The world Korea met a century ago

KANG HYE-RAN
The author is a senior writer on culture at the JoongAng Ilbo.

A Confucian scholar wearing a gat, Korea’s traditional hat, stands in front of a chalkboard. The quadratic equation written behind him suggests a math class. On one side of the classroom hangs Daehanyeojido — the Atlas of the Great Han, first produced in 1900.

The photo was taken by Italian consul Carlo Rossetti, who came to Korea in 1902, during a math class at a middle school established by the government. The foreigner, wearing a Western suit among the scholars in traditional outfits, is Homer Hulbert, an American missionary who was fluent in and taught in Korean.

The photos can be found at the exhibition “All Roads Lead to History, Italy and Korea” on the third floor of the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in Seoul through March 31, which Celebrates the 140th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between the two countries. Many scenes from Korea after the Joseon-Italy Treaty of 1884 are on display. The classroom photo was first printed in “Corea e Coreani,” a book published by Rosetti in 1904 and 1905. Rosetti, who was in his mid-20s at the time, said that Koreans “certainly have the best qualities, but are severely lethargic.”

I remembered this photo because it stood in stark contrast to the recent Japanese movie “Okiku and the World,” which depicts the both the struggles and joys of underprivileged people at the end of the Edo period of the 19th century. Manure seller Chuji first learns the word “world.” A fallen samurai tells him that the “world” is like the endless sky, and “the country is disturbed because it’s realized it by now.”

Japan signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States in 1858. The movie illustrates the ways in which the pressure of opening and globalization began to impact ordinary people.

In Korea, all maps that included “the whole world” or “all countries” were renamed “world atlas” in 1900. The word “world” became common language. The difference between Japan, which conceptualized the world when Western culture flooded in, and Joseon, which Japan later pushed to accept it, separated their history afterward.

But the quality of the Joseon people that Rosetti mentioned must have been impressive to other foreigners, as suggested by American traveler Frank G Carpenter who dubbed them “the most unique and interesting people with great potential among Asian races” in the recently published “Seoul Photos from the Library of Congress: Four Perspectives.”

The photo exhibition also features the 68th Italian hospital of the Red Cross, which Italy had sent during the 1950-53 Korean War. Although Italy was not a member of the United Nations at the time, it dispatched a medical support unit and treated more than 200,000 patients over the three years.

Cooperation between the two countries has remained friendly and is expanding to technology and space industries. Although the start was late, the world that Korea met has become endlessly wider and more colorful. Marking the 105th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement, I am reminded that Korea, like Rome, was not built in a day.