Korea the foreigners watched

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The common points that most foreigners below wrote are,
  1. Koreans are very sturdy.
  2. Korea is in the state of being unsanitary. Each street or alley contains all the refuse of human and animal life. That is a noisome, malodorous and extremely dirty place.
  3. Koreans are not sophisticated.
  1. Hendrick Hamel, “Hamel’s Journal and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea” (1668)
  2. Basil Hall, “Account of a voyage of discovery to the west coast of Corea, and the great Loo-Choo island” (1818)
  3. Philipp Franz von Siebold, “Nippon” (1832)
  4. Ivan Goncharov, “Frigate ‘Pallada’” (1858)
  5. Koichi Miyamoto, “The omission of the records of the service by Korean Government and the summary of Korean manners and customs” (1876)
  6. Ernst J. Oppert, “A forbidden land: voyages to the Corea” (1880)
  7. William Richard Carles, “Life in Corea” (1888)
  8. George W. Gilmore, “Korea from Its Capital” (1892)
  9. George N. Curzon, “Problems of the Far East: Japan-Korea-China” (1894)
  10. Savage-Landor, Henry A, “Corea or Cho-sen - The Land of the Morning Calm” (1895)
  11. Jiji shimpō “You should watch the fact” (1897)
  12. Isabella Lucy Bird, “Korea and Her Neighbors” (1898)
  13. Lillias H. Underwood, “Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots or Life in Korea” (1904)
  14. Angus Hamilton, “Korea” (1904)
  15. William Elliot Griffis, “Corea the Hermit Nation” (1905)
  16. Goro Arakawa, “Recent Korean affairs - Korean people” (1906)
  17. Horace Newton Allen, “Things Korean: A Collection of Sketches and Anecdotes Missionary and Diplomatic” (1908)
  18. Frederick A. McKenzie, “The Passing of Korea” (1908)
  19. Homer B. Hulbert, “The Tragedy of Korea” (1909)
  20. Governor-General of Korea, “The American tourist party’s view of Korean”－“Thoughts and character of the Korean” (1924)
  21. Governor-General of Korea, “Data №25 for investigation, Folk belief, The 1st - Korean fierce gods” (1929)
  22. William Franklin Sands, “Undiplomatic Memories: The Far East 1896-1904” (1930)

Hendrick Hamel, “Hamel’s Journal and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea” (1668)

Hendrick Hamel (1630 – 1692) was the first Westerner to provide a first hand account of Joseon Korea. After spending thirteen years there, he wrote “Hamel’s Journal and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1653-1666,” which was subsequently published in 1668.

Hendrick Hamel was born in Netherlands. In 1650, he sailed to the Dutch East Indies where he found work as a bookkeeper with the Dutch East India Company (VOC). In 1653, while sailing to Japan on the ship “De Sperwer” (The Sparrowhawk), Hamel and thirty-five other crewmates survived a deadly shipwreck on Jeju Island in South Korea. After spending close to a year on Jeju in the custody of the local prefect, the men were taken to Seoul, the capital of Joseon Korea, in June, 1655, where King Hyojong (r.1649 to 1659) was on the throne. As was customary treatment of foreigners at the time, the government forbade Hamel and his crew from leaving the country. During their stay, however, they were given freedom to live relatively normal lives in Korean society.

In September 1666, after thirteen years in Korea, Hamel and seven of his crewmates managed to escape to Japan where the Dutch operated a small trade mission on an artificial island in the Nagasaki harbor called Deshima. It was during his time in Nagasaki (September 1666 to October 1667) that Hamel wrote his account of his time in Korea. From here, Hamel and his crew left to Batavia (modern day Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies in late 1667.

Internet Archive

Original text (Dutch)
  • Een vrouw die haer man om hals brenght, wort aan een wegh daar veel volcx passeert, tot de schouders inde aerde gedolven, met een houte saeg daerbij, ende moeten alle, uijtgesondert edelluijden, die daar voorbij passeeren een treek int hooft haaien, tot dat sij doot is; …… een man die zijn vrouw om 't leven brengt ende weet te bewijsen daertoe eenige redenen gehad te hebben, 't sij door overspel ofte andersints, wort daer over niet aengesprooken, ten sij het een slavin is, moet dan deselve haer Meester drie dubbelt betalen; …… Moorders worden op d'selve maniere, nadat sij verscheide malen onder d'voeten geslagen sijn, gelijck sij de moort gedaen hebben, gestraft; dootslagers straffense aldus: den overleden wassen zij met asijn, vuijl en stinckent water 't geheele lichaem, 't welck sij den misdadiger door een trechter inde keel gieten, soo lange 't lijff vol is, ende slaen dan met stocken opden buijck tot dat hij barst; ende hoewel opde diverije groote straffe staet, soo wort deselve hier veel gepleeght, worden allenxkens onder de voeten geslagen tot dat sij doot sijn; (p.38-39)
  • Wat haer godtsdienst, tempels, papen ende secten belanght, de gemene man doen voor haer afgoden wel eenige superstitie, maer achten haer overheijt meerder dan d'afgoden; d'grooten ofte edele weten daer gants niet van, om haer afgoden eenige eer te bewijsen, achten haer selven meer dan deselve te wesen ; (p.39)
  • Wat haer huijsen ende huijsraet aangaet, onder de grooten sijn veel fatsoenlijcke maer onder den gemene man slechte huijsen, door dien yder na sijn sin niet magh timmeren; niemand vermagh sijn huijs met pannen decken sonder consent vanden gouverneur soo datse meest met korek, riet ofte stroo gedeckt sijn, staen al tsamen met een muijr ofte pagger van malcanderen gescheijden; (p.42)
  • dese natie achten haer vrouwen niet meer als slavinnen ende om een cleijne misdaet verstooten deselve; soo d'man d'kinderen niet wil houden, moet d'vrouw se altemael nae haer nemen, waerover dit lant soo vol menschen is. (p.43)
  • D'edele ende vrijluijden voeden hare kinderen wel op, bestellen dselve onder opsicht van Meesters om int lesen ende schrijven wel onderwesen te worden, daertoe dese natie seer genegen is, ende dat met sachticheijt ende goede maniere, haer altijt voorhoudende d'geleertheijt van voorgaende mannen ende dengene die daardoor tot grooten staet gecomen zijn; sitten meest dach en nacht en lesen ; 't is te verwonderen dat sulcke jonge maets hare schriften soo connen [26J uijtleggen daerin meest haer geleertheijt bestaet; (p.44)
  • “Wat d’trouwigheijt en ontrouwigheijt als mede d’couragie deser natie belangt, sijn seer genegen tot diverije, liegen en bedriegen, men moet d’selve niet te veel betrouwen, achtent voor een romeijn stuck als sij imand te cort gedaen hebben, en wort bij haer voor geen schande gereekent; daerom hebben voor een gebruijck soo imant in een coopmanschap bedroogen is, mag daer weder uijt scheijden, van paerden en coebeesten, al wast over 3 a 4 maenden, van landen ende vaste goederen niet langertot dat transport gedaen is; ” (p.46)
  • sijn seer afkeerigh van siecken ende voornamentlijck die smettelijck zijn, worden terstont uijt hare huijsen buijten de stadt ofte dorp daer sij woonen int velt in een cleijn huijsken van stroo daer toe gemaect gebracht, alwaer niemand bij haer comt ofte met haer spreeckt, dan diegene die op haer passen; dengene die daer voorbijgaet, sullen d'siecken aenspouwen; die geen vrunden hebben om haerhantreijckinge te doen, sullense liever laten vergaen, dan naer haer comen kijcken; (p47)
  • Dit lant voor dat den Tarter hem meester daer van maeckte was vol weelde en dartelheijt, deden niet dan eeten, drincken en alle dartelheijt aen te rechten, maer wort nu vanden Japander ende Tarter soo besnoeijt, dat bij quade jaren genoch te doen hebben den wagen recht te houden, door de sware tribuijten die sij moeten opbrengen, voornamentlijck aenden Tarter die gemeenlijck driemael sjaers comt om tselve te 'halen ; (p48)
English translation
  • A woman who kills her husband is buried in the earth up to her shoulders on a road where many people pass by, with a wooden saw placed in the side, and all, except noblemen, who pass by must saw her neck until she is dead; ...... A man who kills his wife and can prove that he had any reason to do so, whether it is the adultery or not, will not be punished...... Murderers are punished in the same way, after they have been beaten under the feet several times, like they did the murder. Manslaughterers are punished like this: They wash the whole body of the deceased with ashen, dirty and stinking water, and they pour it down the throat through a funnel until the body is full with the water, and then beat the body with sticks until the stomach bursts. And although the various punishments are very severe, they are often carried out here, they are beaten under the feet until they are dead.
  • As for their worship, temples, papes and sects, the common man does some superstitious deeds for their idols. However, they have more respect for the superior persons than the idols. The great or noble ones do not know of that at all. Because they consider themselves to be more than idols.
  • Concerning their houses and house railings, the big ones have many decent houses, but the common men have bad houses, because everyone is not allowed to build based on his or her own thinking. No one can cover his house with tiles without the consent of the governor, so that most of them are covered with corks, reeds or straw.
  • This nation considers their wives the slaves and turns them out for a small crime. if the husband does not want to keep his children, the wife must always take them after her. So this country is so full of people.
  • The noble and maids raise their children well. Children are taught in reading and writing under the supervision of masters. They always bear in mind the learning of the men with diligence and good manners and those who have risen to great heights as a result. They sit and read most days and nights. It is to be wondered at that such young children can explain the writings in which most of their knowledge exist so well.
  • “With regard to the moral standards, it has to be said that the Koreans are not very strict when it comes to mine and thine, they lie and cheat and that’s why they can’t be trusted. They are proud if they have cheated somebody and they don’t think that’s a disgrace. That’s why they can undo the buy of a horse or a cow even after four months if it becomes clear that the buyer has been cheated. But the sale of a parcel ground or other immovable goods can only be undone if the conveyance has not taken place yet.”
  • They hate sick people and especially those who are cases of infectious disease. They are immediately taken out of their houses where they live in to a small house made of straw outside the town or village. There nobody comes near them or talks to them, except those who look after them. Those who pass by will see the sick grows. Those who have no friends to look after them do not come and look after them, and let them perish.
  • Before the Tatars became the master of this land, it was rich and joyful land here, and people did not do anything but eating, drinking and all the fun you could consider. But now the country has been damaged very much because of the Tatars and Japanese. It is dangerous whether foods are gone around enough in the year of the bad crop. Because They have no choice but to pay the heavy taxes especially to the Tatars who come three times a year.
Even now the number of the fraud in Korea is 10 times bigger than Japan. （Korea・Cho Gab-je.com）
The number of the forged crime in Korea is 20 times bigger than Japan. (Korea, Joong-ang Daily News)
The number of the perjury in Korea is 857 times and the number of the calumny is 1,085 times bigger than Japan. （Korea, Minjok Sinmun）

According to the bestseller “검사내전検事内戦 (Civil war of public prosecutors)” that a Korean public prosecutor wrote,
“The Republic of Korea is the Republic of fraud. The number of the fraud is 240,000 a year. One is performed in two minutes. The amount of damage by the fraud is over 3 trillion won (about 2, 500 million dollar) every year.”

