its desertion by its inhabitants, the ruin of its trade, the reduction of its population from 60,000 or 70,000 to 15,000, and the flight of the few Christians.

Since the war there had been a very great change. There had been 28 baptisms, and some of the most notorious evil livers among the middle classes, men shunned by other men for there exceeding wickedness, were leading pure and righteous lives. There were 140 catechumens under instruction, and subject to a long period of probation before receiving baptism, and the temporary church, though enlarged during my absence, was so overcrowded that many of the worshippers were compelled to remain outside.

On the Sunday I went with Dr. Scranton of Seoul to the first regular service ever held for women in Phyong-yang. There were a number present, all daemon worshippers, some of them attracted by the sight of a "foreign woman". It was impossible to have a formal service with people who had not the most elementary ideas of God, of prayer, of moral evil, and of good. It was not possible to secure their attention. They were destitute of religious ideas. An elderly matron, who acted as a sort of spokeswoman said, "They thought that perhaps God is a big daemon, and He might help them get back their lost goods." That service was "mission work" in its earliest stage.

Also worth mentioning in Pyongyang at that time might be that

The main street on my second visit had assumed a bustling appearance. There was much building up and pulling down, for Japanese traders had obtained all the eligible business sites, and were transforming the small, dark, low, Korean shops into large, light, airy, dainty Japanese erections, well stocked with Japanese goods, and specially with kerosene lamps of every pattern and price, the Delfries and Hinckes patents being unblushingly infringed.

In In Korea With Marquis Ito (quoted here), Gerorge Trumbull Ladd, speaking in Pyongyang on April 7, 1907, said there were 1400 in his audience, "equally divided between the two sexes", divided by a screen.

It was said that there was enough of the population of the city attending Christian services at that same hour to make three congregations of the same size. The afternoon gathering for bible study and the evening services were even more crowded; so that the aggregate number of church-goers that Sunday in this Korean city of somewhat more than 40,000 could not have been less than 13,000 or 14,000 souls. Considering also the fact that each service was stretched out to the minimum length of two hours, there was probably no place in the United States that could compete with Pyeng-yang for its percentage of churchgoers that day. Yet ten years ago there was in all the region scarely the beginning of a Christian congregation.

Three years before Ladd's visit, during the campaign of 1904 (during the Russo-Japanese war), Japanese troops had once again found themselves marching through Pyongyang - but this time, the absence of enemy forces there (and a growing awareness of the need for good P.R.), led to much better treatment of the city during the subsequent occupation.

Japanese Infantry await the completion of a pontoon
bridge before entering Pyongyang, March 1904

Koreans watching Japanese troops enter Pyongyang

Below is a photo of Pyongyang's missionary community taken around March 4, 1904, by R.L. Dunn (who, along with Jack London, had reported on the Japanese advance northward), which makes obvious that the growth of Pyongyang's (Korean) Christian community was accompanied (or preceded) by a large growth in the number of missionaries there - a far cry from the previous descriptions of mission efforts we've seen from before the Sino-Japanese war (Photos taken from here).

It seems to me to be very difficult to explain the sudden growth of Pyongyang's Christian community (or of its development in other aspects) without examining the effect of its destruction during the Sino-Japanese War.

Prior to the war, Bishop describes it as " a very rich and immoral city[...] the most prosperous city in Korea." "[T]he city was thronged with gesang, courtesans, and sorcerers, and was notorious for its wealth and infamy". Creelman spoke of "the dancing girls of Ping Yang, renowned throughout Asia for their grace and beauty", while Elizabeth McCully noted that a house purchased by the missionaries "had been used as a home for dancing girls". In the minds of these good Christians, as they speak of an "immoral city" full of "infamy" and "evil", Pyongyang seemed to have been perceived as a modern Sodom and Gommorah (which makes you wonder how its destruction during the war was perceived). As Bishop put it, this was all before "its desertion by its inhabitants, the ruin of its trade, the reduction of its population".

The most obvious effect the battle had upon the city was "the reduction of its population from 60,000 or 70,000 to 15,000". Bishop also mentioned a figure of 80,000 for Pyongyang's pre-war population; whatever the exact number, a year later in 1895, it seems that only a quarter of the population had returned. Twelve years later, in 1907, Ladd gives the population of the city as 40,000, which is still only 2/3 of its population in 1894 (if a figure of 60,000 is accepted). One can only guess at how this disrupted the social fabric of the city and ruined its economy; pondering this might lead one to understand how Christianity might suddenly seem more palatable, especially when those preaching it are also opening schools and healing people.

As Dr Hall put it two months after the battle, "Comparatively few of the Koreans have returned to their homes, but every day brings fresh additions. Every day numbers of those who have returned and those from the surrounding villages and towns visit us. They buy our books and seem far more interested in the gospel than I have ever seen them before." Bishop's description of the city's first church service for women provides a fascinating look at the participants' perception of deities, as well as their reasons for wanting to explore Christianity in a looted and ruined city: "They thought that perhaps God is a big daemon, and He might help them get back their lost goods." As Bishop put it succinctly, "That service was "mission work" in its earliest stage."

Beyond the effect on missionary work the city's ruin and desertion had, Bishop mentions another change: "Japanese traders had obtained all the eligible business sites". The degree to which, prior to the war, a Japanese presence existed in Korea outside of Busan, Wonsan, Chemulpo (Incheon) and Seoul I'm not sure of. After 1894, of course, Japanese people (and soldiers) were able to move about with much more ease. I'm not certain if there were any Japanese living in Pyongyang prior to the war, but after the war it seems their presence was becoming much more prominent, as they bought up prime land in a city their troops had helped lay to ruin (and after the fighting had ended, remember). Pyongyang, in regards to its growing Japanese population, could likely have simply served as a microcosm of the rest of the country, as Japan consolidated its control and prepared for its eventual war with its other rival, Russia. Russia's reappearance in Pyongyang in 1945 would, of course, set in motion events that would lead to Pyongyang's destruction once again - along with the (apparent) destruction of the Christian faith there.



Of further note regarding Pyongyang and missionaries: this page comments on the influence on music in Korea the missionaries had, due to their music lessons. A bibliography of writing about (and by) missionaries in Korea can be found here. Turn-of-the-century (or earlier) photos of Pyongyang and Gaeseong can be found here. A 1946 US military map of Pyongyang can be found here, while a current map (and metro map) of contemporary Pyongyang can be found here.

Also, on a vaguely related yet fascinating note, a school in Oregon was named Pingyang after the battle in 1894, and was eventually bombed and destroyed a few years later. The story can be found here.