Introduction
In 1882, the American teacher and missionary William Elliot Griffis published a monograph entitled Corea: The Hermit Nation.Footnote 1 The book had considerable success and went through nine editions by 1911. The terms “hermit nation” and “hermit kingdom” would henceforth be a central part of the Western discourse on Korea, synonymous with Korea’s alleged seclusion from the outside world. Western observers imagined Korea as a hermit, because the country was not integrated into capitalist economies of exchange and had not embraced Christianity. Thus the term reveals a blatant Eurocentrism that ignores Korea’s long-standing contacts with China and Japan, and measures Korea’s culture solely in relation to its interchange with the West. Moreover, Griffis was a big admirer of Japan and its modernization process and had spent over four years on the Japanese archipelago. He never visited Korea and based his account exclusively on Japanese sources. Despite the term’s heavy ideological charge, “hermit nation” referred to a certain social reality perceived by Griffis. For him and his potential readership, it was practically impossible to set foot in Korea, let alone to live there for any length of time. The book, however, appeared at a timely moment, just as the situation was about to change.
In late 1875, the government of Meiji Japan had sent a warship to the Korean coast and threatened violence if Korea did not accept a treaty of trade and friendship that was modeled on the treaties Japan had signed with Euro-American powers a couple of decades earlier. This initial Japanese turn to gunboat diplomacy resulted in the Treaty of Kanghwa, Korea’s first international treaty, in 1876. During the 1880s, Korea signed a series of treaties with European countries and the United States. These treaties were essentially negotiated by the Chinese, who feared Japanese domination of the Korean peninsula. Treaties with Germany, Great Britain, and the United States were signed in 1882, the publication date of Griffis’ book. These were followed by treaties with Russia in 1884, Italy in 1885, and France in 1886.Footnote 2 The treaties initiated what is usually called the Open Ports Period (kaehangki) of Korean history. Korea was integrated into a system of multilateral imperialism in which both its immediate neighbours, and European and American powers had a stake in Korean affairs, even though at the outset none of them was capable of dominating the peninsula on its own.Footnote 3
The treaties stipulated that representatives of the treaty nations were now permitted to live in Korea, in especially designated foreign settlements. Over the following years, there emerged a small but influential community of Europeans and Americans, defined by their foreign background, legal status, social values, and mobility, which will be the subject of this article. So far, most research has focused on specific individuals or groups. For example, in recent years, the experience of American missionaries has been the subject of several publications.Footnote 4 Hans-Alexander Kneider’s work is an essential starting point for research on Germans in Open Ports Korea.Footnote 5 Wayne Patterson’s recent study has shed new light on the first customs commissioners.Footnote 6 This paper seeks to draw a more comprehensive picture that will render visible both the commonalities and dividing lines of the community. Discussing the European and American community in Korea from the conclusion of the first international treaties in the early 1880s until Korea’s annexation by the Japanese Empire in 1910, I will analyze who these individuals were and how they spent their lives in Korea.
One of the dominant features of the European and American community in Korea was its middle-class character. The European and American bourgeoisies were the most powerful social formations throughout the global nineteenth century.Footnote 7 This power was not only evident in economic terms. In the cultural sphere as well, the growing middle classes in Europe and America set standards that people all over the world were eager to emulate. As they were the driving agents of imperialism, their experiences in the bourgeois core countries were intimately connected to experiences in the colonies and other semi-colonial areas.Footnote 8 It is from this perspective that I would like to investigate what the lives of Europeans and Northern Americans living in Korea looked like.Footnote 9 Focusing on life-worlds from a micro-perspective, research on Europeans in East Asia has the potential to complement and challenge the excellent body of social history done in and on Europe since the 1970s.Footnote 10
This topic resonates with current debates in transnational and global history. The decades around 1900 constitute a period of accelerated globalization that saw an increased circulation of people, ideas, goods, and capital beyond and across borders. Whereas larger-scale migration regimes have been studied for a long time, historians have only recently made an effort to conceptualise a social history of globalization.Footnote 11 Current research is interested in analysing, on a micro-level, how individuals actively made use of the global condition. This connects to work on transnational lives and biographies spanning several continents.Footnote 12 Among the various concepts on offer, that of translocality is particularly useful for making sense of the multiple forms of border-crossing that Europeans and Americans experienced in Korea. According to Ulrike Freitag and Achim von Oppen, translocality is “a suitable tool to grapple with a variety of cross-territorial linkages and flows, as well as with the specific limitations to such connections.”Footnote 13 Unlike the more ubiquitous term “transnational,” “translocal” is a more open term that encompasses interactions that were not necessarily taking place between nationally defined units, but between smaller or larger (for example, continental or religious) groupings. As will be shown, Europeans and Americans in Korea crossed boundaries in multiple ways, but deliberately kept alive distinctions in other areas.