The harvest of strawberries in a plastic greenhouse at Nonsan city, South Korea (Korea・Yonhap News)
“Tochiotome” that Tochigi prefecture developed and “Red pearl”, “Akihime”, etc that Japanese farmers developed were took out into Korea without any permission, and Korea crossbred them and developed the kinds called the “Solhyang”, “Mehyang” and “Kumhyang”. Their exports to the Asian countries are prosperous, too and exceeds Japanese kinds.
This is a success story in Korea. They say “Korea turned down Japanese request of royalty and did well”. (Korea・Yonhap News)
The Korean farmers who took the Japanese seedlings without permission are heroes in Korea.
Tochiotome Red pearl Akihime Solhyang Mehyang Kumhyang

crossbreeding of Red pearl & Akihime
crossbreeding of Akihime & Tochinomine (parent of Tochiotome)
crossbreeding of Tochiotome & Akihime
（Pirated Version of Agricultural products http://orientals.web.fc2.com/koreanfake25.html）

Basil Hall, “Account of a voyage of discovery to the west coast of Corea, and the great Loo-Choo island” (1818)

Basil Hall, FRS (1788 – 1844) was a British naval officer from Scotland, a traveller, and an author. He is known for his voyages to the Indian Ocean, China, Korea, Ryukyu, Central and South America and the various places in North America.

Internet Archive
  • “ These people have a proud sort of carriage, with an air of composure and indifference about them, and an absence of curiosity which struck us as being very remarkable. Sometimes when we succeeded, by dint of signs and drawings, in expressing the nature of a question, they treated it with derision and insolence.” (p.6)
  • “This gave us an opportunity of observing their remarkable symmetry and firmness of limb ; yet, as their long hair was allowed to flow about their neck and shoulders, their appearance was truly savage.” (p.12)
  • “The politeness and ease with which he accommodated himself to the habits of people so different from himself, were truly admirable ; and when it is considered, that hitherto, in all probability, he was ignorant even of our existence, his propriety of manners should seem to point, not only to high rank in society, but to imply also a degree of civilization in that society, not confirmed by other circumstances.” (p.34)
  • “The inside was dark and uncomfortable ; the mud floor was full of hollow places ; the walls were black with soot, and every thing looked dirty.” (p.46)
  • “and one man seeing us still advance, took hold of my arm and gave it a sharp pinch. I turned round and exclaimed, ‘Patience, Sir!’ he drew back on observing my displeasure, and a moment after called out himself, ‘Patience, Sir!’ The others hearing this caught the words too, and nothing was heard for some time amongst them but ‘Patience, Sir!’ pronounced in every instance with perfect propriety.” (p.50)


Philipp Franz von Siebold, “Nippon” (1832)

Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (1796 – 1866) was a German physician, botanist, and traveler. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora and fauna and the introduction of Western medicine in Japan.

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Original text (German)
  • “Der Koreaner ist von gröfserer Gestalt als der Japaner, jedoch selten über .5 Par. Fuß, von starkem kräftigen Körperbau, mit Ebenmaß der Glieder, rüstig, behende. ” (p.306)
  • “Das Benehmen des Koreaners ist ernst, gelassen, nach Umständen munter, freimütig; der Gang sicher, behende. Die Körperhaltung überhaupt verrät mehr Selbständigkeit und Freiheit als die der Japaner; auch leuchtet aus der Haltung mehr Energie und ein mehr kriegerischer Geist hervor als bei den Japanern und Chinesen ; in Bildung des Geistes jedoch und Verfeinerung der Sitten steht der Koreaner dem Japaner gleichen Standes weit nach; auch fehlt ihm jene Gewandtheit im täglichen Zusammenleben, sowie die verfeinerte Eebensart, welche wir bei dem geringsten Stande der Japaner in so hohem Grade bewundern. Sie sollen ehrlich, treu und gutmütig sein; weniger möchte ich ihre Sauberkeit und Nettigkeit loben. Sie sind tüchtige Esser, lieben geistige Getränke und scheinen sich weit mehr als die Japaner dem asiatischen Gemächlichkeitshange zu ergeben.” (p.307)
  • “Bei Thronfolgen soll der ‘Kaiser von China das Recht der Investitur ausüben und Tribut erhalten. Dieses Verhältnis, welches man etwas hart als das eines Vasalls von China auslegt, schreibt sich seit dem Jahre 1636 her, wo es von der jetzt regierenden Mandschudynastie mit Gewalt der Waffen befestigt wurde. Seit dem Einfalle des japanischen Sjögun Hidejosi (gewöhnlich Taiko genannt), 1592 bis 1598, steht Korea mit Japan mehr in einem Freund- schaftsbund als unter Zinsbarkeit. ” (p.321)
  • “Der Kunstfleiß scheint mir bei diesem Volke im Vergleiche mit seinen Nachbarn, den Chinesen und Japanern, noch weit zurück zu sein. Die Holzarbeiten sind bei weitem nicht so vollendet; Irden- und Porzellanwaren sind auffallend roh bearbeitet und die Eisenwaren, vor allen die Säbel und andere Schneidegerätschaften von wenig Wert; übrigens trifft man sehr schön gewirkte Seidenzeuge, feine Flechtarbeiten von Pferdehaar, dauerhaften Kattun und vortreffliches Schreib- und Wachspapier an.” (p.323)
English translation
  • “Koreans are taller than Japanese, but seldom more than 5.5 feet. They have strong physique with the well-balanced limbs and they are sprightly and agile. ”
  • “The behavior of the Korean is serious, serene, sometimes cheerful and outspoken; their walk is agile. Posture in general reveals more independence and freedom than that of the Japanese; also they shine more energy and a more warlike spirit from the attitude than Japanese and Chinese; however, in the formation of the spirit and refinement of morals, the Koreans stand far after the Japanese of the same standard; in daily living they also lack the dexterity as well as the refined manner, which we admire so highly in the lowest level of the Japanese. They shall be honest, faithful and good-natured; I do not want to praise their cleanliness and niceness any more. They are hearty eaters, love drinking and seem to have the Asian tendency of easygoing far more than the Japanese.”
  • “In the event of succession to the throne, the Emperor of China should exercise the right of investiture and receive tribute. This relationship, interpreted somewhat harshly as that of a vassal of China, has been written down since 1636, when it was fortified by the now-ruling Manchu dynasty by force of arms. Korea is in a friend-confederation with Japan rather than under the relation of bringing goods as tribute to Japan.”
  • “The diligence in the art seems to be far behind in comparison with its neighbors, the Chinese and the Japanese. The woodwork is far from complete; Earthenware and porcelain are processed remarkably raw and the hardware, especially the sabers and other cutting tools of little value; By the way, you can find very beautifully knitted silk, fine wicker work of horse hair, permanent calico and excellent paper and wax paper.”


Ivan Goncharov, “Frigate ‘Pallada’” (1858)


Internet Archive English translation：Klaus Götze

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812 - 1891) was a Russian novelist. In 1852 Goncharov embarked on a long journey through England, Africa, Japan, and back to Russia, on board the frigate Pallada, as a secretary for Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin. Goncharov’s travelogue, Frigate “Pallada” began to appear, first in Otechestvennye Zapiski (April 1855), then in The Sea Anthology and other magazines.

  • The Koreans resemble the Ryukyus most, except that the Ryukyus are small and the Koreans, on the contrary, are a very sturdy race. The Koreans are tall of statue, and much stronger than the Japanese, the Chinese or the other people. (p.526)
  • In general they are rougher to look at, and rougher in their behavior than the Japanese or the Ryukyus, although they all belong to one civilization, the Chinese one. (p.528)
  • It all looked bare and sad. No wonder the people here could not give us any provisions: they had hardly enough to eat to feed themselves. They soak and eat to feed themselves. (p.528-9)
  • The Koreans went behind us. Tall, healthy people, athletes, with coarse, dark-red faces and arms, without effeminacy in their manner, no pretension or slyness like the Japanese, without anxiousness like Ryukyus, without craftiness like the Chinese. They would make excellent soldiers, but they have caught the Chinese love of learning, and they write poetry. (p.538)


Koichi Miyamoto, “The omission of the records of the service by Korean Government and the summary of Korean manners and customs” (1876)

Japan Center for Asian Historical Records National Archives of Japan
In 1876, the Japanese Government dispatched Koichi Miyamoto, a Foreign Ministry official to Seoul to discuss “Japan–Korea Treaty”. Koichi Miyamoto was welcomed as the state guest in Korea, and after return home, he wrote this report. The report described the manners and customs of food, clothing and housing of the people of the then Joseon dynasty well. It is very interesting. I extract a part written about “palace cuisine”.
  • About a meal
    They have the meal twice a day, and it has usually 10 kinds to 18 kinds. Dishes were piled up high on the three feet square tray with four legs. I could only fear they collapsed and fell. The meat of beef, pork, chicken and fish, rice cake flavoured with the mugwort herb and soup, all were piled on the serving dishes. However, there were few people who set chopsticks on them, because of awfully bad smell. It was a torrid season, they couldn’t endure the strange smell, their stomachs and intestines weren’t accustomed to the foods and they feared food poisoning. So few Japanese ate them.
    Further, people said common people’s foods were unclean and you shouldn’t eat. Kimchi wasn’t found on the menu.
  • About seasoning
    Mostly Korean cooks using pepper and a red pepper, and there is nothing for which these 2 smacks aren’t used. Therefore I hear that there are a lot of Korean persons who receive sickness of a kind of throat by a stimulus to a throat. There are inferior soy sauce and high quality one. The nonpareil is made in Japan, but they say it’s too expensive, and that you can’t get it easily. The inferior ones are bad and you can’t eat. There is no Mirin, sweet rice cooking wine. There is also no sugar, so honey is substituted. Milk isn’t used.
  • About rice
    It resemble a Japanese rice, but it is scarce in mucilagenous and is more inferior to Japanese inferior ones.

  • About a table stand and tableware
    The trays and small dining tables had Japanese lacquer scaled off and they had dirts. So I felt uncleanness about all. Some porcelain dishes were Japanese Imari ware of inferior quality and Chinese Wuzhou ware. Korean ones were thick and coarse, and heavy like a stone. I felt uncleanness with everything.


