Korea (Hamilton)/Chapter 3

​CHAPTER III

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

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-five 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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