This paper is based on a variety of published sources, including the bilingual newspapers The Independent and Korea Daily News, the monthly journal The Korean Repository as well as contemporary monographs on Korea. The first part provides some general observations on the European and American community in Open Ports Korea. The second part considers how these individuals made up a specifically bourgeois community. Finally, the third part argues that translocality was another key characteristic of this community.
General Observations
Europeans and Americans in Open Ports Korea lived at designated places of residence, came from various national backgrounds, and belonged to different socio-professional categories. Foreigners in Open Ports Korea lived under a regime of extraterritoriality agreed upon in the diplomatic treaties. This regime resulted from the differences in the legal systems of Korea and other countries, but eventually became a tool of imperialism, as representatives of the treaty nations were exempt from Korean law.Footnote 14 Extraterritoriality created a legal bond between the individuals residing abroad and their home countries. A system of consular jurisdiction was set up in which the respective consulates dealt with legal cases involving one of their nationals. According to treaty regulations, foreigners were only allowed to reside at places agreed to by the Korean government. These were the treaty ports and the capital, Seoul. A large majority—more or less two-thirds—of the European and American community, lived in Seoul, which had been opened in 1883. Within Seoul, most Europeans and Americans lived in the Chŏngdong neighbourhood. It was in this central area of the capital, next to the major palaces of the Korean government, that most legations and missionary compounds were located. One-fifth of Europeans and Americans lived in Chemulp’o (the nineteenth-century name of today’s Inch’ŏn). This port, chosen for its proximity to the capital, was opened in 1883 and had a Japanese, a Chinese, and a general foreign settlement. Other places attracted only small numbers of Europeans and Americans. These places notably included the earliest opened ports of Pusan and Wŏnsan. Pusan at the south-eastern edge of the Korean Peninsula, played an important role in Korean-Japanese trade. Wŏnsan was an open port in the north-eastern part of the country.Footnote 15 During the 1890s, additional ports were opened to foreigners, such as Mokp’o and Kunsan, although they did not attract significant numbers of Europeans or Americans. Foreigners had to apply for passports to travel to the countryside beyond a legally defined radius around the foreign settlements. Missionaries were the first to move to provincial cities, from the mid-1890s onwards, although the legal basis for doing so was highly disputed.Footnote 16
Foreigners in late-nineteenth-century Korea came from a variety of different backgrounds. Government statistics of the year 1897 published in The Independent provide us with a numerical overview.Footnote 17 The editors themselves questioned the reliability of the statistics they reproduced, but despite assumed inaccuracies, these statistics present a clear trend that well reflects the actual situation.
Foreigners in Korea, 1897. The Independent 2:29, 11 March 1897
Europeans in Korea, 1897. The Independent 2:29, 11 March 1897
Numerically, the Japanese constituted by far the largest foreign community in Open Ports Korea. From the 1870s onwards, the Japanese community grew steadily. The military conflicts carried out on Korean territory saw a massive influx of Japanese settlers. Most Japanese were merchants and belonged to the petty bourgeoisie. Immigration to Korea was one dimension of Japanese colonialism.Footnote 18 The Chinese community in Korea was part of an enterprising Chinese business community in East and Southeast Asia. In the Korean case, it consisted mostly of male migrants from Shandong Province.Footnote 19
Compared to these East Asian groups, the number of Europeans and Americans was almost negligible. According to the 1897 statistics, there were no more than two hundred Europeans and about one hundred Americans in Korea. If one considers the European residents only, one realises the strong presence of the British and Russians. There was also a relevant number of French and Germans. Only very few individuals from other nations made their way to Korea. Taking the American and British residents as a group, we find that English-speaking individuals dominated the Western community in Korea (see Figures 1 and 2).
