Childhood in Mokpo a century ago: Part 2
Ships in Mokpo Harbor circa 1910-1920s / Robert Neff CollectionBy Robert NeffWhen Gertrude Margaret Bell, a 35-year-old English writer, traveler and archaeologist, visited Mokpo for an hour in May 1903, she was not impressed. In a letter, Bell explained that Leonard Hopkins (commissioner of customs at the port) and his Japanese wife, guided her “around to see the sights which are nonexistent” and that “main part of 'the City,' like all these Korean coast places, is Japanese.” She basically denounced Mokpo as “a place so small that it can scarcely be called a place at all.”However, for Joseph Hopper, a young American boy born in Korea two decades after Bell's visit, Mokpo was home and a place of great adventure ― especially when he went to the market:“From our home, walking into town was often through what Father nicknamed 'Pig alley,' a narrow, muddy, smelly, and crowded thoroughfare. This led into the city market, a large roofed area full of little stalls where merchants sold everything imaginable in the way of food, clothing, hardware, and
