Korean girls in Seoul or Incheon circa 1908 / Robert Neff Assortment
By Robert Neff
A postcard of a Korean girl within the late nineteenth century / Courtesy of Diane Nars Assortment
Described as “a dowdy feminine newspaper correspondent,” Anna Northend Benjamin traveled extensively all through East Asia and Russia documenting her experiences and observations. She was blessed with a tremendous reward of writing, although, relying upon the reader, her harsh opinions might be seen as a curse. Regardless of spending lower than a fortnight in Korea through the summer time of 1900, she wrote sufficient in regards to the Hermit Kingdom to rankle Horace N. Allen, the conservative American minister to Korea.
Nothing escaped her eye — or her venomous pen. Her descriptions of the nation had been closely tinged with sympathy, curiosity and sarcastic elitism. They had been typically daring and considerably offensive — even by the requirements of her time.
“We could say with out hesitation that the lot of the Korean girl is probably the most pitiable, simply because the place of her folks is probably the most deplorable, within the Far East,” she wrote. “Within the decrease courses she should work, work, work. Within the higher courses she should be entombed.”
Benjamin wrote extensively in regards to the each day tribulations of Korean girls however, not like many feminine Western observers, devoted little consideration to their clothes. What she did write appears to have been gleaned from different sources and supported her narrative of girls being oppressed by misogyny and custom.
A servant within the palace, circa 1885, photographed by Pierre Louis Jouy / Annual Report of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institute (1891).
“A number of hundred years in the past, when Korea was preventing the Chinese language, your complete Korean military and all the lads within the capital of Seoul had marched out in protection of that capital to fulfill an attacking drive towards the north. On the identical time one other drive, unknown to the Koreans, approached Seoul from the south. Since each able-bodied man had already gone to the assault, the town and the remaining inhabitants had been threatened with destruction. The Korean girls, nonetheless, like their sisters in different components of the world, devised a plan by which they could frustrate the enemy. They donned their husbands’ lengthy white clothes with the large sleeves, and gathering collectively, marched boldly towards the foe who, appalled by the sight of such an sudden drive of Koreans, fled in haste, and the town was saved. When the military returned and it was made identified what the ladies had carried out, it was decreed that thereafter they need to put on males’s sleeves hanging from their veils as a mark of honor and a badge of their bravery within the nationwide disaster.”
In line with Benjamin, Korea’s misogyny originated from China, from the place each “degrading thought” was imported and carried out to the intense. “The spouse isn’t greater than a chattel, seldom seen earlier than the wedding, which is organized by a ‘go between,’ and after marriage to speak to her even is a degradation for the husband,” she described. Even the marriage customs, had been, in her opinion, oppressive.
“The principles of ironclad Korean etiquette demand that” that the bridesmaid put on her hair in an enormous headdress. “Big plenty of false hair — ‘swatches,’ as we name them — are piled in a implausible means on the unlucky girl’s head, until an exquisite impact is obtained.”
A Korean marriage ceremony, circa 1920-Nineteen Thirties / Robert Neff Assortment
Contemplating her brief keep in Korea, I doubt she truly attended a marriage, and as an alternative primarily based her observations on what American missionaries advised her. Even Isabella Chook Bishop, arguably the preferred journey author of the time, didn’t describe bridesmaids in her e-book, “Korea and Her Neighbors.” Bishop did, nonetheless, echo the sentiment that Korean males handled their wives as “beneficial chattels” and {that a} “spouse’s first responsibility” was silence — particularly within the larger courses. Nonetheless, she added in stability, “I’m removed from saying that the [Korean] girls fret and groan underneath this method, or crave for the liberty which European girls take pleasure in.” To help her declare, Bishop requested an “clever” Korean girl what she considered the way wherein Westerners handled their wives. The reply was considerably shocking. “We predict that your husbands don’t take care of you very a lot.”
I discover it slightly unusual that Benjamin uncared for to say the style loved by decrease courses of girls — naked breasts. Many up to date male guests described encountering bare-breasted girls — particularly within the countryside.
In line with “The Metropolis Historical past Compilation Committee of Seoul,” a e-book printed by the Seoul authorities practically 20 years in the past, “poor girls and feminine servants couldn’t even dream of sporting a cloak. They strode in regards to the metropolis freely in their very own previous garments. Fashions revealing the breasts had been a form of privilege (?) loved solely by these girls who had given beginning to their first son.”
A servant, circa 1885, photographed by Pierre Louis Jouy / Annual Report of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institute (1891)
In Seoul, nonetheless, issues had been altering quickly. Once more, based on the Seoul authorities publication:
“Within the Eighteen Eighties, a brand new kind of girl emerged, who traded the extravagance of conventional Korean clothes for the brand new trend of Western clothes. These new girls had been the ladies of the Enlightened Get together and the so-called ‘Evangelist Ladies.’ After the Nineties, increasingly girls sporting the most recent fashions in Western clothes had been seen on the streets of Seoul. Seoul was alive with speak of those ‘new girls’ and ‘Western-style beauties.’”
Apparently as late because the early twentieth century, some girls nonetheless walked the streets in breast-revealing clothes, inflicting one missionary girl to take it upon herself to hold items of material and security pins in order that she might cowl them up and make them “first rate.”
Korean girls had been really oppressed, not solely by conservative custom however by conservative progress.
My appreciation to Diane Nars for her help and permitting me to make use of considered one of her photos.
Robert Neff has authored and co-authored a number of books, together with Letters from Joseon, Korea Via Western Eyes and Temporary Encounters.