Ernst J. Oppert “A forbidden land: voyages to the Corea” (1880)

Internet Archive
Ernst Jakob Oppert (1832 – 1903) was a Jewish businessman from Germany.
  • They might have passed for Europeans, had they been dressed after our fashion. This was also most strikingly observant in a great number of children, whose handsome, regular features, rosy skin, blue eyes, and auburn hair really made it so difficult to distinguish them from European children. (p.9)
  • The streets are a good deal wider than those in Chinese cities, but the public buildings, the houses of the higher classes, and even the royal palaces, can bear no comparison with the houses of the richer classes in any of the larger towns of China. Large temples or joss houses, rich in gilt and many-coloured ornamental carvings, such as we find in the latter country, we look for in vain ; and the general impression of the town, with its low, one storied, mostly mud-built houses, is but a poor one, and certainly not such as could be expected to be made by the first city and capital of a kingdom like Korea. (p.30)
  • With regard to the relative position between this country and China, the view pretty generally held hitherto, of a still existing state of supremacy or suzerainty of the latter over the former, has to be set aside once for all as obsolete and wrong. Centuries ago, indeed, the Chinese emperors have exercised suzerain powers over the Korean kings ; but even in those remote times these powers were very limited and confined to certain stipulated rights, and there is no question that this mild form of vassalage has also Jong since ceased to exist. (p.33)
  • The officers take no interest in the welfare of the people under their charge, and their only object is to repay themselves during the short term of office allowed to them, and as fast as they can, by all sorts of unlawful and extortionate expedients. (p.39)
  • Among the nations of the universe who claim to have attained a certain degree of culture, and profess to live in a state of civilization, there is none whose literature shows a greater incompleteness and deficiency respecting its own origin and history than that of the Koreans. It appears almost as if not one of all pretended native scholars had been willing or able to write a record of the history of the country, or that the accounts left by Japanese and Chinese historians were considered sufficiently complete to supply the want. (p.48)
  • Korea is a perfectly free and independent state, the same as Siam, and whatever covenants or treaties may formerly have been entered into or agreed upon, at present they are only waste paper, and have long since been forgotten; and no one is more aware of this than the Koreans themselves. (p.82)
  • I venture to maintain, that none among the races of the Asiatic Continent can more easily be rendered accessible to a true and sincere religious feeling than the Korean, and that the latter, once converted to Christianity, shows a far deeper comprehension, and adheres to its teachings with greater fidelity and firmness, than for instance the Chinese. (p.118)
  • Firm, sure, and quick in his walk, the Korean possesses greater ease and a freer motion than the Japanese, to whom, as to the Chinese, they are superior in tallness and bodily strength. Their bearing denotes also greater fortitude and energy, and a more developed warlike spirit. On the other hand it cannot be denied, that with all their bodily and mental advantages, they rank considerably below these in cultivation and good manners, and without savoir-vivre, they are wanting in that little polish which is not even missed amidst the low class population of China and Japan. (p.130)
  • To judge from the cut of features of the male population, it may be presumed that the outward appearance of the women in general is prepossessing ; and the little I have had an opportunity to see of them, confirms this view fully. (p.133)
  • The knowledge and treatment of diseases remains still, as may well be presumed, in its infancy in Korea, and is chiefly confined to the use of some known herbs ; and whenever these do not take any effect, the disease is generally left to have its own way, perhaps the most reasonable and fortunate course pursued for the patient. The Korean doctors are, if possible, even more ignorant than their colleagues in China, and they do not enjoy much respect and consideration. (p.135)
  • On the whole, the Korean dwelling-houses make a very poor impression compared with those of the neighbouring countries, and the Koreans have a great deal to learn before they reach the style of architecture common in China and Japan. (p.138)
  • The Koreans decidedly possess a musical ear, and they know how to appreciate, and like to listen to foreign music very much, while the Chinese have not the slightest idea of harmony, and, placing our music far below their own, look down upon our art with something like a feeling of pity. (p.143)
  • Public entertainments, such as theatrical and other performances, which are so much appreciated in China and Japan, appear to be completely unknown in Korea. This may be partly ascribed to the lack of a literature of their own ; partly also to the low grade of culture of the people, which does not feel the want of entertainments of this kind. (p.144)
  • The Koreans as a rule, as has been remarked already, are honest and good-natured, and great crimes, murder, theft, etc., are not frequently committed. (p.145)
  • In industrial art and workmanship the Koreans rank far below any other Asiatic nation. The reason for this can only be ascribed to the decidedly repressive system of the Government, which for its own political aims and reasons does not only not look with favour upon any industrial progress, but directly suppresses and hinders the same. It stands to reason that such a proceeding could not but impede any improvement in its very bud, nor can any change for the better be looked for until the system dominant at present is done away with. (p.174)


William Richard Carles, “Life in Corea” (1888)

Internet Archive

William Richard entered the Consular Service in 1867, when he was sent as a student interpreter to China. He served in various parts of China from 1867 to 1901. Carles spent some 18 months in Korea. Carles accompanied two other Englishmen. They arrived at Chemulpo from Shanghai on November 9, 1883. After a few days in Seoul, on November 16 they set out to explore the mining areas immediately to the north and east. After being appointed Vice-Consul in April 1884, Carles returned to Korea at the end of April and attended the ceremony in the palace on May 1, 1884, when Sir Harry Parkes presented a letter from Queen Victoria to the King. After the conclusion of the ceremonies, Carles took up residence as Vice-Consul in Chemulpo. He made occasional visits to Seoul, then early in September he was ordered by London to make a survey of the so-far unexplored northern regions, to see if there were business prospects for Britain in that direction. The description about the standard of the then commerce and industry, Japanese advance to Korea and social manners and customs including the position of the women in Korea is rich and interesting.

  • We were soon free of the Japanese houses which had been run up alongside of the road by the small traders, who had profited by the opportunities of the early trade with a new country. These houses formed the intermediate stage between the Japanese Consulate and the huts of the Corean squatters, who had come to the place for work. A Japanese house can never fail to be possessed of some attractiveness, but the Corean huts were wretched hovels of mud thatched with straw, almost destitute of ventilation, and arranged in irregular lines on either side of small trenches, which contained some portion of the filth and refuse lying outside the cabins. (p.16-17)
  • Other women of the lowest class were standing at the doors of their houses, suckling their children, or doing some household work. Their faces, which were uncovered, bore the signs of smallpox, hard work, and hard fare. A short bodice worn over the shoulders left the breasts exposed, and the dirt of their clothes, the lack of beauty of any kind, and the squalor in which they lived, gave a most unpleasant impression of Corean women in general. (p.28)
  • The next night the chain was fastened up and we slept well, the result being that my only portmanteau was missing in the morning. Search was promptly made for it, and it was discovered in the forward part of the ship with nothing missing but some dollars, which I had hoped to spend on Corean curios. There was little doubt that the money had been stolen by a Corean servant, who was on his way to Fusan, and who had seen the contents of the portmanteau. He was stripped before landing, but none of the spoil was on him, and he made me adieu with smiles which were repeated when next we met. Often as our things had been left in the open air in the country for want of house-room, we had not missed a single thing, so that we could speak highly of the honesty of Coreans where they had not been affected by foreign intercourse, but we had heard much of the change that had followed the introduction of foreign notions as to the proper punishment for theft. (p.81)
  • Even the Japanese, economically as they lived, found that trade in Corea was far from being a source of wealth, and many of them failed; while the few Europeans who were established in the place complained of the difficulties in the way of obtaining payment in silver or in kind for the commodities they imported. (p.101)
  • the subject was dropped, and gave way to a series of questions regarding Dr. Gottsche, his connection with the Corean Government, and the object of his journey. It was very annoying to find that all inquiries as to the resources of the province, its trade and population, were received in the same spirit. Either from suspicion as to the object of my journey, or from an excess of courteousness, the Governor disparaged everything in his own country. He would not acknowledge the existence of any trade; the river, according to him, was useless for navigation; such mines as exist were valueless; the city itself, whose history extends over nearly 3000 years, contained nothing of interest; and it was impossible to purchase anything, either in porcelain, bronze, or other material which was worth taking away. (p.160)
  • The Governor paid me a long visit, and was much interested in such foreign things as I had with me. The excellence of our leather especially surprised him, and he could hardly credit the number of uses to which it was put. He inquired much after prices, and was quite aghast at the cost of such few things as I showed him. At last he gave expression to the feeling which evidently oppressed him: "Corea is a very poor country. There is no money in it, and no produce. We cannot afford to buy foreign things." Of course I impressed upon him the desire that there was to develop the trade of Corea, but he cared little for what I said, and went away somewhat sadly. (p.169)
  • Courteous as all Coreans are, his manner was even unusually so. The rooms which he had prepared for me were invitingly clean, and offered a strong inducement to accept his invitation to stay, but there had been too many halts already to allow of another short stage. The magistrate then insisted on his body-servant going with me so long as 1 was within his jurisdiction, and sped me on my journey with many friendly speeches. (p.190)
  • One of the tri-monthly markets was held in Wi-ju on the day of our departure, and a considerable number of people had already collected in the town, while others were coming in by the different roads. I could not, however, see anything in the market that was worth carrying away as a momento; and I was greatly disappointed in the cattle, which struck me as inferior, rather than superior, to those near the capital. (p.208)
  • A striking novelty at Kang-ge consisted in the presence of women among the magistrates retinue. When I returned his call, I found that he had but comparatively few men in attendance upon him, and none of the boys who generally swarm about a Corean yamen, but half a dozen women with unveiled faces were among his retainers. To my great astonishment he asked my opinion of their beauty, and the girls seemed as anxious for my verdict as the magistrate himself. Fortunately, it was easy to speak favourably of their looks, for they were tall, well-shapen, held themselves well, and had oval faces unpitted by smallpox. Of Corean women they certainly were the best specimens I have seen, ... (p.241-242)
  • Surely if any town has a right to call itself spick and span, that town is Gensan. Japanese houses of a substantial class, wide streets, a stream flowing through the town, the sea in front of it, and a comparison with Corean towns, made the place to me look clean beyond compare. (p.275)


George W. Gilmore, “Korea from Its Capital” (1892)

Internet Archive

George William Gilmore (1857~?) was an American theologian who stayed in Korea in 1886~1889. He was invited to teach at Yukweon Kongweon in Seoul together with Homer B. Hulbert and Dalzell A. Bunker in July 1886. He was disappointed with idleness of students from yang-ban class and returned to the U.S. in 1889.

  • Its people seem slothful and indifferent. Its towns and villages appear unhealthy and its homes uninviting. And it is only during a longer sojourn than tourists afford that aught attractive really comes to the surface. (p.17)
  • If it became known that a man had laid up an amount of cash, an official would seek a loan. If it were refused, the man would be thrown into prison on some trumped-up charge. The supposed criminal would be whipped every morning until he had met the demands or had by his obstinacy scared the officials into apprehension for their own safety, or until some of his relations had paid the amount demanded, or some compromise had been made. (p.28)
  • Along with the spoken or vernacular, we find the Chinese as the medium of correspondence, of official documents, etc; not that the vernacular is not written, but that it is not the vehicle of the best literature of the country. Many books are printed in Korean, but they correspond to our cheap fiction. Almost all works of a philosophical, religious or ethical character are in Chinese. A knowledge of this fact leads us to the correct conclusion that Chinese culture and letters dominate the peninsula. The Confucian and Menclan classics are the sacred books of Korea, as they are of China. Those who make any pretensions to scholarship most read easily and write correctly the Chinese. This is the medium of promotion to official position. It is that without which no one can hold office. Hence it is probable that at least one-third, perhaps one-half, the male population is tolerably well versed in both Korean and Chinese, for nearly all males are eligible to office. (p.63)
  • It is a fact that even those who have visited the peninsula have returned with mistaken impressions concerning the physique of the people. Tourists have talked and newspaper correspondents have written as though Koreans were much above the average of mankind in height. There are two possible explanations of this: those who have either visited or lived in Japan, or even in China, have become accustomed to the diminutive stature of those peoples, and when among the taller people of Cho Son have naturally magnified the stature of the latter; another reason for this mistake is found in the garb of the Koreans. (p.75)
  • The Koreans in many points of physique seem, as in their geographical position, midway between the Chinese and Japanese. They are on the average much taller than the latter, and probably do not reach the average stature of the former. (p.77)
  • In passing through Japan one becomes accustomed to a certain sprightliness in the people. There is nearly always present a pleasing vivacity, a merry sparkle, in the eye of a Japanese woman, which calls up the answering smile. Life for them seems a game or a picnic. But from the Korean woman this sprightliness and vivacity and sparkle are absent. Life for them is serious and earnest business. (p.79)
  • On the other hand, there is the reflection that the Koreans can scarcely be more fickle than the Japanese, and that even now the latter people are not beyond mobbing an inoffensive foreigner on the very slightest grounds, as was shown in the spring of 1890. Those who have been longest in the country, however, think that there is a closer approximation to the Chinese steadiness than to the Japanese flightiness, and that there is an undercurrent of good sense which will carry the people to a high level of national life. (p.85)
  • Another characteristic of Koreans is a love of country. They yield not even to the Swiss in their intense patriotism. (p.89)
  • The people have been much maligned in the matter of cleanliness. In the East one learns to beware of aphorisms. Foreigners like to be witty at the expense of natives. So an Englishman was once heard to say that the dirtiest man he ever saw was a clean Korean. The impression the speaker meant to convey was that Koreans are the dirtiest people on earth. (p.92)
  • The Koreans are a domestic people, and are generally chaste. Their character in this latter particular is far above that of their neighbors, the Japanese. (p.106)
  • But it must not be imagined from what has been said that woman has no influence in Korean life. It is a well-known fact that the queen has very great influence with the king, and that a great deal is done according to her wishes. (p.106)
  • One tradition which obtains in Korea undoubtedly obstructs the advance of the country. It is that men of the yang-ban (gentleman or noble) class, even though their means do not furnish them the necessities of life, are not expected to work and produce their own living. A gentleman may starve or beg, but may not work. His relations may support him, or his wife may, in one way or another, supply means, but he must not soil his hands. (p.111)
  • Enough has been said in preceding chapters to show that the Koreans, while gravity is a prominent characteristic, are yet by no means loath to have fun. While not as volatile in spirits as the Japanese, they are yet not so stolid as the Chinese. (p 158) (p 158)
  • In intellectual ability the Koreans rank well. We found, however, that we had to be on our guard against merely memoriter work. The tendency was to commit sentences and to store them up for possible future use. Not with standing this, we found good logicians, bright mathematicians and, now and then, promising philologists among them. (p.231)
  • The cadet corps could not be turned out at reveille. The soldiers had hardly any idea of military discipline. Precision and punctuality were alike lacking. Soldiers served for their rice, and they had no esprit de corps. While the instructors were treated with all courtesy and consideration, effective use of their acquirements was not made because of the sloth, indifference and distrust of the officials. (p.236)
  • Is Korea an independent State, or a vassal State subject to China? The decision is not easily readied. (p.250)
  • The relations between Japan and the peninsula are, officially, most excellent. There is at times some friction of feeling between the populace and the Japanese merchants, owing to the disposition of the latter to drive hard bargains and claim their pound of flesh, but in general there is nothing but good wishes on the part of the Japanese people, and the most ardent hopes on the part of the Japanese government for the prosperity of Korea. (p.263)
  • Korean servants are very willing to learn, yet there are vexations in the way of training them that call for the exercise of much patience. At first the necessity for frequent ablutions does not appear to the natives, and constant watchfulness is necessary to have them retain the cleanliness essential in housekeeping. (p.273)


George N. Curzon, Problems of the Far East: Japan-Korea-China, Kessinger (1894)

Internet Archive
George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC, FBA (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), who was styled as Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911, and as Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, and was known commonly as Lord Curzon, was a British Conservative statesman, who served as Viceroy of India, from 1899 to 1905, during which time he created the territory of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, from 1919 to 1924.
  • Indeed, if the men of the two nations are unlike--the tall, robust, good-looking, idle Korean, and the diminutive, ugly, nimble, indomitable Japanese --still more so are the women--the hard-visaged, strong-limbed, masterful housewife of Korea, and the shuffling, knock-kneed, laughing, bewitching Japanese damsel. (p.95)
  • As individuals they possess many attractive characteristics -- the upper classes being polite, cultivated, friendly to foreigners, and priding themselves on correct deportment ; while the lower orders are good-tempered, though very excitable, cheerful, and talkative. (p.98)
  • The politician in Söul remains civil, but is wholly deaf to persuasion. The coolie works one day and dawdles away his wages upon the two next. (p.99)
  • Each street or alley, moreover, has an open gutter running upon either side, and containing all the refuse of human and animal life. Söul is consequently a noisome and malodorous place ; and exploration among its labyrinthine alleys is a disagreeable to the nostril as it is bewildering to the eye. (p.128)
  • For these drawbacks, however, Söul does its best to atone by two properties of unquestioned and more creditable individuality - viz. a singular and picturesque street-life, and Court which is alternately dignified and comic, and sometimes both at the same time. (p.130)
  • These girls, who are called ‘Ki-saing,’ correspond to the Geisha of Japan. Companies of them exist in every town of any size, combining prostitution with the pursuit of their profession. Many of them are far from bad-looking, the type of feature being much more regular, even if wanting in the feminine attractiveness of the Japanese girl. (p.133)
  • His Majesty is a man of much amiability of character ; and many instances are related of his personal charm of disposition and bearing. If he does not share the bigotry, neither does he inherit the determination of his father ; and placed as he has been difficult circumstances, for which, by training and tradition, he was equally unprepared, there are many excuses to be made alike for volatility of purpose and irresolution of action. He takes a keen zest in any new discovery or invention, but is not free from the superstitions of his race and country. (p.156)
  • The most powerful influence in the Palace, and indeed in the country, is reported to be that of the Queen, the members of whose family, known as Min, have been introduced into nearly every position of importance or emolument about the Court and in the Government, and have thereby acquired an ascendency which is the cause of great political jealousy and intrigue. (p.156)


Savage-Landor, Henry A, “Corea or Cho-sen - The Land of the Morning Calm” (1895)

Internet Archive
Arnold Henry Savage Landor (1865 – 1924) was an English painter, explorer, writer, and anthropologist. Landor wrote in an often witty style. He was born to Charles Savage Landor in Florence, Italy, where he spent his childhood. The writer Walter Savage Landor was his grandfather. He left for Paris at age fifteen to study at the Académie Julian directed by Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. He then travelled the world, including America, Japan and Korea, painting many landscapes and portraits and on his return to England was invited to Balmoral by Queen Victoria to recount his adventures and show his drawings.
  • Cho-sen, then, is now the only name by which the country is called by the natives themselves, for the name of Korai has been entirely abandoned by the modern Coreans. The meaning of the word is very poetic, viz., “The Land of the Morning Calm,” and is one well adapted to the present Coreans, since, indeed, they seem to have entirely lost the vigour and strength of their predecessors, the Koraians. (p.30)
  • The inhabitants of the land of Cho-sen, from my experience, are not much given to washing and still less to bathing. I have seen them wash their hands fairly often, and the face occasionally; only the very select people of Corea wash it daily. One would think that, with such a very scanty and irregular use of water for the purpose of cleanliness, they should look extremely dirty; but not a bit. It was always to me irritating to the last degree to see how clean those dirty people looked! (p.57)
  • There are numberless stories of a tragic character in Corean literature, of lovely maidens that have committed suicide, or have been murdered by their husbands, brothers, or fathers, only for having been seen by men, and even to the present day a husband would be considered quite justified in the eye of the law if he were to kill his wife for the great sin of having spoken to another man but himself! A widow of the upper class is not allowed to re-marry, and if she claims any pretence of having loved her late husband, she ought to try to follow him to the other world at the earliest convenience by committing the jamun, a simple performance by which the devoted wife is only expected to cut her throat or rip her body open with a sharp sword. (p.67)
  • This music is to the average European ear more than diabolical, this being to a large extent due to the differences in the tones, semi-tones, and intervals of the scale, but personally, having got accustomed to their tunes, I rather like its weirdness and originality. (p.76)
  • Whence it would appear that the people of Cho-sen carry their hospitality to an extreme degree, and in fact it is so even with foreigners, for when visiting the houses of the poorest people I have always been offered food or drink, which you are invariably asked to share with them. (p.81)
  • The attractions of Seoul, as a city, are few. Beyond the poverty of the buildings and the filth of the streets, I do not know of much else of any great interest to the casual globe-trotter, who, it must be said, very seldom thinks it advisable to venture as far as that. No, there is nothing beautiful to be seen in Seoul. If, however, you are on the look-out for quaintness and originality, no town will interest you more. (p.91)
  • He proved to me that Coreans are at bottom very good-hearted and unselfish, and always ready to help relations and neighbours, always ready to be kind even at their own discomfort. This good-nature, however, lacks in form from our point of view, though the substance is always the same, and probably more so than with us. They are a much simpler people, and hypocrisy among them has not yet reached our civilised stage. (p.96)
  • Life, according to them, would not be worth living if it were not for eating. Brought up under a regime of this kind, it is not astonishing that their capacity for food is really amazing. I have seen a Corean devour a luncheon of a size that would satisfy three average Europeans, and yet after that, when I was anxiously expecting to see him burst, fall upon a large dish of dried persimmons, the heaviest and most indigestible things in existence. (p.146)
  • Naturally a life of this sort makes the upper classes soft, and somewhat effeminate. They are much given to sensual pleasures, and many a man of Cho-sen is reduced to a perfect wreck when he ought to be in his prime. The habit of drinking more than is proper is really a national institution, and what with over feeding, drunkenness, and other vices it is not astounding that the upper ten do not show to great advantage. (p.148)
  • The streets of the town could not be more tortuous and irregular. With the exception of the main thoroughfares, most of the streets are hardly wide enough to let four people walk abreast. The drainage is carried away in uncovered channels alongside the house, in the street itself; and, the windows being directly over these drains, the good people of Cho-sen, when inside their homes, cannot breathe without inhaling the fumes exhaled from the fetid matter stagnant underneath. (p.149)
  • Everybody, I suppose, is aware of the terrible system of “squeezing”; that is to say, the extortion of money from any one who may possess it. It is really painful all over Corea to see the careworn, sad expression on everybody's face; you see the natives lying about idle and pensive, doubtful as to what their fate will be to-morrow, all anxious for a reform in the mode of government, yet all too lazy to attempt to better their position, and this has gone on for generations! (p.162)
  • One of the quaintest and nicest customs in Corea is the respect shown by the young for the old; what better, then, can the reigning people do but set the good example themselves? Every year the King and Queen entertain in the royal palace an old man and an old woman of over the age of ninety, and no matter from what class these aged specimens are drawn, they are always looked after and cared for under their own supervision and made happy in every way. (p.191)
  • The life of royalty and of the nobility is, taken all round, a very lazy one. Exercise is considered a degenerate habit, fit only for people who have to earn a living; and, as for manual labour, a Corean nobleman would much prefer suicide to anything so disgraceful. (p.197)
  • I was told that the examinations of the present day are a mere sham, and that it is not by knowledge or high achievements, in literary or other matters, that the much-coveted degree is now obtained, but by the simpler system of bribery. Men of real genius are, I was informed further, sometimes sent back in despair year after year, while pigheaded sons of nobles and wealthy people generally pass with honours, and are never or very seldom plucked. (p.209)
  • The generality of people in Corea are not religious, though in former days, especially in the Korai-an era, between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, they seem to have been ardent Buddhists. (p.216)
  • Notwithstanding the fact that it is not uncommon to hear Coreans being classified among barbarians, I must confess that, taking a liberal view of their constitution, they always struck me as being extremely intelligent and quick at acquiring knowledge. To learn a foreign language seems to them quite an easy task, and whenever they take an interest in the subject of their studies they show a great deal of perseverance and good-will. They possess a wonderfully sensible reasoning faculty, coupled with an amazing quickness of perception; a fact which one hardly expects, judging by their looks; for, at first sight, they rather impress one as being sleepy, and dull of comprehension. The Corean is also gifted with a very good memory, and with a certain amount of artistic power. (p.291)
  • Poor Corea! A sad day has come for you! You, who were so attractive, because so quaint and so retiring, will nevermore see that calm which has ever been the yearning of your patriot sons! Many evils are now before you, but, of all the great calamities that might befall you, I can conceive of none greater than an attempt to convert you into a civilised nation! (p.300)


Jiji shimpō, “You should watch the fact” (1897)

Jiji shimpō, an editorial article
Jiji shimpō is a Japanese daily newspaper that ever existed. It was founded on March 1 in 1882 by Yukichi Fukuzawa.
Yukichi Fukuzawa expected the true independence of Korea that was under pressure of the Qing Dynasty to the last. The original purpose of Yukichi was the stop of the advance to East Asia and its occupation by the great powers of Europe and the United States, and he thought the Japanese armaments had to protect not only one country, Japan, but also the Oriental countries from the Western countries. Therefore he supported the Asian “reformists” such as Kim Ok-gyun of Joseon dynasty eagerly. He allowed Koreans to enter his school, Keio Gijuku, and he came in contact with them while feeling close to them. (wikipedia)
The claim of this editorial is different from that of Yukichi. Therefore, it is not thought Yukichi wrote this article. It is thought that Kammei Ishikawa, a main author of “Jiji shimpō ” wrote this.
Koreans are originally the people who have been falling into a Confucian toxicosis for several hundred years and can hardly describe their corruption dirtiness of the bottom of heart while always saying the morality humanity and justice. It is the den of the fake wise men together at the top and the bottom, and it is clear that there are no Korean who is reliable even if I compare it with my experience for many years. Therefore, even if you conclude any promise with such a nation, the betrayal breach of promise is their true nature and they do not mind it at all. You have to prepare your mind that the promise with the Korean is invalidity from a beginning, because I often really experienced it from my association with Korea until now. And you only have no choice but to obtain a fruit by yourself.


Isabella Lucy Bird, “Korea and Her Neighbors” (1898)

Internet Archive
Isabella Lucy Bird was an English female explorer. When she was 62 years old in 1894, she visited Korea. For about 3 years since then, Bird had traveled all part of Korea over 4 times. Then exactly the historical events such as Sino-Japanese war, Donghak Rebellion and Min-pi assassinations, etc. occured successively in Korea inside and outside of the country. This is the outstanding travelogue, that faithfully tells the disquieting political situation of the Rhee Dynasty’s last years tossed about by the international situation and the Korean natural face Bird saw such as the traditional climate, the folk customs and the cultural etc. that are left deeply in the Korea in the time right after Korea opened the country.
The state of the Rhee Dynasty’s last years (about 100 years before) written on “Korea and Her Neighbours” is dreadful.
  • The physique is good. The average height of the men is five feet four and a half inches, that of the women cannot be ascertained, and is proportionately less, while their figure less figures, the faults of which are exaggerated by the ugliest dress on earth, are squat and broad. (p.13)
  • They have the Oriental vices of suspicion, cunning, and untruthfulness, and trust between man and man is unknown. Women are secluded, and occupy a very inferior position. (p.13)
  • The arts are nil. (p.18)
  • The roads are infamous, and even the main roads are rarely more than rough bridle tracks. (p.20)
  • The Island of Tsushima, where the Higo Maru calls, was, however, my last glimpse of Japan ; and its reddening maples and blossoming plums, its temple-crowned heights, its stately flights of stone stairs leading to Shinto shrines in the woods, the blue-green masses of its pines, and the golden plumage of its bamboos, emphasized the effect produced by the brown, bare hills of Fusan, pleasant enough in summer, but grim and forbidding on a sunless February day.
    The foreign settlement of Fusan is dominated by a steep bluff with a Buddhist temple on the top, concealed by a number of fine cryptomeria, planted during the Japanese occupation in 1592. (p.23)
  • I shrink from describing intra-mural Seoul. I thought it the foulest city on earth till I saw Peking, and its smells the most odious, till I encountered those of Shao-shing ! For a great city and a capital its meanness is indescribable. (p.40)
  • The houses abutting on these ditches are generally hovels with deep eaves and thatched roofs, presenting nothing to the street but a mud wall. (p.40)
  • On the slope of Nam San the white wooden buildings, simple and unpretentious, of the Japanese Legation are situated, and below them a Japanese colony of nearly 5,000 persons, equipped with tea-houses, a theatre, and the various arrangements essential to Japanese well-being. There, in acute contrast to everything Korean, are to be seen streets of shops and houses where cleanliness, daintiness, and thrift reign supreme. (p.43)
  • The villages from about 50 li up the Han from Seoul may all be described as “farming villages.”
    Such iron utensils as are used are imported from Seoul along with salt, and foreign piece goods for dress clothes, and are paid for with rice, grain, and tobacco.
    Money is scarcely current, business transactions are by barter, or the peasant pays with his labor. His chief outlay is on foreign piece cottons for his best clothes. (p.78)
Although Seoul that she saw is a city and is a capital, it is really hard to describe its shabbiness.
  • Etiquette forbids the erection of two-storied houses, consequently an estimated quarter of a million people are living on “the ground”. (p.40)
  • Chiefly in labyrinthine alleys, many of them are not wide enough for two loaded bulls to pass, indeed barely wide enough for one man to pass a loaded bull, and further narrowed by a series of vile holes or green, slimy ditches. (p.40)
  • They receive the solid and liquid refuse of the houses, their foul and fetid margins being the favorite resort of half-naked children, begrimed with dirt, and of big, mangy, blear-eyed dogs, which wallow in the slime or blink in the sun. (p.40)
  • One of the “sights” of Seoul is the stream or drain or watercourse, a wide, walled, open conduit. (p.45)
  • Along the conduit a dark-colored festering stream slowly drags its malodorous length, among manure and refuse heaps which cover up most of what was once its shingly bed. There, tired of crowds masculine solely, one may be refreshed by the sight of women of the poorest class, some ladling into pails the compound which passes for water, and others washing clothes in the fetid pools which pass for a stream. (p.45)
  • Seoul is best seen, with its mountainous surroundings, here and there dark with pines, but mostly naked, falling down upon the city in black arid corrugations. (p.45)
  • Seoul has no objects of art, very few antiquities, no public gardens, no displays except the rare one of the Kur-dong, and no theatres. (p.60)
  • It lacks every charm possessed by other cities. Antique, it has no ruins, no libraries, no literature, and lastly an indifference to religion without a parallel has left it without temples, while certain superstitions which still retain their hold have left it without a tomb ! (p.60)
  • Consequently the emphasis which noble religious buildings give even to the meanest city in China or Japan is lacking. (p.60)
Clothes of the lady who exposes a chest are a prototype of the Chima-Chogori which is the present Korean traditional costume. Exposure of a chest was permitted to only the lady who gave birth to eldest son who was an heir in a house, and it was female pride in those days.

Lillias H. Underwood, “Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots or Life in Korea” (1904)

Internet Archive
Lillias Horton Underwood was born on June 21, 1851 in Albany New York. She went to Chicago to the Women’s Medical College (now a part of Northwestern University) to obtain a medical degree. She went to Korea as a medical missionary in 1888. Not long after her arrival in Chemulpo Korea, Lillias visited the queen who desired to secure the services of Lillias as her personal physician. In 1889 Lillias married Reverend Horace G. Underwood. Horace had already been in Korea for four years and knew how to arrange the trips through dangerous territory. They stayed in Japan from November of that year to May of the next year. Though most foreigners were distrusted in Korea, the Underwoods impressed the Korean officials and were allowed to take a journey to the far north. They traveled as missionaries without disguise.
  • The common people are very poor and their homes seem to an American wretchedly poor and comfortless, and yet, compared with the most destitute of London or New York, there are few who go cold or hungry in Seoul. (p.4)
  • She possessed mental qualities of a high order, as I soon learned, and although, like all Asiatics, her learning consisted chiefly in the Chinese classics, she possessed a very intelligent idea of the great nations of the world and their governments, for she asked many questions, and remembered what she heard. She was a subtle and able diplomatist and usually outwitted her keenest opponents; she was, moreover, a sovereign of broad and progressive policy, patriotic, and devoted to the best interests of her country and sought the good of the people to much larger extent than would be expected of an Oriental queen. In addition, she possessed a warm heart, a tender love for little children, a delicacy and consideration in her relations, at least with us missionaries, which would have done honor to any European lady of high rank. The queen, though a Korean who had never seen the society of a foreign court, was a perfect lady. (p.24)
  • The Korean inn is second only in filth, closeness, bad odors and discomfort to those in the interior of China. There is usually only one room for women, which has from one to four or five paper-covered doors or windows - they are nearly always the same size and bear the same name - opening in the kitchen, the court and the sarang. This room is often not more than eight by ten or twelve feet large, and very low. The paper which covers the door is commonly blackened with dirt, so that few indeed are the rays of light which manage to struggle in a disheartened way into these gloomy little apartments. (p.39)
  • The Koreans do not bear malice, nor are they very revengeful or cruel without great provocation. (p.49)
  • As we drifted down the Amno those lovely spring days, with China lying on one side of us and Korea on the other, the contrast was wonderfully marked, almost as much, indeed, as if the two nations had been separated by oceans rather than a river. This difference too was almost as marked in the physical features of the country as in national customs. On the Korean shore the trees were mostly of pine; on the China side, of oaks and other deciduous varieties. The Korean peasants’ huts were of mud, straw thatched; the Chinese houses of brick or stone, roofed with tile. Koreans dressed in white were plowing with oxen; Chinese farmers in blue were plowing with horses. Rhododendrons gave a lovely roseate tinge to the rocks and hills on either side. It was easy for the passing traveler to see which country bore the greater appearance of prosperity and thrift. (p.81)
  • Like those of their class in all countries, they are the most pitiable and hopeless of women, but unlike those who have thrown themselves away, they deserve small blame mixed with the compassion one feels for them, for these poor girls have been sold by their parents into their awful lives, and were given no choice of their destiny. Many a poor little Korean child is sold into slavery for a few bags of rice, to be trained as a dancing girl, used as a common drudge, or married to a man she has never seen, while she is hardly larger than our little ones playing with their dolls in the nursery. (p.93)
  • Now, when Koreans attend a feast, they expect to finish an incredible amount of food on the spot (nor is it altogether unusual, in addition, to carry away as much in their sleeves and hands as strength will permit). Sometimes they fast for several days previous in order to do full justice to the entertainment, and generally, I believe, quantity is considered of far more import than quality. (p.96)
  • Next day, a wiser and a thinner man, he sadly told Mr. Underwood that he now understood why Japanese prospered, while Koreans grew poor. "Koreans," said he, "earn a hundred cash a day and eat a thousand cash worth, while Japanese, on the contrary, earn a thousand cash a day and eat a hundred cash worth." Never were truer words spoken, with regard to the Japanese at least. If these people have a virtue, which their worst enemies cannot gainsay, it is their industry and thrift. (p.96)
  • Another similar instance was that of one of the Koreans who went with us to Chemulpo and Fusan, who saw the two-story houses, the ships in the harbor and various wonders of civilization, and exclaimed, “Poor Korea, poor Korea;” but when he heard a foreign band play at the Japanese consulate, remarked with delight, "At least there is one thing in which Japan cannot rival or compare with us, our music!" (p.118)
  • Just when everything seemed hopelessly blocked, the epidemic of Asiatic cholera broke out. Why Koreans do not have this every summer raging through the whole country is one of the unsolved problems. All sewage runs into filthy, narrow ditches, which are frequently stopped up with refuse, so as to overflow into the streets, green slimy pools of water lie undisturbed in courtyards and along the side of the road, wells are polluted with drainage from soiled apparel washed close by, quantities of decaying vegetable matter are thrown out and left to rot on the thoroughfares and under the windows of the houses. (p.133)
  • There were only a few beginnings of work in Hai Ju at that time. It is the capital of the province and rather a demoralized town, even in a heathen country, full of hangers-on of government officials, people accustomed to getting a living out of the people through fraud, bribery, oppression, "squeezing," and all sorts of political dirty work and corruption; evil men and still more evil women spreading the cancerous disease through the little town, until every one appears to be steeped in “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and worshipers of the god of this world. (p.188)
  • The people at Sorai are extremely generous and were constantly bringing us presents of chickens, eggs, persimmons, etc. We were much embarrassed by all this bounty, for we knew the people were poor and that such gifts cost a large sacrifice on their part. (p.191)


Angus Hamilton “Korea” (1904)

Internet Archive

Angus Hamilton (1874-1913) was a U. K.-born journalist and visited Korea in 1904 during Russo-Japanese War and went a little way further to in Mount Kumgang, Wonsan and the Ganghwa Island from Seoul. This book is quoted well to show development of Seoul before the merger of Korea and Japan. Bruce Cumings pointed out that such a development was dripped mainly by the American capital, and made a cynical remark on Korean double standard, “If it is by Japanese capital, that is colonization and if the capital except Japan, it is the modernization.”

  • Old Seoul, with its festering alleys, its winter accumulations of every species of filth, its plastering mud and penetrating foulness, has almost totally vanished from within the walls of the capital. The streets are magnificent, spacious, clean, admirably made and well drained. The narrow, dirty lanes have been widened; gutters have been covered, and roadways broadened; until, with its trains, its cars, and its lights, its miles of telegraph lines, its Railway Station Hotel, brick houses and glass windows, Seoul is within measurable distance of becoming the highest, most interesting, and cleanest city in the East. (p. 34)
  • The inhabitants of the Hermit Kingdom are peculiarly proficient in the art of doing nothing gracefully. There is , therefore, infinite charm and variety in the daily life of Korea. The natives take their pleasures passively, and their constitutional incapacity makes it appear as if there were little to do but to indulge in a gentle stroll in the brilliant sunshine, or to sit cross-legged within the shade of their houses. Inaction becomes them; nothing could be more unsuited to the character of their peculiar costume than vigorous movement. (p. 43)
  • Until the introduction of foreign methods of education, and the establishment of schools upon modern lines, no very promising manifestation of intellect distinguished the Koreans. Even now, a vague knowledge of the Chinese classics, which, in rare instance only can be considered a familiar acquaintanceship, sums up the acquirements of the cultured classes. The upper classes of both sexes make some pretence of understanding the literature and language of China; but it is very seldom that the middle classes are able to read more than the mixed Chinese-Korean script of the native Press - in which the grammatical construction is purely Korean. (p. 108)
  • In the comparative nakedness of the women, in the noise and violence of the shopkeepers, in the litter of the streets, there is nothing to suggest the delicate culture of Japan. The modesty, cleanliness, and politeness, so characteristic of the Japanese, and conspicuously absent in their settlements in this county. (p. 136)
  • The poverty and squalor of these hamlets was astonishing. The people seemed without spirit, content to live an idle, slatternly existence in sleeping, yawning, and eating by turns. Despite offers of payment, it was impossible to secure their services in a day’s fishing, although they generally admitted that the boats, nets, and lines were not otherwise engaged. As the outcome of this spirit of indifference among the natives, Japanese fishermen are rapidly securing for themselves the fishing-grounds off the coast. Unless these dreary, meditative, and dirty people arouse themselves soon, the business of fishing in their own waters will have passed altogether from their hands. (p. 249)


William Elliot Griffis, Corea the Hermit Nation (1905)

Internet Archive

William Elliot Griffis (1843 – 1928) was an American orientalist, Congregational minister, lecturer, and prolific author. In September 1870 Griffis was invited to Japan by Matsudaira Shungaku, for the purpose of organizing schools along modern lines. In 1871, he was Superintendent of Education in the province of Echizen. Returning to the United States, in 1876 he publishes “The Mikado's Empire” that became the bestseller and he established the fame as the Orientalist. The first edition of “Corea: the Hermit Nation” was published in 1882 and was sold well and went through nine editions by 1911. Griffis had not visited Korea, and this book depends on existing documents written in English, French, German, Dutch, etc. and historical materials of Japan and China. However, in the United States, it had the great influence as the first large Korea-related book, and the phrase “the Hermit Nation” became famous as a Korean pronoun.
He pictured Korea as the country that should become a prey of any one of the three major countries such as Japan, China and Russia, especially as the backward and weak country. He does not find the voluntary independent possibility of Korea at all.

  • It is as nearly impossible to write the history of Corea and exclude Japan, as to tell the story of mediaeval England and leave out France. Not alone does the finger of sober history point directly westward as the immediate source of much of what has been hitherto deemed of pure Japanese origin, but the fountain-head of Japanese mythology is found in the Sungari valley, or under the shadows of the Ever-White Mountains. (p.51)
  • All being ready, the doughty queen regent set sail from the coast of Hizen, in Japan, in the tenth month A.D. 202, and beached the fleet safely on the coast of Shinra. The King of Shinra, accustomed to meet only with men from the rude tribes of Kiushiu, was surprised to see so well-appointed an army and so large a fleet from a land to the eastward. Struck with terror he resolved at once to submit. Tying his hands in token of submission and in presence of the queen Jingu, he declared himself the slave of Japan. Jingu caused her bow to the suspended over the gate of the palace of this king in sign of his submission. It is even said that she wrote on the gate “The King of Shinra is the dog of Japan.” (p.54)
  • In the nineteenth century the awakened Sunrise Kingdom has seen her former self in the hermit nation, and has stretched forth willing hands to do for her neighbor now, what Corea did for Japan in centuries long one by. (p.61)
  • This is a good specimen of Corean varnish-work carried into history. The rough facts are smoothed over by that well-applied native lacquer, which is said to resemble gold to the eyes. The official gloss has been smeared over more modern events with equal success, and even defeat is turned into golden victory. (p.150)
  • In the capital, as they had been along the road, the Dutchmen were like wild beasts on show. Crowds flocked to see the white-faced and red-bearded foreigners. They must have appeared to the natives as Punch looks to English children. The women were even more anxious than men to get a good look. Every one was especially curious to see the Dutchmen drink, for it was generally believed that they tucked their noses up over their ears when they drank. (p.171)
  • Chō-sen is represented as a human being, of whom the king is the head, the nobles the body, and the people the legs and feet. The breast and belly are full, while both head and lower limbs are gaunt and shrunken. The nobles not only drain the life-blood of the people by their rapacity, but they curtail the royal prerogative. The nation is suffering from a congestion, verging upon a dropsical condition of over-officialism. (p.229)
  • The vocabulary of torture is sufficiently copious to stamp Chō-sen as still a semi-civilized nation. The inventory of the court and prison comprises iron chains, bamboos for beating the back, a paddle-shaped implement for inflicting blows upon the buttocks, switches for whipping the calves till the flesh is ravelled, ropes for sawing the flesh and bodily organs, manacles, stocks, and boards to strike against the knees and skin-bones. (p.234)
  • After their marriage, the women are inaccessible. They are nearly always confined to their apartments, nor can they even look out in the streets without permission of their lords. So strict is this rule that fathers have on occasions killed their daughters, husbands their wives, and wives have committed suicide when strangers have touched them even with their fingers. (p.245)
  • Corean architecture is in a very primitive condition. The castles, fortifications, temples, monasteries and public buildings cannot approach in magnificence those of Japan or China. The country, though boasting hoary antiquity, has few ruins in stone. The dwellings are tiled or thatched houses, almost invariably one story high. In the smaller towns there are not arranged in regular streets, but scattered here hand there. Even in the cities and capital the streets are narrow and tortuous. (p.262)
  • The Corean rustic is, as a rule, illiterate. Probably only about four out of ten males of the farming class can read either Chinese or Corean, but counting in the women it is estimated that about eighty-five per cent of the people can neither read nor write, though the percentage varies greatly with the locality. (p.444)
  • Corea has no samurai. She lacks what Japan has always had - a cultured body of men, superbly trained in both mind and body, the soldier and scholar in one, who held to a high ideal of loyalty, patriotism, and sacrifice for country. (p.450)


Goro Arakawa, “Recent Korean affairs - Korean people” (1906)

Digital collection of the National Diet Library, Japan (p.86-91)

Goro Arakawa (1865 - 1944) is a Japanese politician, a journalist, a educationist, born in Hiroshima.
When he was a member of the House of Representatives and he inspected the Korean Peninsula in 1906, he wrote down “Recent Korean affairs”. That has become the precious document that teaches Korean Peninsula’s culture in the early 20th century.

Korean people
  • They do not have the hygiene idea at all, and they are just like beasts.
  • They don’t have the idea of diligence or duty. And if it rains, they are stunned without working because it becomes full of water in that place. Because they do not work when it rains, they have no rain outfits. When they get a Japanese umbrella, they joyfully boast to the neighborhood. In short they don’t have the concept of the river management.
  • Even if it rains and water becomes impure, they don’t filter water and they use the murky water. They have no sanitary concepts anyway and the infectious diseases are rampant.
  • They drink the water, even if it is impure or it includes urine and feces. Anyway they’re unclean and the Miso paste and the feces are same for a Korean.
  • A wall includes horse dung. People say that it makes the wall solid.
  • To my surprise, they wash their faces with urine. People say that skin becomes smooth
  • Urine is accepted as medicine for pulmonary tuberculosis and alleviation of fever. If a disease finally becomes severe, they eat the feces.
  • Because they live in the holes, it is hot in summer and they sleep outside their houses. The feces and urine drift to the neighborhood of their faces, but they sleep calmly. Korean does not seem to smell stink.
  • They have urine pots in their houses and they urinate unconcernedly even if they have a visitor. In addition, they move the pots to their mouths when they vomit a sputum.
  • When it rains, rainwater joins these filth and soaks to the top of the shin, and the things in the house soak into water, but they just use them without washing.
  • When I looked at a woman washing her laundry, she kneaded and hit it in the black water that you could not distinguish from the urine.


