[KS] Book review: Korea through Western Eyes

Kwang On Yoo lovehankook at gmail.com
Tue Feb 9 21:35:11 EST 2010


Dear Professor Lee Hae Kang,

Thank you for sharing.

Please let me know ISBN no. of the book and name of publisher.

Thank you,

Kwang-On Yoo

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 6:41 AM, Henny Savenije <
webmaster at henny-savenije.pe.kr> wrote:

> 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.
>
>
>
>                 _   _
>                (o) (o)
>     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
>
>
>
>
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2674 - Release Date: 02/08/10
> 04:35:00
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20100209/ad2805e9/attachment.html>


More information about the Koreanstudies mailing list