Prince Henry and the cuckoo clock

By Robert Neff

On June 8, 1899, Prince Henry of Prussia (1862-1929), arrived at Jemulpo (modern Incheon) aboard the German warship Deutschland.

The following day, accompanied by nine officers — including, 15 marines, and the ship's band — he made his way to Seoul where he was entertained by Emperor Gojong.

During his 12-day stay in Korea, Prince Henry had at least two meetings with the Korean emperor, explored Seoul and traveled to the German gold mine in northern Korea.

William Franklin Sands, at the time the Secretary of the American legation in Seoul, described Prince Henry as "naturally a charming gentleman, but in the East he was rough, and instead of impressing the Koreans he filled them with amazement."

An altercation with the prince may account for Sands's somewhat biased observations.

Apparently, Sands was entertaining at his home a famous Dutch artist and his wife. Prince Henry, having heard of their stay, went to Sands's residence and had tea with them.

As the prince was leaving he allegedly insulted Sands and words were exchanged which almost escalated into "an international scandal."

It was the prince's naval aide, Capt. Karl Friedrich Max von Muller (later famous for his role in Germany's commerce raiding during World War I), who managed to hustle the young noble away before blows could be thrown.

According to Sands, he was not the only insulted party. Sand's felt that the German prince's gifts to the Koreans were unimaginative and cheap.

To the Korean general who served as Prince Henry's aide during his stay in Korea, he presented "a cheap 32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver."

His gifts to the Korean nobility were equally unimpressive.

Prince Yi Jae-sun (Cheong-an), a close relative of Emperor Gojong, supposedly told Sands that Prince Henry had sent him "the most valuable present he could find to remember him by, an imperial gift from one royal prince to another." The gift was an American watch that Sands noted could be bought for a mere 10 dollars.

And, finally, to the Korean emperor he presented "a carved wooden cuckoo clock such as hangs in every peasant's house in the Harz Mountains."

But was the cuckoo clock such an unimaginative and cheap gift? At the time, cuckoo clocks were apparently quite popular in Korea.

It isn't clear when the cuckoo clock was first introduced into Korea then but it was likely in the 1880s. George W. Gilmore, an American teaching English in Seoul in the late 1880s and early 1890s, wrote:

"A curios penchant of Koreans is for cuckoo clocks.The cuckoo is a native of the peninsula and the people seem never tired of entering a store and listening to the cry of the birds which come out of the clocks and tell the hour. Dozens of these are kept in the Chinese stores, and they sell readily at a good profit."

Obviously the buyers were affluent Koreans — for surely the average man would have been unable to afford such a luxury — or institutes such as the Dongmyo Shrine (also known as the Temple of the God of War).

During her visit to the shrine in 1895, Sallie Sill, the wife of the American Minister to Korea, reported seeing foreign clocks hanging on the walls — perhaps some of these were cuckoo clocks.

For more than a century cuckoo clocks continued to be popular fixtures in homes of not only with the affluent, but also with the working class. But things have changed and it is no longer common to find a cuckoo clock gracing the walls of apartments and homes. The hour of the cuckoo is gone.

Robert Neff is a columnist for The Korea Times.

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