Czech-American Max Taubles: Koreas first Western journalist

Taubles was probably the first Western journalist to live in Korea, earning his place in the history of Czech-Korean ties as being the first person born in what is today the Czech Republic to ever set foot on Korean soil.

By Robert Neff

In the nineteenth century, the Far East was viewed as a mysterious and exotic land that quickly captivated the attention of the American public. Engaging stories about Japan and China, authored by both professional journalists and freelance writers, peppered the newspapers and magazines of this period.

After Korea was opened to the West in 1882, articles about the “Hermit Kingdom” also began to appear in the world’s press with greater frequency ― generally nothing more than observations made by the Western residents in Seoul and Jemulpo (Incheon) or by their infrequent guests.

It is difficult to say with any certainty, but the first Western journalist to actually live in Korea appears to be Maxmilian Taubles, a correspondent for Harper’s Magazine, a very popular American publication.

Taubles arrived in Seoul in early February 1886 after traversing the long and muddy path that served as the passage from Jemulpo to Seoul. More than likely he was escorted by several oxen and their drivers transporting the large amount of assorted belongings that Taubles had brought with him from San Francisco, including a bathtub.

There were no hotels in Seoul for him to stay at so the acting charge d’affaires of the United States legation, Ensign George C. Foulk, made arrangements to provide him temporary housing at the legation. In a correspondence with home Foulk wrote:

“Although I am very poorly fitted up and do not care to have to entertain strangers, yet life for foreigners here is so hard that ordinary humanity compels us to wish to help strangers, and so, without notice from Mr. Taubles, I prepared a place for him to live here at least for a few days.”

Taubles, however, declined to stay with Foulk and, in fact, avoided the American legation except to present his letters of introduction. He did, however, ingratiate himself with the Chinese legation which assisted him in obtaining lodging at a small Korean house nearly a mile away from the neighborhood where most Westerners lived.

Taubles apparently wanted little to do with his fellow Westerners, and kept most of his personal life a secret ― even on his deathbed.

He was born in the Czech capital, Prague, in 1845. His father was, according to the research of Jaroslav Olsa jr., the present Czech Ambassador to Korea, “a 37-year old Czech-German-Jewish soldier and chandler.” Olsa opines that Taubles did not wish to follow his father’s career and, following the bloody Austro-Prussian War in 1866, illegally fled his homeland, possibly in order to avoid serving in the Austro-Hungarian army.

He followed the tens of thousands of his Czech compatriots to the United States where he became a naturalized citizen, married, and settled down in California. Although he worked at times as an agent and bookkeeper, it was art that apparently supported and defined him.

In 1884 he was the “manager of the Ichi Ban, San Francisco’s chief store for the sale of Japanese goods” and was described as an “authority on Japanese industrial art” and was “one of the best respected critics of painting in San Francisco.” Apparently he was “also a writer of recognized ability.”

Perhaps journalism was not the only reason he was in Korea.

Foulk speculated that Taubles was acting as an agent for the former United States Minister to Korea, Lucius Foote ― a man that dabbled more than once in business ventures in Korea.

Taubles may have also been working for Ernest Fenollosa, an American professor teaching at Tokyo Imperial University. Fenollosa, who helped found the Tokyo Fine Arts Academy and the Tokyo Imperial Museum, collected Japanese art and seems to have provided Taubles with 100 dollars in Mexican silver.

Assuming that this is true, it may explain the large number of Korean curios that Taubles acquired during his short stay in Korea. Amassing these Korean goods must have been a daunting and troublesome effort. Not only did Taubles not speak Korean but a smallpox epidemic was ravaging Seoul when he arrived.

The streets of the city were a quagmire of mud and filth, normally crowded with men during the day and women in the evening. Seoul maintained a strict curfew prohibiting men from being on the streets in the evening (but this did not apply to Westerners) allowing women a brief respite from the confines of their homes.

If Taubles was out during the curfew, he would have undoubtedly encountered women carrying sick babies upon their backs and whispering softly, in honorific Korean, to their small wards in an attempt to quiet their cries of discomfort. He would have passed mothers with small bags containing smallpox scabs that had been scraped off a child that had successfully survived the disease. These scabs were taken to temples and burned in appreciation for the child's life being spared.

Mudangs (Korean shamans) also wandered the street, placating the smallpox demon or, once placated, bearing away the small wooden horse (a mount for the demon) and bags of food and coins that were gifts from the thankful family to the malevolent spirit.

Taubles had obviously been warned of the disease in Japan, but since he had been inoculated in the United States he felt invulnerable. Even when Dr. Horace Allen, an American physician residing in Seoul, informed him of the risks and offered to vaccinate him, Taubles refused and then, somewhat pompously, lectured Allen on the “barbarous custom” of vaccinating people.

But it wasn’t the streets Taubles had to fear ― it was his own home. The Western community tried to convince him that it was not safe to live amongst the general Korean population, especially during a smallpox outbreak, but he fatally ignored them. Unknown to him, the Korean family had a child sick with smallpox and only a thin paper partition separated his bedroom from the child’s room.

Within a week Taubles had contracted the disease and grew steadily weaker and weaker until he could no longer get out of bed unassisted. Dr. Allen and his colleague, Dr. J.W. Heron, were sent for and began treating him around the clock.

According to Foulk’s report to the State Department: despite the fear of the disease, many of the Western residents came to aid him with bedding and food, putting their own lives at risk to save this newcomer to their small community.

But in letters to his parents, Foulk painted a more pessimistic and perhaps more truthful picture of the community’s actions.

“Of course, we are now taking care of him, for no Chinese son-of-a-sea-cook will go near him. Foote is a mischievous scoundrel and to him must be laid the fate of his agent Taubles.” And in a later letter: “Because of his frightful diseases, no one wanted to go near him. I was in duty bound to care for him and I can never tell you what hard work I had to coax and bribe people to attend him.”

Days passed, and instead of getting better, Taubles grew worse. On the morning of March 15, Taubles gave his last will and testimony to Dr. Allen and then, a few hours later, passed away. Allen contemptuously declared that Taubles “died a martyr to his theories” of smallpox and vaccinations.

Within hours of Taubles’ death, Foulk and Allen began the decidedly unpleasant task of inventorying the deceased’s goods. Some items, as stipulated by his will, were left unopened but most of his things were later sold in a public auction or destroyed.

After a trying afternoon, Foulk wrote: “The night was coming on, the place almost deserted, and the dead body more than half rotten. I placed soldiers to guard the house, sealed up the place and went home, sick at heart indeed.”

The next morning Taubles’ body was sent to Jemulpo, escorted by some Korean soldiers and two American missionaries. Taubles was buried the following day in the small foreigners’ cemetery, his funeral attended by the few Westerners residing in that port.

Although Taubles never published an article concerning Korea, he was probably the first Western journalist to live here. Ambassador Olsa sums up Taubles’ brief stay in Korea as having done “nothing to increase our knowledge of Korea neither in Bohemia nor elsewhere, but undoubtedly earned his place in the history of Czech-Korean ties as being the first person born in what is today the Czech Republic to ever set foot on Korean soil.”

Of course, Taubles has the dubious honor of being the first Westerner, since the opening of Korea to the West, to die in Seoul as well.

Robert Neff lives in Seoul, working as a historian on Korea.