<br><div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Renowned, Chicago born travel writer, photographer, and filmmaker, E. Burton Holmes (1870-1958) traveled to Seoul, Korea in April and May of 1901. His documentation of life in Seoul resulted in a 112-page limited edition book, <i><u>Seoul, The Capital of Korea, The Burton Holmes Lectures: Volume X</u></i>, published later that year. The complete book is attached hereto, as a free e-book, courtesy of Google. </font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">In the book, right off the bat, he poses the following unanswerable question about Seoul, "<i>That big city in Korea</i>." </font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><div style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif;font-size:13px;color:rgb(80,0,80)"><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">"A word as to the pronunciation of the name of the capital of Korea will not be amiss. It is variously misspoken. English travelers offend the ear with<i> Sowl. </i>The French say <i>Sayoull</i>. Americans, when cornered, compromise on <i>Sool</i>, but usually just call it, <i>That big city in Korea</i>." </font></div>
</div><div style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif;font-size:13px"><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">"And the form <i>Seeyoul</i> is not unknown. If we turn to foreign residents, we find that every old settler has a pet pronunciation of his own, usually backed by an article contributed to that unique and interesting local publication, The <i>Korean Review</i><b> (</b>formally, <i>The Repository</i>), a veritable repository of quaint bits of information about this curious country. To whom "then" shall we turn if not to the natives themselves? I give as my authority, countless Korean lips, when I assert that the people Cho-Sen call their capital city <i>So-ul</i>, the sound being precisely that of the English word <i>soul</i>, dis-syllabified." (page 15-16, page number appears on top of each page)</font></div>
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<font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">The book captures a rare moment in Korean history, when Koreans struggled to improve themselves without foreign interference; Doing such thing as installing electric trolley cars, building new roads, improving infrastructure, etc. until their efforts were curtailed by the Japanese in 1905 and on. Thanks to the words and photographs by Holmes, that moment has been immortalized, however brief it was.</font></div>
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<font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Another contribution Holmes made was that he filmed and played the first ever movie in Korea.</font></div><div style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif;font-size:13px">
<font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif;font-size:13px"><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">He had hoped that <span style="font-family:arial">"<font> - - - if those who read these words appreciated the value of motion-picture as a mean of recording life as it is lived </font></span><span style="font-family:arial">in <font>this century, that those who live in the next may actually </font></span><i style="font-family:arial">see</i><span style="font-family:arial"> the </span><i style="font-family:arial">living </i><span style="font-family:arial">figure</span><span style="font-family:arial">s of man and women who lived in the </span><span style="font-family:arial">same world a hundred years before? - - -To record life in such a way that every gesture, movement, and expression of </span><span style="font-family:arial">one men or of a hundred men may be reproduced at will and make that man or that multitude appear to live again and </span><span style="font-family:arial">reenact their parts, this is the end and aim of the art-science of motion-photography, Motion-photography is, in the truest sense - biography. Is it not the writing of life in a universal language - that of action." (pages 62-64) </span></font></div>
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<font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Holmes had no need to worry, 111 years later we are still studying and enjoying his movie, as he had wished.</font></div><div><div style="font-size:13px;text-align:left;font-family:arial">
<font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="font-size:13px;text-align:left;font-family:arial"><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><font>A chance meeting Holmes had with Yi Jae-sun (</font>ÀÌÀç¼ø, ôèäÌÏÖ ×Ýî°âí, Emperor Kojong's ÆÈÃÌ, ø¢õ», second cousin, twice removed) led to Holmes screening the movie he shot in Korea for the Emperor and princes. Holmes describes the circumstances;</font></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;text-align:left;font-family:arial"><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div style="font-size:13px;text-align:left;font-family:arial"><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">"We entertain His Highness (Yi Jae-sun) with our portable machine for showing miniature motion-pictures, </font><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">like of which he has never seen before. He grows enthusiastic and bags to allow him to take the instrument to the palace to show it to the Emperor. We gladly acquiesce, and after teaching him how to operate the equipment." (page 86)</span></div>
<div style="font-size:small;text-align:left;font-family:arial"><span style="font-size:medium"><br></span></div><div style="font-size:13px;text-align:left;font-family:arial"><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">"It was retained two days at the palace and sent back in the dead of night by Imperial messengers, who came with Torches and Lanterns through the street, roused hotel, and delivered the mailing box accompanied by several presents from His Majesty, including twenty yards of rich green silk and half a dozen fans, together with an explanation of the delay, due to the fact that the baby prince, youngest son of the Emperor and actual <font>palace tyrant, had been fascinated by the toy and had wept when they attempted to take away it from him, falling asleep still griping it firmly in his chubby hands. Next day there came an invitation from the Fat Prince </font>(Yi Jae-sun) to appear at the palace to see the Imperial Dancing Girls; but a postscript begs us to bring the picture machine. Mr. Park (Holmes interpreter) remarks in a warning tone: 'If you take machine one time more, please think you lose them.' We went, prepared to part with the covered box, gladly presenting it to little prince to stop his weeping, receiving in return twenty yards more of rich green silk, two kakemonos, and other gift of silver, and what we prized most of all, a peep at a portion of Imperial corps-de-ballet." (pages 106-108)</font></div>
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<font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><font>Here are some of the highlights of the three-minute movie, as described in the book; it is interesting to note that </font>he was absolutely unimpressed with the dance that the court Kisaeng (</font><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Gesang,±â»ý) </font><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">performed for him. </span></div>
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<div><u><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Shoveling</font></u></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">"Near the hotel (the English run Station Hotel, only a few paces from the railway terminus) we find a gang of laborers beginning an excavation; there are nine men in the gang: they have only one shovel among them, and yet the entire gang is hard at it operating that solitary shovel. One plants the blade deep in the earth, his eight companions, to the measure of a chanted song, give vigorous yankings to the ropes attached, jerking the shovel free and thus shooting the clods of earth to a considerable distance." (pages 17-19)</font></div>
<div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div><u><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Ladies' Coats</font></u></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">We see comparatively few women in the streets. Most of them are shrouded in coats of brilliant green, which are not put on like coats, but merely thrown over the head and clutched under the chin, concealing the faces as do the veils and hails of Moorish women. The sleeves which dangle free and empty have white cuffs, while long red ribbons add a dash of brilliancy to this striking costume. Sometimes the coat is folded and worn like a tam-o-shanter on the head; and this reveals the fact that the dress beneath the overcoat is not a dress, for it is a pair of baggy trousers.</font></div>
<div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><u>Hats & Topknots</u></font></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Korea is indeed the land of hats, and every hat has its significance. But first of all, whence comes the conventional headgear of the Korean gentlemen? - that curious cone of horsehair or split bamboo on a bamboo frame, so delicate, so inconvenient, so picturesque! - - -No male Korean, no matter what his age, is regarded as a man till he has duly donned the hat that enshrines the sacred topknot. No man may don the hat until he has assumed the topknot and is prepared to marry. A professed bachelor is not regarded as a man even though he lives a hundred years..." (pages 68-74)</font></div>
<div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div><u><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Archery</font></u></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">"....and thither gentlemen of Seoul resort for the archers, the target on a terraced hillside, beyond a broad green-clad depression where passers-by may walk in safety beneth the high curvings of the feathered shafts, for the Korean gentlemen aim high, as if intent on hitting unseen stars. And they are accurate of aim; for nearly every arrow as it decends from the cleft skies strikes the msrk or at the worst, falls very near it. We spend an interesting hour watching the gentlemen of Seoul contending in friendly rivalry in this dignified and </font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">medieval exercise."</font></div><div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div><u><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Gesang (±â»ý)</font></u></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">"The dancing-girls of Korea, called 'gesang', occupy about the same place as the geishas of Japan, save that most of them are employed chiefly in the palace, there being an established troupe of over eighty coryphees, </font><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">constantly in readiness to dance before the Emperor. They ride about the town in elegant sedands, attended always by a woman servant. They are sometimes pretty, in a mild and featureless sort of way, but always immaculately dressed, with faces powdered and made up until they look like placid masks. As for their art, its charm is not apparent to the stranger; monotonous, stiff, and automatic in their posturing, and quite expressionless of visage, they dance to the dull music thumped on a double-drum. And this sort of thing is regarded as the height of gaiety at the Korean court. The Emperor spends hours every day in watching the gyrations of his fourscore automations. We are happy to have seen it, for so much mystery surrounded the celebrated Palace Gesang that we should have been as bitterly disappointed in another sense had not our magic pictures gained us entrance to the palace courts. But even the magic pictures that have bewitched the Imperial circle from the Emperor to the Baby Prince do not awaken the slightest spark of interest in impassive coryphees, who look into the instrument with uncomprehending eyes." </span></div>
<div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><u>The Gates of Seoul</u></font></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">The South Gate is the chief landmark of Seoul, a busy meeting-place for the tides that flows from the city to the suburbs and from the suburbs to the city. Gates in the Orients are held in high respect. They usually bear bombastic names; and the gates of Seoul which we call simply the West, East, or South Gates, are known to the natives as the Portals of "Bright Amiability." "High Ceremony" or "Elevated Humanity." (pages 74-75)</font></div>
<div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Even before he left Korea he expressed that "We register a vow that sometime we will come to this strange land with that most precious asset of the travelers - time, plenty of time - and invest it wisely, sailing away up a wide river into the almost unknown interior provinces, into the Korea of yesterday, to which few echoes of the outer world have penetrated." (page </font><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">77). </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">Later, he did return to Korea, even though it was under Japanese colonial rule.</span><br>
</div><div style="font-size:12pt"><br></div><div style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-size:12pt">Attachments:</span></div><div><div style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><i><u>1. Seoul, The Capital of Korea, The Burton Holmes Lectures: Volume X</u></i>, E. Burton Holmes, 1901</font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><a rel="nofollow" href="http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=A0EuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PP1" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=A0EuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PP1</a></font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">2. The first movie ever filmed and played in Korea by E. Burton Holmes, 1901</font></div><div><a rel="nofollow" href="http://tvpot.daum.net/clip/ClipViewByVid.do?vid=gUZrgGgd63s$" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank"><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">http://tvpot.daum.net/clip/ClipViewByVid.do?vid=gUZrgGgd63s$</font></a></div>
<div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">His understanding of some facts regarding Korea and Korean history was flawed and his pro-Japanese sentiment is annoying, </font><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">but his prose, and especially his photos, are priceless. Please enjoy.</span></div>
</div><div><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">Kwang-On Yoo</span></div></div></div></div></div>