[KS] Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 91, Issue 28

Mon Jan 31 04:29:31 EST 2011

If we are talking about the same building, the Government General building
turned into the National Museum, it was the latter as
early as 1990 or 1991, my first trip to Seoul. The Americans also
made use of it I believe for their three year tenure.

Best,

Mark Caprio

2011/1/31 don kirk <kirkdon at yahoo.com>

> Re that "classical stone museum" you mention, are you referring to the huge
> edifice, deigned by a German architect, that was built for the Japanese
> governor-general? Rhee and successors, notably Park and Chun, all used it as
> their capitol bldg. The bldg was not turned into the national museum until
> the Kim Young Sam presidency, I believe, and then torn down to provide a
> clear sight line from Chong Wa Dae to the Kyongbuk Palace to Nam Dae Mun.
> Koreans say the Japanese deliberately placed this monstrosity to obscure the
> palace. (The National Museum was moved to temporary quarters nearby until
> the opening of a brilliant museum building near Ichon Station on, I think,
> land that had been part of the U.S. military base at Yongsan.)
> That is, if that's the building you're referring to.
> Don Kirk
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* "Clark, Donald" <dclark at trinity.edu>
> *To:* koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> *Sent:* Sun, January 30, 2011 5:13:27 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [KS] Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 91, Issue 28
>
> In the fifties and sixties, the Gyeongcheonsa (Kyongch'onsa) pagoda stood
> just inside the then-entrance to the Kyongbok Palace, the east gate, or
> Konch'un-mun. It stood in a little grassy circle that formed a kind of
> driveway to the classical-style stone museum building built by the Japanese
> I think as a museum of the palace, or maybe of the Yi royal dynasty, and
> later used under the Rhee regime as the office of the Bureau of Cultural
> Properties. .  There's a photo of the pagoda with the Konch'un-mun beyond
> it, facing page 83 of Seoul Past and Present, by Allen and Donald Clark
> (RAS 1969).    I don't recall the pagoda's travels over time, though I think
> I could find out where my father got his information when he wrote about it
> in SP&P.  There's a little elaboration in a discussion of both the
> Kyongch'on-sa and Won'gaksa pagodas on ppl 143 and 144 of the same book,
> again, written by Allen Clark.
> Best regards,
> Don Clark
>
> On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 11:00 AM, <koreanstudies-request at koreaweb.ws>wrote:
>
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>> <<------------ KoreanStudies mailing list DIGEST ------------>>
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>   1. The Gyeongcheonsa Pagoda (Brother Anthony)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:33:58 +0900 (KST)
>> From: Brother Anthony <ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr>
>> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>> Subject: [KS] The Gyeongcheonsa Pagoda
>> Message-ID: <26257837.1296394438812.JavaMail.root at mail.sogang.ac.kr>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=EUC-KR
>>
>> I am wondering if anybody can tell me why Japan returned the Gyeongcheonsa
>> Pagoda to Korea in 1918? The explanation supplied in various places by the
>> National Museum of Korea is that it was "returned by the efforts of British
>> and American journalists, E.Bethell and H.Hulbert," but Bethell's articles
>> in the Korea Daily News and Hulbert's article in the Japan Chronicle (that
>> was reproduced in other countries) date from 1907, soon after the theft.
>> Bethell died in 1909, at least partly as a result of his time in prison in
>> Shanghai (a quite scandalous enough story in itself). Hulbert also left
>> Korea at that time and I do not know if he wrote again about the Pagoda? Was
>> there any further campaign? Also, I wonder where it was located prior to the
>> 1976 move to the garden of the National Museum? I am struck that James Gale,
>> writing in 1915 about its younger sister that still stands in Seoul's Tapgol
>> Park, mentions the relocation of the Gyeongcheonsa Pagoda without any sign
>> of indignation and with no hint that it might ever be returned.
>>
>> Brother Anthony
>> President, RASKB etc
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> End of Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 91, Issue 28
>> *********************************************
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Donald N. Clark, Ph.D.
> Professor of History
>      & Co-director of East Asian Studies at Trinity (EAST)
> Trinity University, One Trinity Place,  San Antonio, TX 78212 USA
> +1 (210) 999-7629;  Fax +1 (210) 999-8334
> http://www.trinity.edu/departments/history/html/faculty/donald_clark.htm
>
>
>
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