PHOTOGRAPHS: INSIDE THE HERMIT KINGDOM (PART 1)
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| These are images from a
10-page photo spread for Inside the Hermit Kingdom that the
publisher was unable to include in the book. |
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| George
Clayton Foulk in 1884; a portrait taken in Italy while he was en route
to Korea with the returning Korean mission. (courtesy the Naval
Historical Center, Washington DC) |
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| Min
Yong-ik, head of the 1883 Korean mission to the US and a man of
influence and power in Korea. He helped arrange Foulk's southern
journey. |
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| One
of Foulk's own photos, showing Korean staff at the American legation
compound in Seoul engaged in archery practice. The young man leaning
against the tree at center is Foulk's valet Suil, who accompanied him
on both of his Korean journeys. |
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| A
central avenue in Seoul leading west from Tongdaemun, the Great East
Gate. Foulk, accompanied by his valet Chong Su-il ("Su-il") and
a Korean official named Chon Yang-muk ("Muk"), would have left on his
journey on a road such as this - a road that very quickly narrowed as
he got out into the country. |
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| Another
of Foulk's own photographs, taken from a hill just south of Seoul's
wall. Namdaemun, the city's Great South Gate, can be seen on the right. "I
seem to be in a real wilderness," Foulk wrote soon after leaving the
capital behind, "excite more curiosity than anywhere else I've been in
Korea...Jove! Jove! This is
hard travelling." |
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| A
curious crowd at the great bell in Seoul. During Foulk's southern
journey intense curiosity about him resulted in several mob scenes and
left him no privacy whenever he stopped. "I am worn out with the fuss
and rudeness," he wrote in Chinju. "There is no W.C. here where I can
go without being in plain sight of the mob and so I feel bad
physically. I cannot possibly submit myself to such humiliation. It is
too much." (Hugh Dinsmore Collection, University of Arkansas Libraries,
Fayetteville) |
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| A
Korean official in an open sedan chair. The numerous carriers indicate
his high rank. Foulk would have ridden in an open chair like this for
most of his journey, borne by two pairs of carriers working in relays. |
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| A Korean in general's garb atop a one-wheeled sedan chair. (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-72561) |
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| A
closed palanquin such as Foulk used to travel incognito at the time of
the December 1884 coup. This is an elaborate one employing four
carriers rather than the more usual two. |
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| Another closed palanquin, this one a more utilitarian, two-carrier model. Foulk's was likely more like this. |