The Europeans and Americans living in Korea came for various reasons and belonged to a variety of socio-professional categories. They can be roughly divided into five groups. First, there were the diplomats who officially represented the treaty powers in Korea.Footnote 20 Horace N. Allen was the longest-serving American consul-general in Seoul, with his tenure extending from 1897 to 1905.Footnote 21 Britain, too, was represented by a consul-general, the most prominent of which was John N. Jordan, who held office from 1896 to 1905. The longest-serving French representative in Korea, serving from 1888 to 1892 and again from 1896 to 1906, was Victor Collin de Plancy. The German Empire was represented by a consul, with Ferdinand Krien staying in Korea from 1889 to 1898. The first Russian consul-general, Carl Waeber (1885–97), was of German descent and had close connections to the Western European community. Belgian and Italian diplomats were also stationed in Seoul, but Austria did not send a representative to Korea despite being a treaty power.Footnote 22 The prominent diplomats were aided by numerous assistants, translators, and other diplomatic staff. Some of them left traces of their presence. Maurice Courant, from France, made an important contribution to the study of Korean administration and publishing.Footnote 23
Second, there were the foreign experts who worked for the Korean government. The first foreign advisor was the German Paul Georg von Möllendorff.Footnote 24 Selected by the Chinese, which at the time tried to coordinate Korean self-strengthening efforts, Möllendorff arrived in Korea in late 1882. Besides his tenure as a foreign policy advisor, he also served as first Chief Commissioner of the Korean Maritime Customs Service—the largest employer of foreign staff in Korea—and director of the Korean mint. Among his successors was the British John McLeavy Brown who headed the customs service from 1893 until 1905.Footnote 25 In addition, the establishment of government schools with modern curricula created the need for foreign teachers. The Korean government employed a total of fifteen European and American teachers. Many other fields, including diplomacy, military affairs, engineering, and law, used foreign advisors, most of them coming from the United States, France, and Germany.Footnote 26
Third, there were businessmen who hoped for trade opportunities in Korea. The largest foreign company, the German firm Meyer & Company of Jemulpo, belonged to Hanseatic networks.Footnote 27 It was closely connected to the Shanghai-based British firm Jardine Matheson & Company, the largest European company in East Asia. A branch of the British trading firm Holme, Ringer & Company of Nagasaki was installed at Chemulp’o. Townsend & Company, founded by Walter Davis Townsend, was the foremost American firm.Footnote 28 Active in the import/export business, these companies also functioned as agents for major European and American companies, including insurance and shipping companies. Besides these trading houses, which in some cases accumulated considerable wealth, foreign shopkeepers such as the German F. Kalitzky, offered foreign products. All in all, there were two German and two American trading companies as well as one British and one French trading house in Open Ports Korea.Footnote 29
Fourth, among the foreigners in Korea were missionaries who tried to bring the Christian faith to the Korean population. By far the largest number of missionaries were Protestants from the United States, mostly Presbyterians and Methodists. Missionary activities can be categorized as evangelical, medical, and educational work. Direct evangelical work comprised activities such as the establishment of parishes, the distribution of religious tracts, and the translation of the Bible through the Board of Bible Translators for Korea, initiated in 1886. Horace N. Allen established Korea’s first modern hospital, Kwanghyewon, in 1885. In the field of education, the most famous individuals were Henry G. Appenzeller, who founded Paejae Haktang mission school for boys in 1885; Mary F. Scranton, who one year later established Ewha Haktang, the first girls’ school in the country; and Horace G. Underwood, founder of the forerunner of today’s Yonsei University in 1913. Catholic missionaries were also working in Korea. The most active organization was the Société des missions étrangères de Paris, and for this reason most Catholic missionaries in Korea were French,Footnote 30 though a group of German Benedictines arrived in 1909.Footnote 31
Fifth, there were also some Europeans and Americans belonging to the lower classes of society. This included, among others, the guards of the consulates, sailors, as well as miners and technicians who worked for companies operating on a concession basis, such as the Seoul Electric Company. Moreover, there were travellers and other visitors who stayed only for a limited period of time. One example, among many others, was the British lady traveller Isabella Bird, who visited Korea several times between 1894 and 1897 and eventually published a book on her observations.Footnote 32
Some individuals moved between these categories. The aforementioned Horace N. Allen arrived in Korea as one of the first Protestant American missionaries and was later appointed American consul-general. Likewise, another American, Homer B. Hulbert, was hired to teach in various government schools but was also an active Presbyterian missionary. His colleague Delzell A. Bunker also arrived in Korea as a government teacher, but after the government institution where he taught was closed, he concentrated on missionary activities. In 1898, he went into business and for a short time joined the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company, but soon decided to become a full-time missionary again.Footnote 33
A Bourgeois Community
Europeans and Americans formed a genuinely bourgeois community and tried to reproduce middle-class ways of life in late nineteenth-century Korea. When the very first Europeans and Americans came to Korea during the early 1880s, their lifestyle did not yet correspond to bourgeois ideals. Foreigners were confronted with relatively harsh conditions in the then still undeveloped foreign settlements. Housing conditions were bad; the first European employees of the Korean Customs Service lived in hut-like structures. The primitive material conditions seemed to influence cultural practices as well. Commenting on the American traders and customs employees in Chemulp’o, Horace Allen complained that “the morals of the men up here are shocking,” which was an allusion to and critique of their relationships with Japanese mistresses.Footnote 34 This situation becomes more understandable when we consider that this was a predominantly male community. Only a handful of foreign women had found their way to Korea in those days. As a result, no proper family and social life could be organized. Even for the few married couples life was difficult; William N. Lovatt, one of the first Europeans to live in Pusan with his wife and child, complained about boredom, monotony, and loneliness during his tenure as customs commissioner from 1883 to 1886.Footnote 35
Its numerical growth and especially the influx of well-educated American missionaries, including women, changed the character of the community in the following decades. At the beginning, missionaries probably had a stronger influence on their co-nationals than on the Koreans. Over time, the Europeans and Americans started to form a distinctively bourgeois community, as Ryu Dae Young has convincingly argued for the American missionary population.Footnote 36 Almost all American missionaries came from a middle-class background and represented the mainstream Protestant denominations. However, most of the aspects outlined by Ryu applied not only to the missionaries, but also to the other members of the Western community. Most of the non-missionaries and non-American members of the community came from comfortable backgrounds and were “restless, hard-working, success-driven, self-conscious” individuals aiming to be seen as “ambitious, responsible and heroic people.”Footnote 37
Whether in the Western concession of Chemulp’o or in the Chŏngdong neighbourhood of Seoul, Europeans and Americans recreated an environment similar to that of their home countries. They built new houses or transformed Korean houses into Western-style residences equipped with furniture, carpets, curtains, and all kinds of contemporary household appliances and utensils that characterised middle-class European and American households. Most properties featured a garden with flower and vegetable beds, bushes, and trees. Moreover, these houses were often located in especially picturesque and prominent locations. Some Americans could even afford summer houses close to the Han River, which runs through Seoul.Footnote 38 As a result, these houses were, in many cases, even more elegant and comfortable than the average European or American home. Americans and Europeans prepared European-style food which they procured from Western, Japanese, or Chinese retailers, usually avoiding the Korean shops. Under these conditions they “could make themselves feel practically in an American [or European] city.”Footnote 39
Once settled down, Europeans and Americans established various formal and informal forms of sociability that contributed to the cohesion of the Western community in Korea.Footnote 40 Garden, dinner, tea, and so-called “at home” parties brought the community together. On the last Tuesday of January 1897, for example, the missionary and founder of Ewha Haktang “Mrs. M. F. Scranton gave a dinner party … at her pretty home inside the South gate.”Footnote 41 One week later
Dr. and Mrs. H. G. Underwood gave a “progressive dinner party” at their spacious house…. The feature of the evening entertainment were the change of seats by the gentlemen guests after each course, which afforded a great deal of amusement, so when each person moved his seat he had to carry his side plate and the glasses which he used. After a bounteous dinner the guests were invited into the cozy library of the host where each guest was requested to tell his experience of a thrilling incident in his life time. Every body related a story each of which made their hair stand up throughout the evening.Footnote 42
In these quotes, domesticity appears as a central aspect, with references being made to the “pretty home” as well as the “spacious house” with its “cozy library” where the attending guests engaged in extravagant entertainment. These events and the reporting on them set bourgeois standards of how a good dinner and amusement should be organised. Outdoor activities, such as picnics, were also popular. The American missionary Mrs Annie Bunker gave a lawn party in June 1897. “Those who were present enjoyed the pleasant afternoon and refreshed themselves with delicious strawberries which were from the garden of the hostess.”Footnote 43 This idyllic scene of a garden party complete with fresh fruits provides another model of an ideal bourgeois household.
American Garden. Reprinted from Burton Holmes, Burton Holmes Travelogues: With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author. Volume Ten. New York: The McClure Company, 1901: 55
European and American national holidays and imperial celebrations were major events for the entire foreign community and were celebrated with large parties. In June 1897, for example, the Diamond Jubilee of the British Queen Victoria impressed the foreign community. A reception at the British Legation was the highlight of the festivities:
The brilliant illuminations, successful fireworks, and tasteful decorations of the British Legation last Tuesday night were entirely worthy of the event which the British Consul-General and Mrs. Jordan celebrated, together with their numerous guests. Just after 9 o’clock the buildings and grounds of the Legation were transformed into a fairyland by the lights of the hundreds of variegated lanterns, and the air was filled with the reports of various fireworks. A continuous stream of guests poured into the Legation until ten o’clock, filling almost every room and hall on the lower floor of the building. The assembly was composed of the members of the diplomatic corps, the consular representatives, the military officials of the different legations, the Korean Ministers of State, and the foreign residents of the city, in which America, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Korea and Russia were all represented. A pleasant hour was spent in conversation and witnessing the fireworks, after which bounteous refreshments were served. Mr. Jordan first proposed the health of the Queen, which was heartily responded to by the company. Hon Ye Wanyong, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, proposed another toast in the name of the Korean Government and its people for the health of Her Britannic Majesty. It was drunk with equal enthusiasm by all. Towards midnight the guests dispersed with the sentiment of good-will, of friendship, and of peace.Footnote 44
This occasion was one of numerous events when sophisticated illuminations, fireworks, and “bounteous refreshments” served to impress the invited guests, both foreign and Korean.
Garden-party at the German Consulate, Seoul, circa 1904. Note the Catholic Myŏngdong Cathedral, completed in 1898, in the background. Reprinted from Thomas Cowen, The Russo-Japanese War from the Outbreak of Hostilities to the Battle of Liaoyang. London: Arnold, 1904: facing p. 66
Another occasion for extensive festivities was provided by the arrival of foreign warships at Chemulp’o. Although foreign fleets were an undeniable sign of imperial power politics, foreign residents tended to equate the presence of gunboats and troops with entertainment, music, football matches, and other social activities involving Europeans and Americans. When a German fleet visited Korea in July 1897, Carl Andreas Wolter, representative of the German firm Meyer & Co. in Chemulp’o, took the lead in organising large-scale festivities. The Wolters also used the temporary presence of a ship’s priest in order to baptise their newborn twins according to German custom.Footnote 45
There were also more formal forms of sociability that helped to continue social practices from the homelands.Footnote 46 One of them was the Anglo-Saxon dominated Seoul Union, established in 1888.Footnote 47 This institution offered regular lecture series as well as other gatherings. Furthermore, the Seoul Union introduced lawn tennis, which soon became highly popular. Up to three courts provided the European and American community with an opportunity for distraction.Footnote 48 A short report on an event in December 1897 provides insight into the Union’s activities:
Last Friday afternoon the ladies of the Ladies’ Tennis Club of the Seoul Union gave their weekly entertainment in the reading rooms of the Union. The exercises commenced with a song by Miss Pierce accompanied by Mrs. Hulbert on the piano. It was a pretty song and was sweetly sung. Mr. Kenmure showed some stereoscopic slides on the wall to the delight of many children present. He showed the pictures of the beautiful buildings in America and Europe and some interesting scenes in China and Korea. During intermissions of the magic lantern exhibitions Miss Harris entertained the audience by singing some sweet songs accompanied by the guitar. The Union is to be congratulated for having acquired the two ladies in its membership, who possess such musical accomplishments as they will no doubt help the other ladies in future entertainments with their musical ability. The whole affair was worthy of the popular club.Footnote 49
What is striking in this report is the mention of the then highly innovative apparatuses designed to demonstrate that the Seoul Union kept up with technological progress. Another intriguing aspect is the popularity of making music. In Korea, as in Europe, the piano was a major signifier to indicate one’s belonging to the bourgeoisie.Footnote 50 It seems that European and American bourgeois in Asia could not do without their piano. The arrival of the first piano in Pusan was a major event for the few Westerners residing there in the early 1880s.Footnote 51 About a decade later, when an American female resident, “an accomplished player, accompanied the songs sung on the piano” and two others “delighted the company with some exceedingly sweet music on autoharps,” the musical life in Pusan had become much more sophisticated.Footnote 52 The Robinson Piano Company, with branches in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and several other Asian cities regularly sent out a representative for tuning and repairing services, including to Korea.Footnote 53 One of the leading American firms, an advertisement claimed, had manufactured an elegant piano especially for the Korean climate.Footnote 54 These pianos were intensively used at dinner parties and “at homes” where the foreign community celebrated itself. These ventures served less to distance the bourgeois from the working classes that they had left behind in their home countries than to form ties to the bourgeois communities in the European and American metropoles, marking the difference to the Korean surrounding.
As elsewhere in the world, specific gender roles characterised foreigners’ bourgeois life in Korea.Footnote 55 The exact role of women in society was a hotly debated issue, as was demonstrated by a debate among American missionary wives. Whilst Lillian Underwood argued that married women should engage in full-fledged missionary work, Annie Baird saw herself first and foremost as a companion to her hard-working husband.Footnote 56 Even in the latter case, however, it becomes obvious that wives did not retreat to an exclusively private domain. Whilst they certainly did not hold leadership positions in society, they were crucial for the cohesion of the foreign community, and they played an important role in creating and upholding informal ties within the community. Women were responsible for organizing social events, such as dinners, garden parties, and “at homes.” The home in its material and idealised dimension was women’s sphere.Footnote 57 When writing about home activities, The Independent always referred to women. Moreover, women created their own organisations, such as the Ladies’ Tennis Club and the Ladies’ Travelling Club, societies that reproduced the hierarchies of male society. In 1897, for example, the wife of the British consul John N. Jordan was the Lady President of the Seoul Union, whilst the wife of the American minister John M. B. Sill served as Lady Vice-President.Footnote 58 Both wives also played leading roles in the Ladies’ Tennis Club. It becomes clear that the motives behind these associations were not purely recreational but also served to exert power.Footnote 59
Dominated by Anglo-Saxon missionaries and diplomats, the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society provided a platform for scholarly-inclined men from 1900 onwards.Footnote 60 Periodicals founded by foreigners such as The Korean Repository and the Korea Review helped especially the American missionaries to present themselves as legitimate authorities on things Korean and underlined their ambition to dominate the discursive field. These publications, together with monographs authored by foreign residents in Korea, collected and stored scientific knowledge on the peninsula, revealing a bourgeois interest in knowledge accumulation. The English edition of The Independent played a major role in connecting European and American residents in Korea, although its reporting clearly sympathised with the missionaries and privileged the Anglo-Saxon section of the community.Footnote 61
Humanitarian activities were another field in which community leaders promoted their bourgeois values. An Indian Famine Relief Fund was created in 1897 and the community leaders donated money according to their social position. A similar subscription for a Home for Destitute Children in Seoul was started in the following year.Footnote 62
Physically, socially, and mentally, Europeans and Americans led lives separate from Korean society. With some exceptions involving government officials or major intellectuals, relations with Koreans were often top-down. This certainly applied to the relationship between missionaries and potential converts. It was also true for whatever household staff—servants, cooks, and so on—that Europeans and Americans were able to afford. Having servants was an important status symbol that underlined the employer’s bourgeois standing. Also, the mere fact of being Europeans in East Asia gave them an elite status that contributed to their upward social mobility.
The imperialist dimension lay in the fact that these individuals considered their way of life superior to that of the Korean host society.Footnote 63 In fact, Europeans and Americans who lived in Korea and other East Asian countries around 1900 present one of the few cases in which a minority did not adapt to the majority.Footnote 64 They did not even consider integration, but rather expected the Koreans to adopt a European or American way of life. Together with Korean enlightenment thinkers, they were on a civilising mission, urging Koreans to adopt elements of European and American culture.Footnote 65 This becomes clear in the overly paternalistic language of The Independent that, as the above quotations show, promoted the bourgeois lifestyle in an almost ridiculously affirmative way. Most Europeans and Americans were glad to have left behind the troublesome working classes of Europe or America. They hoped to create a middle-class culture in Korea without having to confront a quarrelsome working class. In this process they saw themselves as role models.Footnote 66 Foreigners felt superior to Koreans in religious terms; missionaries were not the only ones to believe that Christianity would be to the benefit of the Koreans. Many also thought that the penetration of Christianity would create a demand for Western products in Korea and bring a more developed form of capitalism to the peninsula.Footnote 67
Advertisements for American bicycles offered by German trading companies. Reprinted from The Independent 2:103, 31 August 1897, and The Independent 4:6, 13 July 1899
Europeans and Americans underlined their claim for moral guidance with some specifically modern features. They associated some key objects and ideas with modernity and foreignness, juxtaposing these items to Korea’s perceived backwardness. Like the aforementioned light projector, these objects became “icons of improvement” or “fetishes of modernity.”Footnote 68 Brick buildings expressed an explicitly modern architectural style that contrasted sharply with Koreans’ wooden houses.Footnote 69 The bicycle was another symbol of modernity, expressing speed and dynamism and testifying to the dynamics of a capitalist consumer culture. Americans, especially, took pride in riding them and thus showing a sense of superiority. Some men—riding a bicycle also had a masculine connotation—regularly achieved records on selected routes such as between Seoul and Chemulp’o. The American missionary William D. Reynolds set a cycling record in May 1897, covering the distance between the two cities in two hours and fifty-six minutes.Footnote 70 “A flying bicycle is better than a hurricane, and almost as good as a rain shower, for the purpose of clearing out the crowd from the streets of a provincial Korean town,” wrote an anonymous contributor to The Independent.Footnote 71 With the opening of the first railway between Chemulp’o and Seoul, travel became even faster. One Chemulp’o resident stated in the same paper that the railway “will be an object lesson to Koreans on the distinctive institutions of the Occident.”Footnote 72 On another occasion, the entire foreign settlement of Chemulp’o, with its newly built streets, was seen as a model for the peninsula.Footnote 73 Proud of their bourgeois lifestyle, Europeans and Americans thus saw themselves as agents of change in Korea.
A Translocal Community
This community was also highly mobile, however. Translocality is an appropriate tool to employ when discussing the various types of cross-territorial and cross-cultural links that characterised the migrant experience in Korea. There were three dimensions of translocality at work within the European and American community in Korea, which I would like to discuss on the basis of a photograph. Figure 6 shows the wedding of a German couple, Otto Mensing and Elisabeth Eckert, in Seoul on 28 December 1907. Before taking a closer looking at the people, something needs to be said about the material environment. The photograph was taken in front of an unidentified brick building. The neat layering of the bricks and the precisely manufactured downpipe convey an impression of modernity and high quality. The windows, which consist of two parts that can be opened, reveal a continental European design. Despite the apparent modesty of the location, its choice was probably not accidental. It well reflects the protagonists’ bourgeois position in Korea, as outlined in the preceding section.
Eckert Wedding, Source: Hans-Alexander Kneider Collection, Seoul
Probably the best known person in the photograph, standing in the centre, right behind the groom, is the German Franz Eckert, a musician at the Korean court since 1901.Footnote 74 Eckert notably arranged the national anthem of the Great Korean Empire on the basis of an older folk song.Footnote 75 His wife, Mathilde, is standing at a certain distance to the left of him. The bride, Elisabeth Eckert, their sixth and last child, married Otto Mensing, a captain of the Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) stationed in Canton (Guangzhou). In the front on the right side stands the French Emile Martel. Since 1895, he had been the teacher of the Government French Language School, an institution that catered to an elite of Korean youth. Martel had married Amalie Eckert—Elizabeth’s sister, standing to his left—in 1905. When this photograph was taken, the couple had two daughters, Marie Antoinette and Marie Louise, who are held by Japanese nannies standing on either side of the photograph. The presence of staff in stylish kimonos bespeaks affluence. In the front, on the left side, stands the German Johannes Bolljahn, who had taught at the German Language School in Seoul since its opening in 1898. Four gentlemen stand in the back row. To the extreme left is a Chinese employee of the trading house Meyer & Company of Chemulp’o. In the centre, right behind the married couple, is a certain Schneider, a German friend of Mensing from Shanghai. Next to him, one recognises Paul Schirbaum, co-owner of Meyer & Company, and on the far right, we see Alphonse Trémoulet, a French engineer and advisor to the Korean government.
The first dimension of translocality resides in the fact that these individuals were long-distance migrants between Europe and East Asia. Their decision to migrate was voluntary and not provoked by either economic misery or political or ethnic persecution. Theirs was an elite or fortunate migration.Footnote 76 Moreover, migration to Korea did not entail a complete rupture in their lives, as they stayed in contact with people in their home countries. They regularly spent holidays in Europe or returned there for business. In many cases, migration was not permanent and resulted in a return to Europe or America after several years or decades spent in Korea. Their mobility benefitted from crucial advances in transportation and communication, such as steamships and railways, the telegraph, and an improved postal system.Footnote 77 Steamship travel symbolised the modern way of global travel. Advertisements in various issues of the Korea Daily News from 1904 offered combined tickets of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company, and the Japanese Tōyō Kisen Kaisha, which made it possible to travel around the world, including a ride on a “magnificent train” with “unexcelled equipment” through the United States. Moreover, missionaries, diplomats, and European officials in the service of East Asian governments were eligible for “sensible discounts” on first-class tickets, which could be purchased at the major Western and Japanese trading houses in Chemulp’o.Footnote 78 As first-class steamer passengers, these individuals clearly belonged to a contemporary global elite.
A second dimension of translocality can be found in the frequent contacts with neighbouring East Asian countries. Many Europeans and Americans did not move from their home country directly to Korea, but spent time in China or Japan before moving to the peninsula. Similarly, many of those who lived in Korea went on to another East Asian country or colonial possession. The Eckert family is a case in point. Franz Eckert arrived in Tokyo in 1879, where he worked as a musician for the army and arranged the Japanese national anthem. It was only after his experience in Japan that he moved to Korea, where he stayed until his death in 1916. His daughter Elisabeth was born in Tokyo, married in Seoul, and then followed her husband to live in China. Encompassing as it did all three East Asian countries, her life revealed an astonishing mobility for a twenty-year-old woman. Similarly, Emile Martel had worked for the Chinese Maritime Customs Service before arriving in Korea. Johannes Bolljahn had met the Eckert family in Japan, where the teacher from north-eastern Germany was mainly employed by a school that catered to German children in Tokyo but also taught in other schools for Japanese students.Footnote 79 Interestingly, intra-European mobility preceded his move to East Asia, as he had taught for at least two years at high schools in Manchester, England, in the mid-1880s. Further examples abound. Government advisor Paul Georg von Möllendorff had served as a German diplomat in China and in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service. After his tenure in Korea, he returned to duty in China. The German medical doctor Richard Wunsch came to Seoul in 1901 as King Kojŏng’s personal physician. In 1905, he moved to Tokyo, and three years later took a position in the German colony of Kiaochow (Jiaozhou). In the business world, the American entrepreneur Walter Davis Townsend had worked for an American trading house in Yokohama before opening his own business in Korea.Footnote 80 These multiple career moves make it difficult to approach the individuals in purely bi-national frameworks. For example, it is problematic to think of Möllendorff first and foremost as the founder of German-Korean friendship, as he is often considered.Footnote 81 Instead, a large percentage of Europeans and Americans in East Asia were serial migrants who moved between different places.Footnote 82
Even while staying in Korea, Europeans and Americans kept in touch with China and Japan for business or personal reasons. It was common to travel to Japan or China to get medical treatment or to give birth, given the more hygienic conditions and better medical equipment in the overseas treaty ports.Footnote 83 Moreover, children were sent to schools in the Japanese and Chinese treaty ports to receive a formal education.
Besides frequent trips to the neighbouring countries, social interactions with individuals from China and Japan were intense, in some ways more so than with Koreans. In the photograph, the Japanese maids betray the fact that the Eckerts had lived in Japan for more than two decades. What is striking is the absence of Koreans. Did the Eckerts not trust Korean maids? Were they unable to find any? Or were they so accustomed to Japanese ways that they deliberately decided to employ caretakers from that country? Other families did have Korean servants, but also hired Chinese staff.Footnote 84 Close connections with parts of the Japanese community also existed at a higher social level. Especially in the early 1880s, when their community was still minuscule, Westerners interacted mainly with the Japanese, as in the case of the aforementioned customs commissioner Lovatt in Pusan.Footnote 85 Later on, Japanese diplomats and economic elites in Korea organised receptions and “at homes” just like the Europeans and Americans and intermingled with them on these occasions.Footnote 86
Intermarriage is another case in point. There was practically no intermarriage with Koreans. However, European and American men from the early 1880s on had Chinese and Japanese mistresses.Footnote 87 This was initially seen as a sign of decadence in men who did not succeed in their personal and professional lives. Soon, however, respected members of the community began marrying Japanese women, although some missionary leaders continuously criticised this practice.Footnote 88 Among those who had a Japanese wife was the English Catholic Thomas E. Hallifax, a teacher at the Government English Language School in Seoul. European women marrying East Asian men were rarer although one Chinese resident of Chemulp’o who had been among the first Chinese diplomats in Madrid was married to a Spanish woman, Amalia Amador.Footnote 89 The ties that connected the European and American residents of Korea with the neighbouring countries make it appear that they were sometimes better integrated into the East Asian treaty port world than into the culture and social life of their host country.
