When a missionary, spy and friend of opium traders visited Korea
Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff / Courtesy of Royal Asiatic Society Korea
More than a century after Dutch sailor Hendrick Hamel published the first book about Korea in a European language, a handful of Western explorers visited its coasts and recorded their impressions in memoirs. In 1787, French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse sailed past Jeju Island and Ulleung Island, and 10 years later, Capt. William Robert Broughton of Britain landed near present-day Busan while charting the North Pacific. Capt. Basil Hall provided a more detailed account of his 1816 visit to Korea’s west coast, describing a largely positive encounter that included what was likely the first English lesson on Korean soil.
Not every visitor looked upon Korea so positively, however. In the summer of 1832, Korea was visited by the British ship Lord Amherst. Aboard was the German Lutheran minister Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff. Born in Prussia in 1803, Gützlaff had trained as a missionary, learned several languages and served in Java and Singapore before arriving in China in 1831. His aim during this visit was to open Korea to foreign trade and Christianity.
In an account published in 1834, he confidently pronounced that Korea’s “state of barbarism, cherished by the odious system of exclusion” of outsiders prevented it from supporting a large population — a conclusion he arrived at after visiting only a handful of islands off the west coast.
He went further, declaring: “Nothing is more ridiculous than to see the people so tenacious of ancient and useless forms, rather than desirous to keep pace with the march of improvement.” His criticism suggested he believed others should be allowed to make use of Korea’s territory. “Instead of allowing the Chinese to come over from Shang-tung (Shangdong province on China's eastern coast) to cultivate a large quantity of waste but arable land, they choose to live on salt fish rather than to have intercourse with foreigners.”
Unless Koreans abandoned their policy of exclusion, he concluded, “they must always remain in the lowest rank of nations.”
Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff / Courtesy of Royal Asiatic Society Korea
His encounters with Koreans who lived near the coast brought about contradictory impressions, however. When the crew attempted to move inland, local people initially resisted this. “They thought to be able, by persuasion, to keep us on the beach; but how great was their astonishment to see us hastening up the hill! When we turned in the direction of their dwellings they made a firm stand and would by no means permit us to proceed. What suggested this precaution of not allowing us to look at their miserable clay hovels we could not find out; however, we desisted from the attempt to intrude.”
Despite being initially rebuffed, they were welcomed into another village soon afterward. Attempts to distribute religious books to the villagers led some to make gestures suggesting beheading, while another accepted a book only to quickly return it and exclaim “pulga,” a phrase which Gützlaff interpreted to mean “fire,” or “burn it!”
As to why the villagers acted this way, Gützlaff wrote, “At every place where we afterwards met with Coreans alone, we found them ... good-humoured and obliging. Thus we ought to ascribe the hostile feelings shown towards strangers to the iron rules which the government inculcates. We cannot think that those signs of decapitation, made by the people on shore, were merely for pretence, but begin to believe, from the universal adoption of this gesture, that government would punish every transgressor with death who dared to cultivate friendship with strangers.”
Gützlaff tried to win over local officials by presenting them with gifts and Bibles intended for the king, but the officials’ assurances that these had been forwarded to Seoul proved misleading. After learning that the gifts had not been sent after all, he eventually departed.
After his 1832 visit to Korea, Gützlaff continued his work in China, where his gift for languages made him useful to missionaries, the East India Company and, during the First Opium War of 1839-42, the British government. He worked as an interpreter during that conflict and took part in the negotiations that led to the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, all while maintaining connections with opium traders. He later became Chinese Secretary to the Governor of Hong Kong, contributed to a Chinese translation of the Bible and wrote about topics ranging from Christianity to Chinese literature. In 1832, he published the first English-language interpretative essay on the great Chinese novel "Dream of the Red Chamber."
Despite — or perhaps because of — his accomplishments, he ultimately became a controversial figure who was admired for his linguistic abilities but criticized by contemporaries for his arrogance and duplicitous dealings.
The life of Karl Gützlaff will be discussed by Ronald Gray for Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea starting at 7:20 p.m. on Nov. 11. The lecture will be on the fifth floor of the Fast Five building near Exit 1 of Euljiro 1-ga Station on Seoul Metro Line 2. Entry costs 10,000 won, or 5,000 won for students of all ages with valid student ID, and is free for RAS Korea members. Visit raskb.com for more information.
Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr and co-author of "Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising."