Move to the capital—A city of peace—Results of foreign
influence—In the beginning—Education—Shops—Costume—Origin—Posts
and telegraphs—Methods of cleanliness
[Illustration: HEN-SELLER]
The situation in which Seoul lies is enchanting. High hills and mountains
rise close to the city, their sides rough, rugged and bleak, save where
black patches of bushes and trees struggle for existence. The hollows
within this rampart of hills and beyond the walls, are fresh and verdant.
Small rice-fields, with clusters of thatched hovels in their midst,
stretch between the capital and the port at Chemulpo. The atmosphere is
clear; the air is sweet; the city is neat and orderly. It is possible,
moreover, to live with great comfort in the three-storied brick
structure, which, from a pretty collection of Korean buildings, nestling
beneath the city wall, has been converted into the Station Hotel.
There is but one wall round Seoul. It is neither so high nor so massive
as the wall of Pekin; yet the situation of the city gains so much in
beauty from the enclosing mountains, that it seems to be much the more
picturesque. If the capital of Korea is more charmingly situated than the
capital of China, the wall of Seoul is reminiscent of the walls of the
Nankow Pass in the superb disdain with which it clings to the edges of
the mountains, climbing the most outlandish places in the course of its
almost purposeless meanderings. It extends beyond the lofty crests of
Peuk-an and across the splendid and isolated peak of Nam-san, enclosing a
forest in one direction, a vacant and soulless plain in another, dropping
here into a ravine, to emerge again a few hundred feet higher on the
mountain slopes. The wall is in good preservation. In places it is a
rampart of mud faced with masonry; more generally it is a solid structure
of stone, fourteen miles in circumference, twenty-rive to forty feet in
height, battlemented along its entire length and pierced by eight arches
of stone. The arches serve as gateways; they are crowned with high tiled
towers, the gables of which curve in the fashion of China.
Within the radius of these stone walls, the city spreads itself across
a plain, or high on the mountain side, within the snug shelter of some
hollow, enjoys a pleasant, cool and comfortable seclusion. Within its
metropolitan area there are changes of scenery which would delight the
most weary sightseer. Beyond these limits, the appearance and character
of the country is refreshing, and is without that monotonous dead-level
stretch of plain, which, reaching to the walls of Pekin, detracts so
greatly from the position of that capital. Within this broader vista
there are hills and wooded valleys. Villages rest beneath the grey, cool
shadows of the bush. Upon the hills lie many stately tombs, fringes
of trees shielding them from the rush of the winds. There are pretty
walks or rides in every quarter, and there is no fear of molestation.
Everywhere it is peaceful; foreigners pass unnoticed by the peasants,
who, lazily scratching the surface of their fields, or ploughing in
the water of their rice plots with stately bulls, occupy their time
with gentle industry. It is more by reason of a bountiful nature that
has endowed their land with fertility, than by careful management or
expenditure of energy that it serves their purpose.
A few years ago it was thought that the glory of the ancient city had
departed. Indeed, the extreme state of neglect into which the capital
had fallen gave some justification for this opinion. Now, however, the
prospect is suggestive of prosperity. The old order is giving way to the
new. So quickly has the population learned to appreciate the results of
foreign intercourse that, in a few more years, it will be difficult to
find in Seoul any remaining link with the capital of yore. The changes
have been somewhat radical. The introduction of telegraphy has made it
unnecessary to signal nightly the safety of the kingdom by beacons from
the crests of the mountains. The gates are no longer closed at night;
no more does the evening bell clang sonorously throughout the city at
sunset, and the runners before the chairs of the officials have for
some time ceased to announce in strident voices the passing of their
masters. Improvements, which have been wrought also in the conditions
of the city—in its streets and houses, in its sanitary measures and in
its methods of communication—have replaced these ancient customs. An
excellent and rapid train runs from Chemulpo; electric trams afford quick
transit within and beyond the capital; even electric lights illuminate by
night some parts of the chief city of the Hermit Kingdom. Moreover, an
aqueduct is mentioned; the police force has been reorganised; drains have
come and evil odours have fled. The population of the capital for the
year 1903 was 194,000 adults. This is a decrease of 2546 upon the year
1902.