Horace Newton Allen, “Things Korean: A Collection of Sketches and Anecdotes Missionary and Diplomatic” (1908)

Internet Archive

Horace Newton Allen 1858 – 1932) was a medical doctor and the first American Protestant missionary in Korea, arriving there in late 1884. He served in Korea at the end of the Joseon Dynasty, becoming close to the emperor. At his suggestion, in 1885 the emperor founded the institution that became known as Severance Hospital in Seoul (now in South Korea). It is now part of the Yonsei University Health System. Due to Allen’s relationship with the emperor and other officials, Allen became part of the United States Legation to Korea: he was appointed as secretary in 1890 and as US minister and consul general in 1897.
Due to disagreements with the US government over its lack of intervention in the Russo-Japanese War, Allen was recalled in 1905. Five years later Japan annexed Korea, setting up a ruling government that lasted until the end of World War II and Japan’s defeat by the Allies.

  • As seen from the deck of a ship the Korean coast looks bleak, barren, and generally uninviting. This is just as the natives desired it should look, ... (p.50)
  • Korea is a small and insignificant land but she represents an ancient civilization which made her the schoolmaster of Japan. It is not surprising that pride of birth and descent should have become one of the marked traits of these simple-minded people, shut up in their hermit land for so many centuries, quite content with what could be produced within their own borders and only asking to be left alone in their seclusion. (p.52)
  • Poor Koreans, you have waited too long. Perhaps had your land been tossed and riven by earthquakes and volcanoes you might have been shaken out of your contented sleep, But while you slept and dreamed and cared for naught but to be let alone, your ancient enemy has been busy learning the arts of those strange folk you see even now, wending their way up your ancient path to yon fortress of your ancestral kings. Having learned these arts she has even vanquished one of her teachers, and you, once a teacher but now a decrepit old ex-officio, what can you hope for when your land is wanted by your energetic erstwhile pupil. (p.59)
  • However humble the hut of the peasant or coolie it always has its tight little sleeping room, the stone and cement floor of which with its rich brown oil paper covering, is kept nicely warmed by the little fire necessary for cooking the rice twice daily. In this respect these people fare better than do their neighbours, for the Japanese houses are notoriously cold, and a fire pot for warming the fingers is the only native system of heating, while the Chinese never are warm in the raw cold of winter. They have no means of heating their houses other than by a warmed stone bed which is used in the north, but in the raw cold of the central portion the houses are absolutely unheated and the people simply add more clothing in order to warm up. The English traveller, Henry Norman, was strong in his praise of the beautiful country he passed through in making a journey across Korea, while as to the capital, Seoul, after he had visited Peking he wrote that, compared with Peking, Seoul is a paradise. (p.67)
  • The natives are well built and strong. Some coolies engaged in carrying goods from the jetty at Chemulpo to the warehouse of an American - a distance of about one mile - bantered one of their number to carry a bale of sheeting of five hundred pounds weight that distance. The others placed the bale on his frame and he actually carried that weight a mile without further assistance. Thereupon the guild of pack coolies set upon him and gave him a severe beating because they claimed he had spoiled the market for their labour, since thereafter every man would be expected to do the same. (p.96)
  • The secluded women of China and Korea are certainly long-suffering, but when pressed too far they will turn and the fury into which they then work themselves is something awful to contemplate. The ironing-stick then becomes a reliance not to be despised and one of which the stronger sex may well stand in awe. (p.98)
  • Excellent work is done in brass by these people, the pieces being turned on little lathes in the houses, after having been first cast in as near the desired shape as possible. The dinner service of all who can afford it is made of these fine heavy brass articles. Numbers of sets of bowls have been taken from the country for use among foreigners as finger-bowls, for which use they are admirably adapted, being unbreakable and taking on such a lustre as to resemble gold. (p.101)
  • Besides inlaying on wood with mother-of-pearl in a neat and most attractive pattern, they do some very nice inlaying of silver on iron, the pattern being first cut out in the iron, after which silver is beaten in, making a very attractive work. They are good carpenters, cabinet-makers and joiners, though not nearly so deft as are the Japanese. Some of their old chests are works of art and are very highly prized by foreigners. Bamboo and woven work, such as transparent window shades, are common, and some very fine matting is produced in lengths suitable for a bed. (p.102)
  • An official friend of mine, himself a very successful hand at "squeeze," was in turn haled before the supreme court and squeezed by a higher power. In commenting on this he said to me that it seemed as though the possession of property by a Korean was regarded as a crime. (p.103)
  • The natives have become inured to these odours from long experience, but it is really astonishing how they can thrive and still breathe the poisonous air of their little eight feet square sleeping rooms, into which six or eight persons may crowd and sleep on the heated floor. The odour encountered on opening the door to enter one of these rooms is beyond description and would drive a white man out into the worst of weather choking for breath. (p.109)
  • The Koreans are a very hospitable people. Formerly there were practically no beggars in the land, ... (p.115)
  • This is one of the burdens of the well-to-do in Korea. When prosperity comes to a man, relatives whom he may have never seen, come to live on him and bring their friends. This has its compensations, however, for when a man’s house is so sought by numbers it is an indication that he is prosperous or has influence at court. (p.119)
  • From the perfumed breaths of the coolies, thereafter, it was evident they appreciated it even if I could not. Later I was induced to taste some of this compound made without garlic and it won me at once, leaving a memory that haunts me pleasantly still. (p.121)
  • The environs of Seoul are made surpassingly beautiful, once you leave the dirty roads, by a circle of these quiet secluded burial parks, each with its artistic temple-like building for sacrificial purposes, standing just below the hill on which rests the tomb proper. (p.153)
  • I announced one morning that my patient had a unique manner of getting even with his enemies, since he ate them. Being asked for an explanation I said that I had seen the dogs devouring the dead Japanese lying in the streets and as he ate the dogs, he thus fed on his enemies. (p.198)
  • for the Koreans are past-masters at intrigue and seem to imbibe it with their mother’s milk. As the result of some such intrigue some liberal official would present himself from time to time at the American Legation for refuge. (p.225)


Frederick A. McKenzie, The Tragedy of Korea (1908)

Internet Archive

Frederick Arther McKenzie (1869~1931) was a Canadian born journalist who sympathized with Korean guerilla fought against Japan’s rule. McKenzie went to Korea to report Russo-Japanese war in 1904 for London Daily Mail. He visited Korea again in 1906 to contact Korean guerilla. After returning to London, he published The Unveiled East in 1907 and The Tragedy of Korea in 1908 for anti-Japan campaign.

  • When I first entered Korea,” said one of the earliest foreign residents to me, “ it seemed as though I were stepping out of real life into the veritable wonderland of Alice. Everything was so fantastic, so very different from any other part of the world, so absurd, so repulsive, or so bizarre, that I had to ask myself, time after time, whether I was awake or dreaming.” (p.25)
  • Any man who was sufficiently prosperous became at once the victim of magisterial zeal. The magistrate would come to the farmer who had been cursed with a specially good crop and beg a loan. If the man refused, he would promptly be imprisoned, half starved, and beaten once or twice a day until he consented. (p.26)
  • The granting of concessions to nobles was another burden on the people. A noble, a yangban, considered that he had a right to live off the working classes. (p.26)
  • The women of the better class lived absolutely secluded lives, and regarded the strictness of their seclusion as proof of the esteem of their husbands. The women of the lower classes worked hard, in many cases supporting their families. They wore an extraordinary dress, by which the breasts are freely exposed, and the chest above the breast carefully covered. Although the women were kept in subservience, the morality of the country was, on the whole, good, and would certainly bear very favourable comparison with that of Japan. (p.29)
  • There were few or no beggars in the land. There was no need of an elaborate poor-law system. The countryman owned and worked his land, and was able, save at a time of special distress, to store up sufficient in the autumn to keep him and his for the coming twelve months. (p.30)
  • The first few weeks that any foreigner spent in Korea were full of repulsion and horror. But as he came to know the people better he learnt more and more to appreciate their kindheartedness, their lack of guile, their genuine simplicity, their willingness to learn, and their many lovable and likeable qualities. (p.31)
  • Under the old methods, Korean money was among the worst in the world. The famous gibe of a British Consul in an official report, that the Korean coins might be divided into good, good counterfeits, bad counterfeits, and counterfeits so bad that they can only be passed off in the dark, was by no means an effort of imagination. (p.111)
  • I had heard much of the province of Chung-Chong-Do as the Italy of Korea, but its beauty and prosperity required seeing to be believed. It afforded an amazing contrast to the dirt and apathy of Seoul. Here every one worked. (p.182)


Homer B. Hulbert, “The Passing of Korea” (1909)

Internet Archive

Homer B. Hulbert (1863~1949) was an American theologian and journalist who helped Korean resistance against Japan. Hulbert first visited Korea in 1886 to teach at Yukweon Kongweon in Seoul. He once returned to the U.S. but visited again in 1893 to be an editor of Korea Review. In 1905, Hulbert tried to disturb the Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty. In 1907, he tried to help Korean confidential emissaries participating in the Second Hague Conference. Because of this conspiracy, he could not reenter Korea during the Japanese regime.