The interactions between representatives of different European and American nationalities constitute a third dimension of translocality. Foreigners came from different national backgrounds but lived together in the same settlements in Korea. The bride and groom in the 1907 wedding photograph are both German, but Amalie and Emile Martel formed a Franco-German couple when they married in 1905. The presence of Trémoulet as a friend of the Eckert family underlines the Franco-German dimension. In 1904, Eckert’s second daughter, Anna Irene (not in the picture), married Adhémar Delcoigne, a Belgian diplomat who served as an advisor in Seoul. Right after the marriage, both left for Washington, D.C., where Delcoigne had obtained a position in the Belgian diplomatic service. These cases of Franco-German and Belgo-German intermarriage are indicative of the many interactions between people of different European nationalities, which were only natural within a small foreign community in which most people knew and saw each other on a daily basis.
On the other hand, tensions between the different nationalities were always possible. The second group that is absent on the photograph (besides the Koreans) are the Americans. Such an absence might be accidental, but it can also be an expression of a more structural phenomenon. There were without doubt national divides within the Euro-American community. European and American nation-states were imperial societies that tried to export their respective models of modernity.Footnote 90 Competition between imperial societies manifested itself not only in military confrontations in colonial settings. It also found expression in different forms of socialisation, mind-sets, and everyday practices. Divergent societal and political configurations, for example republicanism versus monarchy, as well as divergent ways of modernisation created rivalry between European nation-states. Furthermore, these social and political configurations took different forms in Asia than at home. Whereas France was seen as the country of republicanism and laicism in Europe, it was perceived to be the country of Catholicism in Asia; this image had been created through the activities of the Société des missions étrangères de Paris which was officially protected by the French government.Footnote 91 In contrast to the European powers, the United States claimed to embrace a more humanitarian form of imperialism closely connected to the Protestant revival, as Ian Tyrrell argues in his monograph on America’s moral empire. Americans saw themselves as “different from and superior to Europeans.”Footnote 92
Korea in the late nineteenth century is a microcosm for observing the competition between European and American social and political models. The rivalries between the European and American “imperial societies” created harsh competition that found expression in many different situations, including everyday life. The different nationalities, for example, joined different associations. European, Russian, and Japanese diplomats gathered in the Cercle diplomatique et consulaire. In contrast, the Seoul Union brought together missionaries, diplomats, and government advisors from the United States.Footnote 93 In the Cercle diplomatique et consulaire, French and German diplomats sparred in fervent debates but reconciled afterwards by socializing and drinking together. In the Seoul Union, alcohol was not allowed because of the strong influence of the prohibition movement.
There was not only a national but also a religious divide. The Eckert family may have created marital ties with French and Belgian partners because of the nations’ shared Catholicism. Anglo-American Protestants lived apart from Catholics. On some occasions, the relations between these two forms of Christianity could turn into open rivalry, as can be seen in the American Protestant missionary reports, which often incorporated a section on “troubles caused by Catholic missionaries.”Footnote 94 More generally, friction between the missionary and the non-missionary elements was a recurrent characteristic of East Asian treaty port communities.
Conclusion
The European and American communities were a central component of multilateral imperialism in Korea and East Asia. They both advanced and reflected the growing integration of the peninsula into networks of global flows. In this paper, I have argued that the Europeans and Americans living in Korea between the 1880s and 1910 formed a bourgeois and translocal community. Their lifestyle, forms of sociability and sense of superiority testify to the bourgeois dimension. They shared a middle-class culture that was largely distinct from that of their Korean surroundings. The community was translocal because individuals were long-distance migrants, showed high mobility within East Asia and interacted with representatives of various nationalities. While there were many commonalities, religious and national competition occasionally divided a numerically small group of people who surely knew each other personally. In other words, a complex dynamic of attraction and rejection was at work. Examining the European and American community in Korea thus provides insight into a constellation that did not exist in this way in Europe or North America. This was a form of bourgeois lifestyle that tried to reproduce arrangements from the home country but created something completely new. International marriages certainly took place in Europe, too, but they were rare in this period of high imperialism. This comparatively small and fragile community, composed exclusively of first-generation migrants, thus presents novel characteristics and constellations that should be of interest to social historians of globalization.