The period which has passed since the country was opened to foreign trade
has given the inhabitants time to become accustomed to the peculiar
differences which distinguish foreigners. It has afforded Koreans
countless opportunities to select for themselves such institutions as
may be calculated to promote their own welfare, and to provide at the
same time compensating advantages for their departure from tradition.
Not only by the construction of an electric tramway, the provision of
long-distance telephones and telegraphs, the installation of electric
light, a general renovation of its thoroughfares and its buildings, and
the improvement of its system of drainage, does the capital of Korea
give tokens of the spirit which is at work amongst its inhabitants.
Reforms in education have also taken place; schools and hospitals
have been opened; banks, foreign shops and agencies have sprung up; a
factory for the manufacture of porcelain ware is in operation; and the
number and variety of the religions with which foreign missionaries are
wooing the people are as amazing and complex as in China. There will
be no absence in the future of those soothing conjectures from which
the consolations of religion may be derived. The conduct of educational
affairs is arranged upon a basis which now gives every facility for
the study of foreign subjects. Special schools for foreign languages,
conducted by the Government under the supervision of foreign teachers,
have been instituted. Indeed, most striking changes have been made in the
curriculum of the common schools of the city. Mathematics, geography,
history, besides foreign languages, are all subjects in the courses
of these establishments, and, only lately, a special School of Survey,
under foreign direction, has been opened. The enlightenment, which is
thus spreading throughout the lower classes, cannot fail to secure some
eventual modification of the views and sentiments by which the upper
classes regard the progress of the country. As a sign of the times, it
is worthy to note that several native newspapers have been started;
while the increase of business has created the necessity for improved
facilities in financial transactions, a development which has appealed
not only to the Dai Ichi Ginko. The Russo-Chinese Bank is proposing to
contend with this Japanese financial house. The establishment at Chemulpo
of a branch of the Russian Bank is contemplated, from whence will come
an issue of rouble notes to compete with the various denominations of
the Japanese Bank. Moreover, the Government is preparing to erect a
large building in foreign style in the centre of the city, to be used as
the premises of the Central Bank of Korea. It will be a three-storied
building, and it is intended to establish branches in all the thirteen
provinces of the Empire. Its chief aim is to facilitate the transfer
of Government moneys, the transport of which has always been a severe
tax upon the Government. It will, however, engage in general banking
business, and for this purpose Yi Yong-ik, the President of the Central
Bank, is preparing at the Government mint one, five, ten and one hundred
dollar bills for issue by it.
Along with these objects, the postal and telegraph service has received
no little attention. Up to the year 1883 Korea was without telegraphic
communication. At that time the Japanese laid a submarine cable from
Nagasaki to the Korean port of Fusan with an intermediate station upon
the island of Tsu-shima. A little later, in 1885, China, taking advantage
of her suzerain rights, deputed Mr. J. H. Muhlensteth, a telegraph
engineer who had been in her service many years and who formerly had
been an _employé_ of the Danish Telegraph System, to construct a land
telegraph line from Chemulpo by way of Seoul and Pyöng-yang to Wi-ju
on the Yalu River opposite the Chinese frontier post of An-tung, which
had connection with the general system of Chinese telegraphs. This line
toward the north-west was for many years the only means of telegraphic
communication between the capital of Korea and the outside world. It was
worked at the expense and under the control of the Chinese Government,
and it was not until the time of the Chino-Japanese war, in the course of
which the line was almost entirely destroyed, that it was reconstructed
by the Korean Government.
In 1889 the Korean Government built a line from Seoul to Fusan. After
the Chino-Japanese war, telegraphic communication was extended from
Seoul to Won-san and Mok-po. During recent years continuous progress has
been made until the total development in the interior has now reached
3500 kilometres, divided into twenty-seven bureaux and employing 113
men as directors, engineers, secretaries, and operators, with 303 as
students. The Morse system is in use. The electricity is generated by
the use of the Leclanché batteries. Telegrams may be sent either in the
native Korean script, in Chinese, or in the code used by the Chinese
administration, and in the different foreign languages authorised by the
International Telegraph Agreement. Horse relays are kept at the different
telegraph centres in the interior to facilitate communication with points
far distant.
The subjoined table reveals by comparison the development in the Korean
system of telegraphs which has taken place during recent years:
1899. 1900. 1901. 1902.
