[KS] Travelogue: Book on Seoul and First Movie ever Filmed and Played in Korea by E. Burton Holmes, 1901

Frank Hoffmann hoffmann at koreaweb.ws
Sun Feb 26 20:45:44 EST 2012


Yes, you are absolutely right ... I followed the memories of Holmes' 
cameraman Oscar B. Depue in his 1947 article (which seemingly do 
clash with Holmes' earlier description, as I see now):

QUOTE Depue -- see the 1947 original text here:
http://www.archive.org/stream/journalofsociety49socirich#page/486/mode/2up
  (p. 486):
"We were twenty-eight days on this river trip [Shilka and Amur 
rivers], but finally we landed at Khabarovsk and proceeded by rail to 
Vladivostok. As soon as passage could be secured, we took a steamer 
to Nagasaki and from thence to Korea where we visited Fusan and 
Seoul, the capital. / From Seoul we went to Peking (...)."

In the beginning of his travelogue, vol. 10, Burton Holmes also talks 
about the passage from Nagasaki to Korea (to Fusan [Pusan]) and how 
convenient that was for Japanese traders etc., but then indeed writes 
that is not what they did in 1901. (Again thanks to Kwang-On Yoo for 
pointing that out.)

In the preceding volume, vol. 9, Holmes describes the Siberia and the 
Peking trip. Pages 101-103 have some interesting photos showing 
Korean travelers (a yangban with servant) at a Siberian train 
station, nicely demonstrating (a) how Koreans had settled in the 
Russian Far East at that time already, and also (b) how much 
traveling and communication must have gone on, at all periods 
actually. When we look at all those early Western travelogues we 
often tend to forget that Koreans themselves have traveled very 
extensively very early on, at least throughout Manchuria, China, and 
India, and by 1900 also through Siberia, Russia...
-->
http://www.archive.org/stream/downamurpekingfo00holmuoft#page/100/mode/2up

http://www.archive.org/stream/downamurpekingfo00holmuoft#page/102/mode/2up

http://www.archive.org/stream/downamurpekingfo00holmuoft#page/105/mode/2up


Best,
Frank

-- 
--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws




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