[KS] What was it like to be Koreans in 1905?

[Kwang On Yoo]

Hello All,

106 years ago today, on November 17th, 1905, Japan forced the Eulsa
Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty (을사늑약,乙 巳勒約) upon Korea. This so called
treaty effectively deprived Korea of it's diplomatic sovereignty and made
Korea a protectorate. The Eulsa Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty was the one
of the first steps culminating in the complete annexation of Korea by Japan
on August 22, 1910,  leading to 35 years of Japanese colonial rule over
Korea.

The unseen effects of the treaty had dramatically altered everyday life of
ordinary Koreans,even that of the Emperor Kojong, as sampled from three
books in English:


1. The Passing of Korea, Homer B. Hulbert, 1906
"During the year 1905 there was no such thing as justice for the Korean,
either from the private Japanese or from the officials. The military put
their hands upon eight (8) square miles of the most valuable land near
Seoul, simply for the building of barracks and parade grounds for twelve
thousands men, when experts affirm that one-sixteenth (1/16) of that space
would have been ample. That land could be bought in open market for six
million dollars, but the Japanese knew the government could not pay a
proper price so they gave two hundred thousand dollars to cover the cost of
removal only. And this is all the Koreans could ever hope to get. The most
elementary laws of human right and justice have been daily and hourly
trampled under foot."
(This is the present site of the US Forces Yongsan Garrison and Yongsan
High School, Seoul)

"A Korean boatman attempted to go under the bridge at Pyengyang while it
was under construction. This was forbidden, but there was no proper sign to
indicate the fact. The Japanese railway coolies threw him out of his boat.
He clung to some timbers in the water, but the Japanese beat his hands with
railroad bolt until his fingers were broken, and he fell off and drowned."

"In the city of Seoul, almost within a stone's-throw of the Japanese
Consulate, a Korean widow came to the house of the writer and begged him to
buy her house for five cents, and put his name on the door-post, because
she has reason to believe that unless she
sold the house for half price to a Japanese living next door he would under
mine the wall of her house and let it fall upon her head.
The Koreans say deliberately that time and again naked Japanese have run
into Korean houses and shocked the Korean women
outrageously, simply in order to make the owner willing to sell out at any
prices."

"The Country was flooded with counterfeit nickles, made largely by Japanese
in Osaka, and brought over to Korea by the millions."

"Meanwhile the Korean merchants were going to the wall because they could
not meet their notes, owing to the tightness of the money market. Some of
them were trying to save themselves by borrowing from Japanese usurers at
six per cent a month. At this
most painful juncture the Emperor proposed to lend some three hundred
thousand dollars of his private funds to his suffering merchants; but when
he sent cheque to the Japanese bank, where his funds were deposited, the
Japanese Adviser ordered payment stopped, and would not let him draw out
his private funds even to help the merchants in their desperate straits.
There is no language too strong in which to denounce this outrage."

2. The Foreign Destruction of Korean Independence, Carole Cameron Shaw, 2007
"It is well known that the Japanese maintenance of order cost more than *twelve
thousand Korean their lives* before the annexation in 1910.
*Less known is the Knife Law, where every five Korean households were
ordered to use one kitchen life. When the knife was not in use, it was
required to hang publicly from a hook so it was in view of the Japanese
police at all times. *That of course was one of the lesser restrictions
imposed upon the Korean population"

"This account appears in the official Memorandum admitted to President
Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, by Kim Ku*, ***(김구,金九)and the
Provisional Government recently formed that year in Shanghai, China. Author
located this document in an old document box, in the basement of Widner
Library at Harvard University. Among other things the memo documented a
broad list of grievances against Japanese policy in Korea."

(The Japanese devised this measure to prevent Koreans from donating their
knives to the Eulsa Euibyeong {을사의병, 乙巳義兵, Righteous Army against Eulsa
Treaty} to use to forge new weapons.)

The Tragedy of Korea, Fredrick Arthur McKenzie, 1908
"One act on the part of the Japanese surprised most of those who knew them
best. In Japan itself opium-smoking is prohibited under the heaviest
penalties, and elaborate precautions are taken to shut opium in any of its
forms out of the country. Strict anti-opium laws were also enforced in
Korea under the old administration. The Japanese, however, now permitted
numbers of their people to travel through the interior of Korea selling
morphia to the natives. In the north-west in particular this caused quite a
wave
of morphia-mania."

(Foreigners fared no better, especially religious foreigners.)
"It is difficult, for instance, to restrain one's indignation when a
missionary lady tells you of how she was walking along the street when a
Japanese soldier hustled up against her and deliberately struck her in the
breast.The Roman Catholic bishop was openly insulted and struck by Japanese
soldiers in his own cathedral, and nothing was done."

It was indeed a trying time for Koreans, but yet, still darker days were
ahead of them.

Thank you,

Kwang-On Yoo
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