Telegrams 112,450 125,410 152,485 209,418
Revenue $50,686.89 $72,443.26 $86,830.86 $112,337.18
Length of lines in _li_ 5000 5090 6510 7060
Offices 19 22 27 27
The establishment of the Imperial Postal System in Korea is comparatively
recent. For many years, in fact for many centuries, Korea has possessed
no postal service as we conceive of it. An official courier service
was maintained by the King in order to carry on correspondence with
the different provincial governors. These messengers travelled by
horse relays, which were maintained at various points in the country.
Private correspondence was carried on through the medium of travellers
or pedlars, the sender having to arrange privately with the carrier
in each instance. In 1877, Japan, who had entered the Postal Union
and had concluded a treaty with Korea, established postal bureaux at
Fusan, Won-san and Chemulpo for the needs of her nationals, who were
already quite numerous in Korea. In 1882 the Customs Administration
also established a sort of postal system between the different open
ports and between Korea and China. But these organisations were limited
to correspondence between open ports, and whoever wished to send a
letter into the interior had to make private arrangements. In 1884 the
Government of Korea made a first attempt to establish an official postal
system which would be accessible to all.
It was not until 1895, however, after the close of the Chino-Japanese
war, that the Korean Postal Service was at last established under the
direction of a Japanese. For several years this service was confined to
Korea herself, and did not undertake any foreign business. In 1897 the
Korean Government determined to join the Postal Union, and to this end
two representatives were sent to the Universal Postal Congress, held at
Washington in May and June of that year. They signed the international
agreement. Finally, in 1898, the Government secured the services of M.
E. Clemencet, a member of the Postal and Telegraph Bureau of France, as
adviser and instructor to the Postal Bureau, and on January 1, 1900,
Korea entered the Postal Union.
The Service comprises, in addition to the central bureau at Seoul,
thirty-seven postal stations, in full operation, and 326 sub-stations
open to the exchange of ordinary or registered correspondence, whether
domestic or foreign. Seven hundred and forty-seven letter boxes have been
distributed throughout postal circuits in charge of these stations. Only
the stations in full operation are carried on by agents or sub-agents
under the control of the Director-General of Communications to the number
of 756, of which 114 are agents and secretaries, and 642 are couriers,
watchmen, &c. The management of secondary offices is in the hands of
local country magistrates under the control of the Ministry of the
Interior, and has no connection with the Department of Communications
except in so far as the control and management of the postal system is
directly affected. A network of land postal routes, starting out from
Seoul along the seven main highways, is run daily in both directions by
postal couriers. Each of the large country offices controls a courier
service, which, in turn, connects with the smaller country offices. These
secondary offices are served three times a week by unmounted postal
couriers, who number in all 472 men. Each man carries on his back a
maximum load of twenty kilogrammes. When the mail matter exceeds this
limit extra men or pack horses are employed. The courier has to cover
daily a minimum distance of forty kilometres. In central Korea and in the
south and the north-west each route is covered, back and forth, in five
days. In the north and north-east eight days are required for each round
trip.
Besides these land courier services the Postal administration has
employed, since Korea joined the Postal Union, various maritime services
for forwarding mail matter to the different Korean ports and for the
despatch of foreign mail. The different steamship companies which carry
Korean mail are: The Nippon Yusen Kaisha, whose boats touch at Kobe,
Nagasaki, Fusan, Mok-po (occasionally), Chemulpo, Chi-fu, Taku, Won-san
and Vladivostock. The Osaka Chosen Kaisha boats, which touch at Fusan,
Ma-san-po, Mok-po, Kun-san, Chemulpo and Chin-am-po. The last port
is closed by ice from December to March. The Chinese Eastern Railway
Company, whose boats ply between Vladivostock and Shanghai by way of
Nagasaki, Chemulpo, Port Arthur, and Chi-fu, are also utilised.
[Illustration: NOT ONE WHIT EUROPEANISED]
The man, who did so much to make a success of the Korean Customs has
also effected the wonderful repairs of the capital. The new Seoul is
scarcely seven years old, but Mr. McLeavy Brown and the Civil Governor,
an energetic Korean official, since transferred, began, and concluded
within four weeks, the labour of cleansing and reconstructing the slimy
and narrow quarters in which so many people lived. To those, who knew
the former state of the city, the task must have appeared Gargantuan.
Nevertheless, an extraordinary metamorphosis was achieved. 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. It is still
not one whit Europeanised, for the picturesqueness of the purely Korean
principles and standards of architecture has been religiously maintained,
and is to be observed in all future improvements.
The shops still cling to the sides of the drains; the jewellers’
shops hang above one of the main sewers of the city; the cabinet and
table-makers occupy both sides of an important thoroughfare, their
precious furniture half in and half out of filthy gutters. A Korean
cabinet is a thing of great beauty. It is embossed with brass plates
and studded with brass nails, very massive, well dovetailed, altogether
superior in design and finish. The work of the jewellers is crude and
unattractive, although individual pieces may reveal some artistic
conception. In the main the ornaments include silver bangles, hairpins
and earrings, with a variety of objects suitable for the decoration of
the hair. The grain merchants and the vegetable dealers conduct their
business in the road. The native merchant loves to encroach upon the
public thoroughfares whenever possible. Once off the main streets of
the city, the side alleys are completely blocked to traffic because of
the predilection of the shopkeepers upon either side of the little
passages to push their wares prominently into the roadway. The business
of butchering is in Korea the most degraded of all trades. It is beyond
even the acceptance and recognition of the most humble orders of the
community. The meat shops are unpleasantly near the main drains.
[Illustration: A SIDE ALLEY]
There are innumerable palaces in the capital, but as His Majesty very
frequently enlarges his properties, there is the prospect of other
buildings being adapted to his Imperial use. The precincts of the Palace
always afford opportunities for foreigners to become familiar with the
features of the many Ministers of State. In their anxiety to advise
their sovereign, they wrangle among themselves, or plot and counterplot,
and fight for the cards in their own hands, irrespective of the fate
which their jealousies may bring down upon their country. At all hours
processions of chairs are seen making for the palace, where, having
deposited their masters, the retinue of retainers and followers lounge
about until the audience is over. Then, with the same silent dignity, the
Ministers are hurried away through the crowds of curiously hatted and
clothed people who scarcely deign to notice the passing of the august
personages.
The officials are elegantly superior in their manner and appearance. The
distinction in the costumes of the different classes is evinced perhaps
by the difference in their prices. The dress of a noble costs several
hundred dollars. It is made from the finest silk lawn which can be woven
upon the native looms. It is exceedingly costly, of a very delicate
texture, and cream colour. It is ample in its dimensions and sufficiently
enveloping to suggest a bath gown. It is held in place by two large
amber buttons placed well over upon the right breast. A silken girdle of
mauve cord encircles the body below the arm-pits. The costume of any one
individual may comprise a succession of these silken coats of cream silk
lawn, or white silk lawn, in spotless condition, with an outer garment
of blue silk lawn. The movement of a number of these people dressed in
similar style is like the rustle of a breeze in a forest of leaves. The
dress of the less exalted is no less striking in its unblemished purity.
It costs but a few dollars. It is made from grass lawn of varying degrees
of texture or of plain stout calico. It is first washed, then pounded
with heavy sticks upon stones, and, after being dried, beaten again
upon a stock until it has taken a brilliant polish. This is the sole
occupation of the women of the lower classes, and through many hours
of the day and night the regular and rhythmic beating of these laundry
sticks may be heard.
[Illustration: NATIVE DRESS]
The costume of the women is in some respects peculiar to the capital.
The upper garment consists of an apology for a zouave jacket in white or
cream material, which may be of silk lawn, lawn, or calico. A few inches
below this begins a white petticoat, baggy as a sail, touching the ground
upon all sides, and attached to a broad band. Between the two there is
nothing except the bare skin, the breasts being fully exposed. It is not
an agreeable spectacle, as the women seen abroad are usually aged or
infirm. At all times, as if to emphasise their fading charms, they wear
the _chang-ot_, a thin, green, silk cloak, almost peculiar to the capital
and used by the women to veil their faces in passing through the public
streets. Upon the sight of man, they clutch it beneath the eyes. The neck
of the garment is pulled over the head of the wearer, and the long, wide
sleeves fall from her ears. The effect of the contrast between the hidden
face and the naked breast is exceptionally ludicrous. When employed
correctly only one eye, a suggestion of the cheek and a glimpse of the
temple and forehead are revealed. It is, however, almost unnecessary,
since in the case of the great majority of the women, their sole charm is
the possible beauty that the _chang-ot_ may conceal. They wear no other
head-covering. For ordinary occasions they dress their hair quite simply
at the nape of the neck, in a fashion not unlike that which Mrs. Langtry
introduced.
[Illustration: THEY WEAR THE _CHANG-OT_]
The head-dress of the men shows great variety, much as their costume
possesses a distinctive character. When they are in mourning, the first
stage demands a hat as large as a diminutive open clothes-basket. It is
four feet in circumference and completely conceals the face, which is
hidden further by a piece of coarse lawn stretched upon two sticks, and
held just below the eyes. In this stage nothing whatever of the face
may be seen. The second stage is denoted by the removal of the screen.
The third period is manifested through the replacement of the inverted
basket by the customary head-gear, made in straw colour. The ordinary
head-covering takes the shape of the high-crowned hat worn by Welsh
women, with a broad brim, made in black gauze upon a bamboo frame. It
is held in place by a chain beneath the chin or a string of pieces of
bamboo, between each of which small amber beads are inserted. There are a
variety of indoor and ceremonial caps and bandeaux which are worn by the
upper and middle classes.
[Illustration: A STUDY IN HATS]
The hair is dressed differently by single and married men. If unmarried,
they adopt the queue; when married, they put up their hair and twist it
into a conical mass upon their heads, keeping it in place by a woven
horsehair band, which completely encircles the forehead and base of the
skull. A few, influenced by Western manners, have cropped their hair.
This is specially noticeable among the soldiers on duty in the city,
while, in compliance with the orders of the Emperor, all military and
civil officials in the capital have adopted the foreign style. Boys and
girls, the queerest and most dirty little brats, are permitted up to a
certain age to roam about the streets, to play in the gutters, and about
the sewage pits in a state of complete nudity—a form of economy which
is common throughout the Far East. The boys quickly drift into clothes
and occupations of a kind. The girls of the poorer orders are sold as
domestic slaves and become attached to the households of the upper
classes. From their subsequent appearance in the street, when they run
beside the chairs of their mistresses, it is quite evident that they are
taught to be clean and even dainty in their appearance. At this youthful
age they are quaint and healthy looking children. The conditions under
which they live, however, soon produce premature exhaustion.
Despite the introduction of certain reforms, there is still much of the
old world about Seoul, many relics of the Hermit Kingdom. Women are still
most carefully secluded. The custom, which allows those of the upper
classes to take outdoor exercise only at night, is observed. Men are,
however, no longer excluded from the streets at such hours. The spectacle
of these white spectres of the night, flitting from point to point, their
footsteps lighted by the rays of the lantern which their girl-slaves
carry before them, is as remarkable as the appearance of Seoul by
daylight, with its moving masses all garmented in white. A street full
of Koreans aptly suggests, as Mr. Henry Norman, M.P., once wrote, the
orthodox notion of the Resurrection. It cannot be denied that the
appearance of both men and women makes the capital peculiarly attractive.
The men are fine, well-built and peaceful fellows, dignified in their
bearing, polite and even considerate towards one another. The type shows
unmistakable evidences of descent from the half savage and nomadic tribes
of Mongolia and Northern Asia and the Caucasian peoples from Western Asia.
These two races, coming from the North in the one case and drifting up
from the South in the other, at the time of the Ayraan invasion of India,
peopled the north and south of Korea. Finally merging among themselves,
they gave to the world a composite nation, distinct in types, habits,
and speech, and amalgamated only by a rare train of circumstances over
which they could have had no control. It is by the facial resemblances
that the origin of the Koreans may be traced to a Caucasian race. The
speech of the country, while closely akin to Chinese, reproduces sounds
and many verbal denominations which are found in the languages of India.
Korea has submitted to the influence of Chinese arts and literature for
centuries, but there is little actual agreement between the legends of
the two countries. The folk-lore of China is in radical disagreement
with the vague and shadowy traditions of the people of Korea. There is
a vast blank in the early history of Korea, at a period when China is
represented by many unimpaired records. Research can make no advance in
face of it; surmise and logical reflections from extraneous comparisons
alone can supply the requisite data. Posterity is thus presented with an
unrecorded chapter of the world’s history, which at the best can be only
faintly sketched.
[Illustration: MEANS OF LOCOMOTION]