[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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Henny (Lee Hae Kang)
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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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