Letters from Gaeseong Part 1: The market

Fish are sold in a Korean market in the early 20th century. Robert Neff Collection

By Robert Neff

• Published Mar 7, 2026 7:00 AM KST

Up until a couple of decades ago, the arrival of the mailman was one of the highlights of the day. Although opening the mailbox almost always revealed an assortment of junk mail and bills, every so often there were letters from friends and relatives. It was especially exciting to find international envelopes adorned with curious and beautiful stamps, promising adventure in faraway lands — albeit experienced vicariously through the pen of a loved one.

One such correspondent was Ethel Higgins. She was just 27 years old and a newlywed when she moved to Korea in 1910. She came from Claremont, a small farming town in rural Illinois with a population of about 200. It is through her letters home that we can peek at snippets of her daily life in Songdo (modern Gaeseong in North Korea) in the early 20th century.

In her first letter home, Ethel explained that to the Japanese and the “natives,” the peninsula was known as “Chosun” — meaning “Morning Freshness.” Yet, in all of her letters home, she never used “Chosun,” but instead referred to the country as Korea, perhaps because it was more familiar to her readers. Unlike many — if not most — early visitors, her initial letter describing Fusan (now called Busan) is refreshingly positive:

“Nearly all the men and boys wear white; the women and children, for the most part, wear bright colors, though many of the women wear white with long white capes thrown over their heads in such a way as to hide most of the face. The garments are all loose and flowing, however, and to me the street scenes of Korea are picturesque.”

From Fusan she took the train to Songdo, but she apparently did not deem the day-and-a-half journey important or interesting enough to write about. It is a shame, because she had a lot to say about her train ride in Japan. She described the Japanese as “cigarette fiends; nearly all of them smoke,” and warned “American travelers must become hardened to tobacco smoke, and many other things more or less unmentionable.” It seems strange that she did not note Koreans were also very fond of smoking.

Describing her new home, she wrote: “Many of you will be surprised to learn that we are living in a city which is said to contain some 60,000 inhabitants.” While Songdo was enormous compared to Claremont, it was far smaller than Chicago, with its population of 2 million — a city that at least some of her family, particularly her father, had visited.

The next couple of weeks were spent adjusting to their new home. Their belongings had to be unpacked and arranged. One of Ethel’s greatest apprehensions — and one shared by many early Westerners moving to Korea — was the condition in which her piano would arrive. Fortunately, when she unpacked it, she “found it to be in good condition after its journey of about nine thousand miles.”

Both Ethel and her husband were teachers, and they did something that many foreign residents — both in the past and, sadly, in the present — often did not: they studied Korean. In her letter, she wrote:

“We spend our morning studying the Korean language, and we are now able to speak a few sentences. Our teacher is a bright Korean boy nineteen years of age, whose name is Hon Yun Su, and we are having good times studying.”

With confidence in their limited Korean vocabulary and driven by their adventurous curiosity, they decided to visit the market. Ethel wrote:

“There are two distinct markets in Songdo, and we passed through several streets where on either side the merchants had their articles for sale. These merchants are not only from Songdo, but from other towns and the country round about. Some of them were sitting down in the street, some were standing, and some were moving around and crying out their wares very much like the lemonade sellers and the showmen do at Fourth of July celebrations at home. There were crowds of people and all were talking and laughing. It is not good taste to buy anything without a considerable amount of ‘yagy’ — the Korean word for conversation or a story — and the merchant always asks more than the thing is worth and about two or three times more than he will take.”

As an example, she recalled that while they were wandering through the crowd, they spotted a peddler selling sweet potatoes. When asked for the price, the merchant, sizing them up, told them he would sell them for two and a half sen apiece — a little over one U.S. cent, or forty-three cents today. The Americans refused and walked away. A few minutes later, they were unsurprised when the merchant ran up to them and suggested a new price: one sen.

Ethel had a wonderful way of describing things to her family and friends — things that they could relate to in their small farming community.

She declared that she had never seen so many different kinds of things for sale in the streets of the market. One street, or section of the market, was dedicated to grains and rice, while another sold fruit and vegetables.

“We saw peaches and peaches of all kinds and colors, some large but more small, both white and concord American grapes, Korean grapes which are somewhat like our wild grapes at home, cucumbers, garlic, squashes, onions, red-peppers, eggplants, chickens, eggs in strings of ten each, nuts, dates and many other things.”

She was unable to resist the long, slender Korean eggplants, which she declared tasted better than those that could be obtained in Claremont.

There was also a “fish corner” where they “saw many eels, catfish and other kinds swimming in vessels of water, and everywhere we turned we saw crabs tied together in strings.” They merely looked in this section and did not buy anything.

Ethel seemed especially amused by the livestock section. The little pigs were kept “in deep woven baskets,” while the hogs were tied nearby with strings. Some merchants brought their lighter hogs to the market carried on a chiggy — an A-frame strapped to their shoulders — while others led heavier hogs by strings tied to the tips of their ears.

Of course, there were other goods for sale, such as Korean cloth, straw sandals, wooden rain shoes, hats, charcoal, brassware and pipes. Considering her distaste for smokers, she probably did not linger long in that section of the market.

And, for the hungry shoppers, there were rice cake peddlers who would bake their cakes and other delicacies over little charcoal fires.

“We spent two hours at the market and carried home our purchases,” explained Ethel, and then, somewhat boastfully, she added: “We bought 5 sweet potatoes — nice, large ones, 2½ pounds of good beef, 15 egg plants and 4 pounds of Japanese flour as an experiment, and we paid out 74½ sen — not quite 38 cents.”

Yet, somewhat begrudgingly, she admitted Songdo merchants “know well how to drive a good bargain.”

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Diane Nars for her invaluable assistance.