[KS] Book review: Korea through Western Eyes

Henny Savenije webmaster at henny-savenije.pe.kr
Mon Feb 8 07:41:45 EST 2010


Korea through Western Eyes by Robert Neff and Professor Sunghwa Cheong

This book is a treat for anybody with some historical interest in 
Korea. The authors describe the lives of the first foreigners living 
in Korea at the end of 19th century and the beginning of the 
twentieth. Many of the chapters have been published before in several 
newspapers or elsewhere but are now bundled together in a readably book

The first people coming to Korea were a mix of people for whom Korea 
was a new frontier. These people of course were also living in 
relatively closely knit communities mainly in Seoul, Incheon 
(Chemulpo) and Pusan (Fusan) and they had to rely on each other, how 
uncomfortable that sometimes was.

The book describes the relationships between some these Westerners 
and their struggles while living in Korea. They introduced new 
technologies which were met by the unfamiliar Koreans with a mix of 
feelings often also with a lot of superstition. Often the westerners 
looked down upon these feelings with disdain but some inventive 
people used this to their own advantage. Korea was notoriously bad 
with paying their hired foreign advisors and engineers but also for 
Koreans stealing from their superiors. So the foremen of the Oriental 
Consolidated Mining Company in northern Korea would use their 
phonographs which they hid with prerecorded Korean messages 
proclaiming to be the miners ancestors who told them to stop stealing 
and bring back the already stolen goods. The frightened miners would 
just do that. Another engineer who helped construct the power plant 
to provide the palace with light removed some screws so the plant 
would run but provided no electricity. When everybody was upset and 
turned to the engineer he told them that the spirits were upset since 
the engineer didn't get his pay and would only work again after he 
was paid. He got his salary immediately.
These and other amusing stories are abundantly in the book available.

At other times these superstitions caused problems at the time that 
Koreans believed that the westerners used Korean babies to make 
medicine and their ground eyes were used to spread it out on glass 
for photographic plates. For a while the sentiments ran so high that 
many foreigners feared for their life.

As the foreigners were curious about the Koreans the Koreans were 
equally intrigued by these foreigners sometimes much to their 
annoyance. Many of them knew the king and his wife because also the 
king wanted to know about these foreigners.

Lucky for us, many of these foreigners kept diaries and wrote letters 
to their families back home and many of these sources are still 
available. The authors went to great efforts to bring all these 
sources together in a readably concept and used many sources which 
were not available before.

The book is divided into four groups. The coming of Modernization. 
Life in Korea. Tales of Chemulpo. Perceptions and the press.

It's a pity that the authors don't provide a time line and assume 
sometimes a too great knowledge of what happened in Korea at that time.

However that's a minor flaw and it might invoke further interests and 
questions for those who are not so familiar with Korean history.

The authors rely an a wide range of sources and the book is richly 
annotated and the notes are often an invitation to read more as well.



                  _   _
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      oOOO----(_)----OOOo---
Henny (Lee Hae Kang)
-----------------------------
http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr Portal to all my sites
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr (in English) Feel free 
to discover Korea with Hendrick Hamel (1653-1666)
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/indexk2.htm In Korean
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch In Dutch
http://www.vos.henny-savenije.pe.kr Frits Vos Article about Witsen 
and Eibokken and his first Korean-Dutch dictionary
http://www.cartography.henny-savenije.pe.kr (in English) Korea 
through Western Cartographic eyes
http://www.hwasong.henny-savenije.pe.kr Hwasong the fortress in Suwon
http://www.oldKorea.henny-savenije.pe.kr Old Korea in pictures
http://www.british.henny-savenije.pe.kr A British encounter in Pusan (1797)
http://www.genealogy.henny-savenije.pe.kr/ Genealogy
http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr/phorum Bulletin board for Korean studies


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