  • The position of woman has experienced no change at all commensurate with Japan's material transformation. Religion in the broadest sense is less in evidence than before the change, for, although the intellectual stimulus of the West has freed the upper classes from the inanities of the Buddhistic cult, comparatively few of them have consented to accept the substitute. Christianity has made smaller advances in Japan than in Korea herself, and everything goes to prove that Japan, instead of digging until she struck the spring of Western culture, merely built a cistern in which she stored up some of its more obvious and tangible results. (p.6)
  • An important tree, found mostly in the southern provinces, is the paper-mulberry, broussonetai papyrifcra, the inner bark of which is used exclusively in making the tough paper used by Koreans in almost every branch of life. It is celebrated beyond the borders of the peninsula, and for centuries formed an important item in the annual tribute to China and in the official exchange of goods with Japan. (p.14)
  • The temperament of the Korean lies midway between the two, even as his country lies between Japan and China. This combination of qualities makes the Korean rationally idealistic. (p.31)
  • From that time to this she has been the slave of Chinese thought. She lost all spontaneity and originality. To imitate became her highest ambition, and she lost sight of all beyond this contracted horizon. Intrinsically and potentially the Korean is a man of high intellectual possibilities, but he is, superficially, what he is by virtue of his training and education. Take him out of this environment, and give him a chance to develop independently and naturally, and you would have as good a brain as the Far East has to offer. (p.33)
  • I say that they reluctantly snub him, for the Korean is mortally afraid of being called stingy. You may call him a liar or a libertine, and he will laugh it off; but call him mean, and you flick him on the raw. Hospitality toward relatives is specially obligatory, and the abuse of it forms one of the most distressing things about Korea. (p.38)
  • Another marked characteristic of the Korean is his pride. There are no people who will make more desperate attempts to keep up appearances. (p.38)
  • In the matter of truthfulness the Korean measures well up to the best standards of the Orient, which at best are none too high. (p.40)
  • As for morality in its narrower sense, the Koreans allow themselves great latitude. There is no word for home in their language, and much of the meaning which that word connotes is lost to them. (p.41)
  • When genuinely angry, the Korean may be said to be insane. He is entirely careless of life, and resembles nothing so much as a fanged beast. A fine froth gathers about his mouth and adds much to the illusion. It is my impression that there is comparatively little quarrelling unless more or less wine has been consumed. In his cups he is more Gaelic than Gallic. Unfortunately this ecstasy of anger does not fall upon the male sex alone, and when it takes possession of a Korean woman she becomes the impersonation of all the Furies rolled into one. She will stand and scream so loud that the sound finally refuses to come from her throat, and she simply retches. Every time I see a woman indulging in this nerve-racking process I marvel that she escapes a stroke of apoplexy. It seems that the Korean, from his very infancy, makes no attempt to control his temper. The children take the habit from their elders, and if things do not go as they wish they fly into a terrible passion, which either gains its end or gradually wears itself out. (p.43)
  • There are traits of mind and heart in the Korean which the Far East can ill afford to spare; and if Japan should allow the nation to be overrun by, and crushed beneath, the wheels of a selfish policy, she would be guilty of an international mistake of the first magnitude. (p.44)
  • No matter how long one lives in this country, he will never get to understand how a people can possibly drop to such a low estate as to be willing to live without the remotest hope of receiving even-handed justice. Not a week passes but you come in personal contact with cases of injustice and brutality that would mean a riot in any civilised country. You marvel how the people endure it. (p.58)
  • The caste feeling was too strong, and the alphabet was relegated to women, as being beneath the dignity of a gentleman. A terrible wrong was done to the people by this act, and the generous motive of the King was frustrated. About the same time the King ordered the casting of metal printing-types. These were the first movable metal printing-types ever made, and anticipated their manufacture in Europe by fifty years. A few samples of the ancient types still survive. (p.92)
  • but it was yet to be shown that she had the peculiar kind of ability which could construct an independent power out of such material as she found in Korea. It was at this point that her weakness was revealed. The methods she adopted showed that she had not rightly gauged the situation, and showed her lack of adaptability to the new and strange conditions with which she was called upon to grapple. The brutal murder of the Queen, and the consequent alienation of Korean good-will, the oppressive measures which led the King to throw himself into the hands of Russia, all these things demonstrated the lack of that constructive ability which was necessary to the successful solution of the knotty problem. (p.127)
  • Had the Russians driven out the Japanese, the Koreans would have hated them as heartily. Whichever horn of the dilemma Korea became impaled upon, she was sure to think the other would have been less sharp. Few Koreans looked at the matter from any large standpoint or tried to get from the situation anything but personal advantage. (p.206)
  • The Japanese look upon the Koreans as lawful game, and the latter, having no proper tribunals where they can obtain redress, do not dare to retaliate. (p.214)


Governor-General of Korea, “The American tourist party’s view of Korean” －“Thoughts and character of the Korean” (1924)

Digital collection of the National Diet Library, Japan (p.10-11)
　The American Clarks company sponsorship tourist party came to Keijō by arrival at Keijō Station down train at 8:00 a.m. on March 24, 1924. It consisted of 40 American farmers including J. B. Baum. They directly went to the Korea hotel and they visited Changdeokgung, Gyeongbokgung and the other famous places with the guidance of three Korean interpreters attached to the hotel on the same day. Next day 25th, they left there by down train 8:25 a.m. at Keijō Station toward Beijing. Three Americans including J. B. Baum expressed the following impression.
　“It was concerned that Korea is always confused and there may be some danger for our trip under certain circumstances, but it was uneventfulness unexpectedly. That proves that the rule by Japan is all right. Thus, I see the greater strides of Korean culture than that of U. S. territory Philippines. The state that Korea is gradually Japanized should be called the success of the Japanese colonial policy. In my country I heard that the Korean mountains had no trees and plants, but I know that considerable trees grow thick in the fields and mountains now, when I see the situation along the railroad by this sightseeing. It must be also a gift of the Japan-Korea merger.
　In addition, when I am in Korea, I feel strange that the Korean is a race of the idleness. Some live like an animal on the street and some wander around the city in vain. There are many who play without doing anything. This naturally brings the ruin of a country.” (March, 1924)


Governor-General of Korea, “Data №25 for investigation, Folk belief, The 1st - Korean fierce gods” (1929)

Digital collection of the National Diet Library, Japan (p.441-463)
The Korean eating and drinking method (superstition medical care)
  • Against typhoid fever, you powder the dried feces of the dog and dissolve it in water and take it by mouth. In addition, if you put human feces in the small cloth bag, boil and drink it, you recover completely.
  • You dissolve the feces of the pig in water and drink. You put a chicken egg in an urinal and boil and drink it.
  • In addition, you mix a leek with human feces and boil and eat it. You boil the feces of the horse and eat it. You wrap the feces of the white dog in paper and char and eat it.
  • You fry the white insect that occurred in the decayed straw and eat it. You drink human feces or the menstruation water of the women.
  • Against the gonorrhea, you mix sulfur with virginal urine and expose this to sunlight after a single night and dry and eat it after a meal. In addition, if you eat the feces of the pig, an immediate effect appears.
  • Against syphilis you boil an animal penis, especially a human penis and drink it. Against gonorrhea you drink your urine or mercury.
  • Against venereal diseases you eat human brain. You eat the maggots that breed in the dead body. Against asthma you drink urine.
  • Against fever you boil the virginal first menstruation and the feces of the pig and put them into hot water. And if you give it to a patient without telling it to the patient, it is cured.
  • Against indigestion you digest it immediately if you eat the feces of the pig.
  • Against globefish poisoning, typhoid fever and bruise, you dissolve the feces of the white dog and human feces in water and drink it.
  • Against a chest pain you boil the urine of the white horse and drink it. Or you eat human feces.


William Franklin Sands, “Undiplomatic Memories: The Far East 1896-1904” (1930)

Internet Archive

William Franklin Sands (July 29, 1874 – June 17, 1946) was a United States diplomat most known for his service in Korea on the eve of Japan's colonization of that country.
  • The local explanation of the deforestation is typical of Korean ways: the coasts were made as uninviting as possible to discourage strangers, and in the interior whole forests were burned off centuries ago, and the hills kept bare until the top soil had washed down, in order to discourage tigers. (p.31)
  • Women in Korea, however, were strictly guarded so strictly that it was considered safer to hide and shield an intruder than to denounce him. The better class went veiled when outside of their own inner quarters of the house. They were a power in the house, nevertheless. (p.36)
  • Koreans gave the impression of a nomadic people recently settled in villages and towns. There were ruins of cities and palaces of considerable size and evident wealth and in lonely places cromlechs and dolmens like those of Brittany and western England. Their attitude toward the outside world, its ways and its inventions was what might have been the bewilderment of the Israelites of Abraham's time, confronted with railways trolley cars and the intricacies of European politics. They did not understand any of it and did not want it. They wanted to be let alone in their “Hermit Kingdom.” (p.37)
  • House refuse lay scattered and heaped in these canals and lanes; except in mountain flood time a trickle of green scummy water oozed along the bottom carrying typhoid, smallpox and cholera. In these pools women cheerfully washed their clothes and prepared their daily food, no worse place than the shallow wells reeking with surface drainage. In the squalid lower quarters smelling to the skies of Kim-Chee, the national condiment, made of cabbage and turnips well rotted together, hordes of dogs snapped and yelled like the famous masterless dogs of Constantinople. (p.40)
  • Korea is the best illustration of this transition period of diplomacy, because it was the weakest of the Far Eastern countries, not only weak internally but also by having no undisputed official protector or friend among the Western powers. (p.56)
  • I took a great liking to the kindly gentle emperor, so evidently unfitted by temperament and training for the complexities of his rank in a changing civilization, and harried from his early childhood by forces which he did not undersand and could not control, but agaist which he rebelled. (p.61)
  • This Min princess was a remarkable woman in every way. She was intelligent and educated, which was a rarity, for Korean women seldom have any education at all, and she was keenly alive to her little husband's interests. A woman of character and unbending will, and a politician far beyond her years and sex, she became from the first a formidable adversary to the regent. (p.62)
  • The native servants were neither as competent as the Chinese and Japanese, nor of equal social rank. The gatemen, chair-bearers and guards were a continual source of trouble. Unlike Japan, where maidservants are usual, in Korea as in China one has only men for servants and all classes were inveterate gamblers. The Chinese and Japanese managed their dissipations among themselves, with rarely a scandal, but the Korean servants could not be left to themselves. They had to be ruled. (p.103)
  • The appointing system had sunk to the lowest possible level. Appointment to office carried with it some degree of noble rank as well and so was sought for social reasons as well as for “graft.” Administrative office was secured by nepotism and heavy payment, which, in turn, carried the necessity of recovering from the people the money expended to get it under the guise of taxation. (p.119)
  • Among Korean gentlemen drinking was not heavy. There was a good deal of drunkenness among the lower people though mot nearly as much drinking as among people of northern Europe or in America, for in general they could not stand much. They were all heavy smokers, which habit American missionaries dutifully tried to curb, and enormous eaters. (p.137)
  • People called the Koreans the greatest cowards on earth and I suppose they were in a sense, for, oppressed by everybody at home and abroad for centuries, they cringed before authority. That is, they cringed until things became unbearable and something broke, and then, like the Russian peasant when he goes wild, they destroyed blindly and completely. (p.143)
  • Those practices we did not have and whether the Chinese needed to be ruled that way or not, Koreans did not need to be, for our people were peaceful and harmless unless driven to desperation by abuse. There never were people more easily governed. (p.149)
  • Koreans were considered shy and suspicious of foreigners; I always found them trusting, and hospitable as the Arab of fiction. (p.181)
  • I am still sure that a strict supervision over their rulers and a lenient but consistent and honest rule for the mass of the people would have developed a fine race. There was no feeling of danger in traveling about the country such as there was in China or even in Japan. (p.188)
  • Korean actors were lower than they were in other parts of the East, and even the kisang, though admitted to the great houses and to the palace was not in the least comparable to the Japanese geisha. She was not even good-looking. I never saw a Korean woman of any class who was not downright ugly. (p.193)
  • The worst thing Koreans ever did for themselves was to assassinate Hirobumi Ito and kill Durham White Stevens my successor. What I gathered from the emperor and the babble of eunuchs as well as the bits that had been pieced together by intelligent men and earnest patriots like Min Yong Whan, pointed in the direction of a proposal by prince Ito sanctioned by the emperor of Japan, to form a close alliance between Japan, China and Korea. (p.227)


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Pre-modern East Asia Seen by Westerners

What kind of country is Korea?
Korean national character - Korean news
Korean Fakes
How to distinguish Japanese from other Orientals

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